Dir. Douglas Sirk. Starring Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead Cary Scott’s (Wyman) garbage children, Ned and Kay (William Reynolds and Gloria Talbott, respectively), are both in their early twenties during the events of the film. In 1955, I don’t think any but the most clairvoyant Americans would have foreseen the events in Vietnam, only the… Read More All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer. Starring Henrik Malberg, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Emil Hass Christensen Mikkel (Christensen) can tell something’s wrong while he’s speaking with the new parson (Ove Rud). He’s met Johannes (Rye), one of Mikkel’s younger brothers, who speaks slowly, harshly, as if there were some sharp metal obstacle in his throat for the words… Read More Ordet (1955)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson Rebecca must be one of the great depictions of anxiety ever to appear on the big screen. Where some people dream of performing a role they haven’t practiced in front of a capacity crowd, or having an exam placed in front of them on a subject… Read More Rebecca (1940)
Dir. Bill Condon. Starring Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor, Dan Stevens Since the movie has opened recently, an obligatory “spoilers.” Also, a shameless plug: I’ve written about the 1991 animated version with a special emphasis on that film’s symbolic use of color. You can find that here. The Beast (Stevens) reaches down and picks up an… Read More Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Dir. Roland Joffe. Starring Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally, Robert De Niro Father Gabriel (Irons) is the only European Jesuit priest above the waterfall who is unwilling to fight for the Guarani with violence. Rodrigo (De Niro), whose skill with violence is unquestioned, comes to Gabriel to be blessed before joining the battle. “I cannot bless… Read More The Mission (1986)
Dir. Peter Weir. Starring Helen Morse, Margaret Nelson, Rachel Roberts More than forty years later it’s nearly impossible to come to Picnic at Hanging Rock without knowing that you’ll not receive satisfaction from the movie, at least in terms of the plot. That’s not to say that some kind of satisfaction – or at the very least… Read More Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Dir. Jacques Demy. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Anne Vernon, Nino Castelnuevo Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo. Starring Brahim Haggiag, Jean Martin, Mohamed Ben Kassen Guy (Castelnuevo) has bad news for Genevieve (Deneuve): he’s being sent to Algeria, and at sixteen she is certain that she will die waiting for him. At this moment, she has already conceived the… Read More The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi. Starring Peyman Moaadi, Sarina Farhadi, Sareh Bayat I adore the first scene of this movie, because it is so terribly frank. The room itself is bare, with gray walls and handsome, but simple, wooden chairs. Nader (Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) are a married couple in front of a judge. She wants… Read More A Separation (2011)
Dir. David Lynch. Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elise Harring, Justin Theroux It seems silly to say “spoilers” when talking about a sixteen-year-old movie, but if you haven’t seen it and you’re reading this, you should probably watch the movie instead. Tinch admitted he didn’t really know. “The new fiction is interested in language and in… Read More Mulholland Drive (2001)
The Luminaries is an enormously enjoyable novel, with emphasis on the adverb. At more than eight hundred pages, it is the longest novel to win the Man Booker International Prize, and its author, Eleanor Catton, is the youngest to ever win the Man Booker. (She was twenty-eight when it was published, which makes me wish I… Read More Casting The Luminaries for TV: Utter, Wishful, and Shameful Fanfiction
Seeing Things Secondhand 