#23 — The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962) The guests at a snooty, upper crust dinner party adjourn to the music room, engaging in discussion, whiling away the night. Then the time comes to leave, many of them announcing their … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twenty-Three
Buck (Cindy Meehl, 2011). Cindy Meehl’s measured, steadfast documentary focuses on Buck Brannaman, a renowned horseman who primarily makes his living traveling around the country and delivering ranch seminars intended to help people develop better relationships with their problem animals. Meehl was actually inspired to make the film after her own positive experience in one of those group training sessions. Her film, understandably then, comes across like the work a true believer, which is both its strength and weakness. It’s an intimate, compelling portrait of a man who’s found his way through significant personal hardship to create a professional life … Continue reading Buñuel, Meehl, Penn, Minnelli, Rohmer
#46 — That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977) I will readily admit to generally finding myself less enamored with the films that rely heavily upon the absurdly symbolic. My bias tends to those films that insinuate themselves deeply … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Forty-Six
The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009). The premise is great. Four guys go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning they wake up from a blackout drunk with the groom-to-be missing, and they have to reconstruct their crazy night from increasingly absurd clues. It’s like Memento reimagined as a ribald comedy. The execution is another matter. The screenwriting team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (who saw this turn into a box office sensation just a few weeks after their handiwork resulted in a dreadful-looking bomb) just pile on incident after incident, getting laughs from jolting the audience … Continue reading Bunuel, Frankenheimer, Phillips, Wright, Wyler
Easy Virtue (Stephan Elliott, 2008). Based on a play by Noel Coward, Easy Virtue has all the requisite pieces to help the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert director get his artistic sensibilities back on track after the disastrously bad thriller Eye of the Beholder. The story about an English gent bringing his headstrong new American wife home to meet his snobbish, disapproving family is abundant with basic, effective dramatic conflict, and the source material guarantees that the screenplay will be filled with admirable wit. The finished product is sadly in a perpetual state of overexertion, everything ratcheted up to a … Continue reading Bunuel, Elliott, Gast, Hill, Weide
Coffee for Two 