#35 — Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) The default tendency when looking back at films from a few generations back, especially those presided over by those filmmakers who’ve been anointed auteurs by all the right authorities, is to find all … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Thirty-Five
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949). The film is the second of Ford’s loose “Cavalry Trilogy.” It’s well-regarded, as are most of Ford’s collaborations with John Wayne, but, while it may be a sort of cinematic sacrilege to say so, the film is little more than a plain-footed entertainment. That assessment seems more damning than it is. The film is expert and buoyant and infused with a nice mix of wit and charm, all qualities that seemingly came naturally to John Ford when he was more concerned with making something simply satisfying than a work of grave importance. … Continue reading Beresford, Fletcher, Ford, Hawks, Twohy
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971). There are many who consider this film to be the quintessential Altman effort, and it’s not hard to see why. The hallmarks of Altman’s legend are all there: the overlapping dialogue, the moral ambivalence, the richly-conceived characters. Most importantly and impressively, the film is a thrilling example of the ways in which Altman pulls all these elements of his craft together to give the sense of a fully developed culture and society. The film is focused on the main characters, but the entire frame ripples with life. You feel as if you know … Continue reading And our silver screen affair, it weighs less to me than air
Coffee for Two 