Dir. Masaki Kobayashi. Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Rentaro Mikuni, Akira Ishihama I’m not usually a person who cares very much about spoilers, but I’ll grant that there are certain movies where it’s hard to imagine the first viewing being as good with information as it is without information. Recently, Parasite has become the standard-bearer for folks like me,… Read More Harakiri (1962)
To see the entire list of my 100 top movies of last decade, or to find the landing page for the other years in this series, click here. For every 2015 movie that ultimately made this list, there’s another one that I liked but which never had the energy to climb aboard. For a… Read More Top Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2015
Dir. King Vidor. Starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman, Bert Roach I rate Sullivan’s Travels as highly as the next guy unless the next guy is Jeet Heer, but I still think the movie’s message, for that’s what it is, comes off a little corny. When Joel McCrea sits there, laughing with a bunch of convicts screaming their… Read More The Crowd (1928)
To see the entire list of my 100 top movies of last decade, or to find the landing page for the other years in this series, click here. To read the first half of this post, click here. 51) The Lost City of Z, directed by James Gray I like to use the example of… Read More Top Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2016, Part 2
Dir. David Dobnik. Starring Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Dan Stevens I realize this is a recent release, so I’ll drop the spoilers tag, but also…come on. No one in Lars (Ferrell) and Sigrit’s (McAdams) hometown wants to hear their Eurovision song at any point in the movie. They’ll be at the bar performing, and Lars… Read More Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
Dir. Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer. Starring Jack Quaid, Maya Erskine, Ed Begley, Jr. Dir. Jennifer Westfeldt. Starring Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph FOMO is a very Internet term, although I think in most cases it refers to the life that takes place outside the bounds of one’s phone or TV or laptop. Sure,… Read More Plus One (2019) and Friends with Kids (2011)
Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin For a while, there was something very 1970s about Sicario. Kate (Blunt) is someone who believes in the rule of law, which makes her a throwback, which makes her obsolete. She is surrounded by people who believe in winning more than they believe in stuff like… Read More Sicario (2015)
Dir. Fred Perry. Starring Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule It’s a shame this movie doesn’t work better. If it were made in the present, I like to think that some of the more surreal photography would be amplified, although what would be much more likely is that A24 would get a hold of the… Read More The Swimmer (1968)
To see the entire list of my 100 top movies of last decade, or to find the landing page for the other years in this series, click here. To read the second half of my post on 2016, click here. Well, here it is. If not the best year of the decade, then very… Read More Top 100 Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2016, Part 1
The first time I ever came across the word “overreach” in print, it was when I was reading a children’s encyclopedia. I don’t remember if the article was about France or the French Revolution (I guess it must have been the latter), but I do remember the little portrait of Robespierre and the caption beneath.… Read More Too Big to Die
Seeing Things Secondhand 