Dir. Eliza Hittman. Starring Sidney Flanigan, Talia Ryder, Théodore Pellerin After Autumn (Flanigan) has gotten her first appointment finished at the Manhattan Planned Parenthood, she’s back in a transit station with Skylar (Ryder). Autumn is taciturn, perhaps more actively standoffish and brusque with her cousin than she is at any other point in the movie.… Read More Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Directed Michael Mann. Starring James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky The opening sequence of Thief is gorgeous in that sort of meretricious urban way. Neon lights blurring out the moon, dark asphalt streets, wet pockets in potholes, the lights of cars glowing: it’s all very yellow fog rubbing its back against the window-panes. Watching Thief, I was put… Read More Thief (1981)
Dir. W.S. Van Dyke. Starring Jeanette MacDonald, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy Dir. Jan Troell. Starring Gene Hackman, Liv Ullmann, Eileen Heckart There’s nothing inherently weird about the idea of a disaster movie where the first three-quarters of it have nothing to do with the disaster itself. The reason Titanic turned into this enormous phenomenon was not really… Read More San Francisco (1936) and Zandy’s Bride (1974)
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Stellan Skarsgard All of us can name action movies or thrillers which don’t have all that much perspective to speak of, but have enough of a plot to remain entertaining and effective. This is Se7en, a movie which gets a lot of plot mileage out of punning… Read More The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Dir. Jon Watts. Starring Tom Holland, Jacob Batalon, Michael Keaton At the time I’m writing this, I have seen seventeen MCU movies; the first half of this sentence gives me heartburn. For the most part, those movies are like going to a fast casual joint. Even if you order the wackiest cheesecake off the menu… Read More Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Starring Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart At the end of the movie, two final scenes find an ugliness in this movie’s heart that I’m not entirely sure the movie would think is ugly. In the first, Brockovich (Roberts) receives a check from Masry (Finney) which he “warns” her is not the… Read More Erin Brockovich (2000)
Dir. Autumn de Wilde. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth Maybe it’s not the most important thing about this movie, but I know my favorite thing about Emma is Bill Nighy’s performance. Mr. Woodhouse, who speaks seldom and mostly about the presence of drafts in his home, is possibly not a human being. His performance makes… Read More Emma. (2020)
Dir. John Ford. Starring John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, Harry Carey, Jr. It may be my contrarian inclinations, it may be my childlessness, it may be that I just prefer critters, but I know that whenever someone has a baby on a sitcom it bores me. It is one of two common topics in fiction (the other being… Read More 3 Godfathers (1948)
Dir. Agnès Varda. Starring Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, Marie-France Boyer When Francois (Jean-Claude) is telling Therese (Claire) about how much more he feels thanks to his affair with Emilie (Boyer), how much his happiness has been amplified, how much greater his emotions are and how many more arms he can offer to embrace and feels embraced by,… Read More Le bonheur (1965)
Dir. Josh Boone. Starring Blu Hunt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams This one has such a tortured production history that it’s basically a Terry Gilliam movie. Goodness knows there’s something genuinely interesting about taking The New Mutants, which featured some of the most jawdropping art of any mainstream comic book I can name, and which features teenagers… Read More The New Mutants (2020)
Seeing Things Secondhand 