Dir. David Cronenberg. Starring Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen In love and psychoanalysis, where one rests relative to one’s partner is of vital importance. Throughout the film, Jung (Fassbender) and Spielrein (Knightley) switch places relative to one another befitting just those concepts. In the beginning, while Jung is still her doctor and not her… Read More A Dangerous Method (2011)
Dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Starring Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring I have been vexed occasionally in the past year because I wanted to write something about a Powell and Pressburger film but couldn’t think of a good way to do it; as a general rule I don’t like to talk about what… Read More The Red Shoes (1948)
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Fredric March, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews In 1979, Jimmy Carter gave a speech that, in my mind, ranks with George Washington’s Farewell Address or Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural as one of the most important in the history of the American executive. The “Crisis of Confidence” speech speaks to a statistic that… Read More The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Dir. Gus van Sant. Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin There are some real howlers in the history of Best Picture winners. One thinks The Artist in 2011. 2011 wasn’t a terribly strong year, but Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy were at least viable options. (Bridesmaids and A Separation, for their own reasons, would… Read More Milk (2008)
Dir. Martin Scorsese. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, John C. Reilly In the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap, once Hal and Annie have both been sent to the “Isolation Cabin” to work out the problems the two of them have with one another, a storm breaks out and the window gets stuck. The wind swirls. The girls work… Read More The Aviator (2004)
Dir. Fred Zinnemann. Starring Paul Scofield, Leo McKern, John Hurt Watching A Man for All Seasons forces the viewer to put The Crucible on the brain. Thomas More is the antithesis of John Proctor; where Proctor sees himself already neck-deep in the quicksand of his sin, Thomas More walks on water. Yet both are on trial, both of… Read More A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Dir. Lone Scherfig. Starring Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina Movies about young adults very frequently – that is, always – feel a need to tell the audience that their characters change. One’s teenage years [he sighed while cleaning his eyeglasses] are the beginning of a life’s summer, after a springlike childhood and before the autumn… Read More An Education (2009)
Dir. Warren Beatty. Starring Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson When I first started this blog, one of the categories I knew I wanted to include was “Losing Steam,” for movies that began with a rush, reach a fabulous climax, and then peter out for one reason or another. Two movies immediately came to mind… Read More Reds (1981)
Dir. John Ford. Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Henry Brandon The diagetic portions of this movie begin with a surprisingly striking image: a woman stands in a doorway, black in the way Pierre-Auguste Renoir said a painting should never use black, her silhouette blocking the majestic view of the ostensibly Texan skyline. (It’s Monument Valley,… Read More The Searchers (1956)
Seeing Things Secondhand 