You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. The Godfather, as I think I might be obligated to say, begins with a wedding. It’s a violent movie, occasionally even gory and lurid, and when it detours for tenderness… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: The Splitting of the Nuclear Family
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. The Godfather was the first modern blockbuster, but once can be forgiven for believing Jaws actually holds that title. For one thing, Jaws obliterated the records of historically huge performers… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Unchained Metaphor
As many of you were, I was inspired by the list released by Empire on Thanksgiving this year. It is, a little cheekily, titled “The 100 Greatest Movies,” and I say cheekily because there’s no way that the people publishing this can possibly imagine that these are, by any standard, the one hundred greatest movies.… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Introduction
Dir. Ridley Scott. Starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino Spoilers for a recent release. Tempting as it is to begin with the accent work in this movie, I think it’s more revealing to begin with Dariusz Wolski’s photography. House of Gucci is shot in most of the same washed-out tones that one comes to… Read More House of Gucci (2021)
Dir. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Starring Andrew Garfield, Robin de Jesús, Alexandra Shipp There are spoilers for a recent release below…as always, I don’t care, but maybe you do! During my musicals phase, this one (which I’m abbreviating as TTB the rest of the way because I have not gotten any more patient in my obsolescence) was… Read More tick, tick…BOOM! (2021)
Dir. Jamie Roberts In 2017, the documentary LA 92 was released for the 25th anniversary of the riots resulting from the verdict in the case which found the four officers who beat Rodney King not guilty. The film nods at some of the causes of the riots which created a fever pitch in Los Angeles… Read More Four Hours at the Capitol (2021)
Dir. John M. Stahl. Starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain Leave Her to Heaven reminds me less of other noirs and more of stories of the bad seed, which is all the more interesting because the film predates the first known use of the term by some years. Ellen (Tierney) is not a traditional… Read More Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Dir. Martin Campbell. Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen It’s just a little too talky, isn’t it. Not a lot too talky, but it’s just talky enough that it pulls you away from what’s really exciting about the film itself. Before anyone arrives in Montenegro for the poker game, there’s a ceiling on what… Read More Casino Royale (2006)
Dir. Pablo Larrain. Starring Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins Spoilers for a recent film, but one of the best things about Spencer is that I’m not sure it can actually be spoiled in any meaningful way. In the first few minutes of the movie, a fleet of Land Rovers drives perilously close to the… Read More Spencer (2021)
Dir. George Roy Hill. Starring Robin Williams, Glenn Close, Mary Beth Hurt “The Pension Grillparzer” is the story in The World According to Garp, the novel, which changes Garp’s life. It’s presented clearly as the best of his work, the purest expression of him as a writer. It’s why Helen Holm marries him. It’s not… Read More The World According to Garp (1982)
Seeing Things Secondhand 