Dir. Steve McQueen. Starring Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez Widows begins with a long take of Liam Neeson and Viola Davis kissing. There’s a lot of tongue. It’s 2018, and it’s the first time I’ve seen an interracial kiss onscreen with that much tongue involved. I have said it many times, and I have… Read More Widows (2018)
Dir. Zoltan Korda. Starring Ralph Richardson, John Clements, C. Aubrey Smith The shot above is the movie’s thesis. A storm of ferocious, enthusiastic cavalry troops charging en masse but not in formation, meets a disciplined enemy firing with superior weaponry from their thin red line. (Fear not: the British square was used earlier in the… Read More The Four Feathers (1939)
Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Starring Andie MacDowell, James Spader, Laura San Giacomo Soderbergh’s camera sidles up to its targets in sex, lies, and videotape, like a bold young boy putting an arm around a girl whose name he doesn’t know. Perpetually on edge, always a little antsy, given to slow approaches into a character’s face from above or… Read More sex, lies, and videotape (1989)
Dir. Aki Kaurismaki. Starring Matti Pellonpaa and a whole bunch of guys with equally Finnish names There are more brilliant gags in Leningrad Cowboys Go America than this one, but the moment I knew I was watching the funniest thing in the entire world comes about halfway through. The band is all in the car,… Read More Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
Dir. Yasujiro Ozu. Starring Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, Haruko Sugimura The Abilene paradox posits that in a group of people, it is entirely possible that a group of people can collectively engage in an activity even though all of them hold some reservations about so doing. The original example features four people who decide to… Read More Late Spring (1949)
Dir. Bradley Cooper. Starring Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott We could talk about spoilers, but the concept for this movie is eighty years old, and let’s face it, we all know what happens. The politics of A Star Is Born are what we might euphemistically call “old-fashioned.” They are the politics of whites in… Read More A Star Is Born (2018)
Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Christian Barbier Melville, whose track record with the French Resistance had a great influence on his future filmmaking career (not least of which was his name, a nom de guerre from the guerre itself), frequently begins his films with epigraphs. Not all of them work for me—looking… Read More Army of Shadows (1969)
Dir. Paddy Considine. Starring Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan Three British movies of 2011 far outshine the rest of that year: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Shame, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. The first is a movie about the trail cruelty leaves, the way a betrayal goes on to damage people far outside… Read More Tyrannosaur (2011)
Dir. Peter Ustinov. Starring Terence Stamp, Peter Ustinov, Robert Ryan There are women in Lawrence of Arabia, even if one hears little of them and sees even less. Billy Budd, released in the same year, is genuinely devoid of women. They are a foreign presence at sea, though “foreign” may be too weak a word; “alien” would… Read More Billy Budd (1962)
Original image links back here Tim: It’s been like, four months since our last music conversation. And we return today to talk about Coheed and Cambria, who you probably know best as the guys who roasted Antonin Scalia. (The Decemberists one really feels like it happened like, last week.) Matt: That Scalia roast is… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #10: Coheed and Cambria
Seeing Things Secondhand 