Dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman. Starring Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Liev Schreiber This is the kind of superhero movie I imagined when I was a preteen: witty, action-packed, heartfelt, and most of all absolutely overflowing with possibility. Multiverses are cheating, fine, but here’s an example. The first superheroes I ever got into were… Read More Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Dir. Rob Reiner. Starring Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin William Goldman could not have chosen a more difficult kind of story to write than this bifocals fairy tale. Looking at it through the top half of the lens, this is a once upon a time story about adventure and magic and a princess in… Read More The Princess Bride (1987)
Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Starring Lily James, Richard Madden, Cate Blanchett Pretend I sound like your mother when I say: This is just a nice movie. The story of Cinderella (James) is one that banks on the obvious cruelty that the stepmother (Blanchett) and stepsisters (Holliday Grainger and Sophie McShera) throw at our innocent heroine. Some… Read More Cinderella (2015)
Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie This is a recent release at the time of publication, so I’ll throw a generic “spoilers” alert up for it. There was a friend of Bob Rafelson’s named Donna Greenberg, who recalled a story about a weekend morning when she was at home with her… Read More Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Dir. Ron Howard, sort of. Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Joonas Suotamo The biggest problem with Solo is everything that happens after the gang gets to Savareen. The secondary villains, who wear all sorts of interesting helmets, take off their interesting helmets and reveal that they are good guys after all. There’s another melee fight… Read More Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Dir. Michael Mann. Starring Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer There are home goods chains with fewer lighting options than Mann makes use of in The Insider. Indoor lighting, outdoor lighting, faded out darkness, microscopic clarity, shadows, penumbras, pore-gazing well-lit closeups, the works. This is a truly omnivorous movie for lighting, and they primarily shine on… Read More The Insider (1999)
Directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker The War Room is a movie which I’m sure must have been just incredibly interesting when it came out in 1993, the year Bill Clinton became the forty-second president. How fun to see the behind-the-scenes work of the Clinton campaign as it scuffles through New Hampshire, walks away… Read More The War Room (1993)
Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins Gilbert: Now, the local alchemist is killed in an explosion. And there, among his effects, a chorus of villagers discover a potion. Sullivan: Magic, no doubt. Gilbert: Indeed. Sullivan: I thought as much. Gilbert: The effect of this magic potion is to transform… Read More The Hateful Eight (2015)
Dir. Kelly Fremon Craig. Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Blake Jenner, Kyra Sedgwick When Nadine (Steinfeld) is at a particularly low point, she launches herself into her more or less sympathetic history teacher’s classroom and launches into a string of word vomit. The movie wants to play some of it offhandedly, such as Nadine’s offering Mr. Bruner… Read More The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here The trouble with a top 100 list is usually #101. What follows here is not 101-125, and it shouldn’t be construed that way, but it is a list of movies that I thought about a great deal when I was… Read More Better Than BFI’s Top 100: Un Certain Regard
Seeing Things Secondhand 