Top Ten Movies of 2023 — Number One
Todd Haynes’s best film to date is also the best film of the year. Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2023 — Number One
Tag: todd haynes
Now Playing — May December
It’s long been clear that filmmaker Todd Haynes is a master of manipulating tone for delightfully acts of cinematic chicanery. To this point, this most potent manifestation of that talent was surely Far from Heaven, his 2002 film that gently … Continue reading Now Playing — May December
Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Nine
Director Todd Haynes adheres to many of the standard practices of musical documentaries in The Velvet Underground. In tracking the history of the monumental band that toiled in Andy Warhol’s Factory, transformed rock music, and inspired countless descendants who sometimes … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2021 — Number Nine
Then Playing — Shiva Baby; The Velvet Underground; Nightmare Alley
Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman, 2021). Written and directed by Emma Seligman, Shiva Baby locks its gaze on Danielle (Rachel Sennott), an emotionally careening college student whose various tribulations converge at a shiva observance she attends with her parents (Polly Draper … Continue reading Then Playing — Shiva Baby; The Velvet Underground; Nightmare Alley
Now Playing — Dark Waters
I have no information about the development process of the new muckraking film Dark Waters, but I know just enough about Mark Ruffalo’s social media presence to hatch a theory that begins with the actor reading Nathaniel Rich’s article “The … Continue reading Now Playing — Dark Waters
From the Archive: I’m Not There
Last week, when I was mulling over which old review should be plopped into this space, I came very close to selecting I’m Not There, as if something was nudging me to do so. Maybe the scraggly bard of Hibbing, … Continue reading From the Archive: I’m Not There
And I still remember all those days we spent alone
Carol, the latest film from Todd Haynes, is unyieldingly admirable in almost every way that matters in the construction of great cinema. The screenplay, adapted by Phyllis Nagy from a novel by Patricia Highsmith, is meticulous and thoughtful, spelling out the conflicts of the main characters in a determined, empathetic fashion. The performances evidence an equal amount of care. Maybe more than anything, Haynes’s directing job, heavily abetted by the cinematography of Edward Lachman, is the sort that can be studied for decades, held up as the embodiment of the way that images can be framed and finessed to tell … Continue reading And I still remember all those days we spent alone
Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Seven
#47 — Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002) Far From Heaven is an exercise in adoration. It is an unabashed, spellbound, swooning tribute to the technicolor melodramas of the 1950’s, particularly those directed by Douglas Sirk. The titles alone reverberate with grandiloquence: Magnificent Obsession, Written on the Wind, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, and the film that served as the most direct inspiration for Far From Heaven, All That Heaven Allows. Sirk’s films are famous for washing the screen with vibrant colors, sending the actors into teary-eyed overdrive with anguished dialogue, and approaching social issues with … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Seven
Coffee for Two 