Dir. Richard Attenborough. Starring Ben Kingsley, Roshan Seth, Saeed Jaffrey Two scenes in Gandhi – a movie which, at just over three hours, is less lengthy than its reputation – have always stood out to me as terribly impressive and, more importantly, as filmic blueprints for fighting back against stronger powers. One of them is in… Read More Gandhi (1982)
Occasionally I try to come up with a contemporary parallel to show how bizarre it was that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a fairly well-known actor from a famous family. That’s something which is lost from history classes, and which it’s worth at least bouncing around. The best example I’ve come up with is if Kiether… Read More The People vs. O.J. Simpson (2016) and O.J.: Made in America (2016)
Dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Starring Roger Livesey, David Niven, Kim Hunter The second scene of the film, the one where Peter Carter (Niven, who will always be the guy who got off the best burn in Oscar history) descends about as slowly as possible in a crashing airplane, is surprisingly moving. The surprise… Read More A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Even in the midst of one of the more eclectic musicals of the recent past, “Letters” stands out as an especially weird song. The first third of the song, which belongs solely to Pierre, careens from topic to topic in his letter to Andrey who, if you remember the “Prologue,” isn’t here. What is at first a typically… Read More “Letters,” from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Halvar Bjork Bergman is still Bergman in this movie, and I have no doubt that someone else has used that line to describe Autumn Sonata before and I don’t care. Ingmar Bergman is still addicted to close-ups, still putting our cheeks to the hot stove of emotional upheaval for… Read More Autumn Sonata (1978)
Dir. Milos Forman. Starring Hana Brejchova, Vladimir Pucholt, Milada Jezkova Watch enough movies or TV, especially the recent stuff, and you start to get used to the idea of young people being played by…other young people, I guess, but people who aren’t anything like the age group they’re portraying. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield were… Read More Loves of a Blonde (1965)
Dir. Robert Altman. Starring Maggie Smith, Kelly Macdonald, Ryan Philippe In retrospect, it was a mistake to make Gosford Park a murder mystery. What makes Nashville and Short Cuts effective is the unbelievably patient burn among small pockets of people which culminates in an event which no person can ignore. In Short Cuts, it’s the earthquake that no one can escape from;… Read More Gosford Park (2001)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin We are forced to confront ourselves and our pasts only when they are placed directly in front of us and we are told, “Look!” More than anything, I find this message at the heart of Wild Strawberries, and it is a heart that is alternately warm… Read More Wild Strawberries (1957)
Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman Llewyn Davis (Isaac) has made an accidental habit of picking up orange cats. (I love cats. I confess to some slight distraction when they were on screen. Also, this movie has two cats, so by the standard the Academy set after The Artist, and… Read More Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Matt and I haven’t had a night at the B&B B&B in a little while, so we decided to talk NBA together in an effort to be relevant. We put in our two cents about the Boogie Cousins drama (#freeboogie), wonder about the legacies of the Grizzlies and Clippers, and try to predict which team… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 33: And Everyone Hates the Clippers
Seeing Things Secondhand 