Dir. Lulu Wang. Starring Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen, Tzi Ma Dir. Jia Zhangke. Starring Zhao Tao, Liao Fan, Casper Liang There are a bunch of scenes where people eat in The Farewell, which is lowkey one of the hungriest movies in recent memory, but the image that stands out from all this eating is the laziest… Read More The Farewell (2019) and Ash Is Purest White (2018)
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon There must be some contingent of the viewing public that just likes to watch crazy women, and to plaster on the vaguest psychological terminology to explain away why they might do something lurid and shocking, like throw some red wine on their panties and then… Read More Gone Girl (2014)
Dir. Michael Curtiz. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains Sometimes, when I feel just aggressively masochistic, I try to narrow down the best scene I’ve ever seen in a movie. This is a fool’s errand, and only fools rush in. On the other hand, I’ve seen Casablanca maybe a dozen times in my life, and I… Read More Casablanca (1943)
Dir. Daniel Mann. Starring Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster, Terry Moore I’m not an alcoholic, and if there have been alcoholics in my life I couldn’t name them. I couldn’t say whether or not it’s likely that an alcoholic’s first bender in a year would end in him brandishing a knife at his wife, although one… Read More Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
Every article has its roots in Twitter unless it’s plagiarized from Reddit, and I guess this one is no different. A few days ago Elijah Wood took to Twitter to express a sentiment that was common not just among fans of Uncut Gems, but fans of Uncut Gems in high places: “truly baffled that Sandler wasn’t nominated and Uncut… Read More What Makes an Oscar Movie
Dir. Sam Mendes. Starring George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Claire Duburcq The Allies won. There, I got the spoilers out of the way. With about forty-five minutes left in the movie, finally something happens that makes you say, “Ah, Deakins did this.” Schofield (MacKay) has just awoken. Where it was afternoon before now it is blue night. He… Read More 1917 (2019)
Dir. Bryan Singer and also unofficially Dexter Fletcher. Staring Rami Malek, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy Peter Sellers believed that he would have won an Oscar for Being There if only Hal Ashby hadn’t put outtakes in the credits. It broke the spell, according to Sellers. “Chauncey Gardiner” was on such a different planet that to remind… Read More Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Dir. Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Starring Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Christelle Cornil Arguably the greatest moment in one of the greatest movies ever made, Three Colors: Blue, comes when Juliette Binoche sees the baby mice in her apartment and knows that she’s supposed to exterminate them. A woman grieving is given the responsibility to… Read More Two Days, One Night (2014)
Dir. Sam Weisman. Starring Brendan Fraser, Leslie Mann, John Cleese A beautiful young heiress, stuck in an engagement with a man she doesn’t seem to like very much, goes on a trip in which her fiance’s venality comes to the fore as a new suitor slouches in. This new man charms her, even though he’s… Read More George of the Jungle (1997)
Dir. Noah Baumbach. Starring Jason Hamilton, Chris Eigeman, Olivia D’Abo Image links back here The difference between Metropolitan and Kicking and Screaming is about a decade’s worth of perspective. Watching Kicking and Screaming I wished that Whit Stillman had been the one making it rather than Baumbach in the way that people prefer butter to margarine. (The presence of Chris… Read More Kicking and Screaming (1995)
Seeing Things Secondhand 