Dir. Sam Mendes. Starring George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Claire Duburcq The Allies won. There, I got the spoilers out of the way. With about forty-five minutes left in the movie, finally something happens that makes you say, “Ah, Deakins did this.” Schofield (MacKay) has just awoken. Where it was afternoon before now it is blue night. He… Read More 1917 (2019)
Dir. Armando Iannucci. Starring Simon Russell Beale, Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor “I know about the hockey team.” This is the single funniest line in The Death of Stalin, a gravity well which sucks in comedy as easily as it sucks up horror or prestige drama. It is a perfect distillation of what works when the… Read More The Death of Stalin (2017)
Dir. David Yates. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson Hogwarts deserves better than the ending it’s given. In the book as well, the Battle of Hogwarts is a sort of crumpled, bloodstained love letter to the school where the majority of this story has taken place. In some ways that’s even more true in… Read More Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011)
Directed by David Yates. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint I’m sure the conversation didn’t happen just this way, but at some point the director, the producers, the writer, and so on must have sat down and said: “Part 1 is going to do all the work and Part 2 is going to be all payoff.”… Read More Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010)
Dir. David Yates. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint What Half-Blood Prince has in bunches, as much as any Potter movie with the possible exception of Goblet of Fire, is humor. If this is one of the Potter movies you cape for, then how funny it can be has to play a significant role. There’s some good… Read More Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Dir. David Yates. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon Chris Columbus’ versions of Harry Potter were loving if long-winded, Alfonso Cuaron’s…I hate using this word, but it really was disruptive…and remarkable, and Mike Newell’s clean and effective. If those are all true, then David Yates’ versions are by and large ham-fisted. Yates’ four adaptations… Read More Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Dir. Mike Newell. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint The Potter books total over a million words. The movies come to nearly twenty hours. There are any number of scenes that must have been difficult to adapt for myriad reasons, but the absolute most difficult scene to turn from words to images is the… Read More Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Dir. Alfonso Cuaron. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson As a lad, I was so certain that the job of a filmmaker was to be as faithful as possible to the material s/he adapted. I have been wised up significantly since then, but I have to confess that because of that particular foible, I… Read More Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Dir. Chris Columbus. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson The great strength of Sorcerer’s Stone is that it leaned all the way into making us awestruck at the Wizarding World. The great failure of Chamber of Secrets is that it leaves aside that sense of discovery which came with its predecessor. For example, a… Read More Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Dir. Chris Columbus. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson The Harry Potter books are meant for young people—I was in elementary school when my dad all but pressed a copy of Sorcerer’s Stone on me during a Barnes and Noble trip, and in high school when I inhaled Deathly Hallows—but unless you’re one of… Read More Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
Seeing Things Secondhand 