For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here. 90) The Long Good Friday (1980), directed by John Mackenzie Bob Hoskins has too many teeth in his mouth. Where he found them all I don’t know, but they are perfect for Harold Shand, who attacks his problems… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 90-86
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here. 95) Pygmalion (1938), directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard In sports, people obsess over “bad contracts,” which belong to players who don’t produce very much but who are paid well above the market value of that production.… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 95-91
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here. 100) Ex Machina (2015), directed by Alex Garland I have such hopes for Garland, who appears to be groping his way towards an autopsy of alienation. Sunshine, which he wrote, is most interesting when it is concerned about human failure and… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 100-96
Francois Truffaut said once that British cinema was a contradiction in terms, which is a fabulous take and exactly the kind of thing that keeps Anglo-French relations spicy since Joan of Arc was lit up. History has proved him wrong, but there’s a reason that when people think of national cinemas Britain tends to lag… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 2019 Edition
Dir. John Schlesinger. Starring Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp There are better moments in Far from the Madding Crowd than this, but the most exquisitely Hardy moment of the film is at the wedding of Frank Troy (Stamp) and his pregnant girlfriend, Fanny (Prunella Ransome). (Runners-up in this movie include a thoughtless card, a fifty-pound payment… Read More Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
Dir. Dominic Cooke. Starring Saiorse Ronan, Billy Howle, Adrian Scarborough On Chesil Beach might even have been Atonement but for two things. (It is probably not fair of me to compare them, but Ian McEwan, sad lovers, I doubt I’m the first one here.) First, Ronan and Howle don’t have the power of Knightley and… Read More On Chesil Beach (2018)
Dir. Yann Demange. Starring Jack O’Connell, Sean Harris, David Wilmot If you think that more civilized discourse would go a long way to solving our political problems, if you are socially liberal and economically conservative, if you wistfully recall the dominion of uber-WASPs like George H.W. Bush, if you think “All Lives Matter” gets at… Read More ’71 (2014)
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. 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)
Seeing Things Secondhand 