The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 70-66
Another week, another conversation. The latest conversation in our series considers what it means for a band or a director, specifically, to age. How do we reevaluate them? What do we look for? Do they fade away entirely? What is their (gulp) legacy? What follows is a lightly edited conversation in lieu of a podcast.… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations, #5: How Media Changes As It Ages
Dir. John Badham. Starring John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Donna Pescow The cry comes out. “Give the kid some room! He’s taking over again!” Tony Manero (Travolta), to the tune of the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing,” has broken off from his erstwhile partner and decided to go it alone. What Tony does on… Read More Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Dir. Hal Ashby. Starring Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid The Last Detail, with its frustrated young men, faithfully rendered milieu, and miles of walk-and-talk, screams “Linklater movie.” It’s no wonder that Last Flag Flying borrows from this movie; the guidebook is right here in Hal Ashby’s direction and Robert Towne’s screenplay before either of them lost… Read More The Last Detail (1973)
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 75-71
Dir. Paul Mazursky. Starring Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon Dir. Oliver Stone. Starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr. Anything which is even vaguely critical of its time and place is all too easily labeled a “satire,” and any time an open-class word gets overused it becomes diluted. We’ve lost something important in… Read More Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) and Natural Born Killers (1994)
Dir. Eric Rohmer. Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian, Marie-Christine Barrault Pascal even condemned mathematics at the end of his life, Jean-Louis (Trintignant) says. He thought it was just another way to get unnecessarily distracted, a great temptation that pulls the mind away from faith in God. Nobody in the room, Jean-Louis included, seems to think… Read More My Night at Maud’s (1969)
Dir. James Gray. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller Would it be a movie about fin-de-siécle Englishman without a stag hunt? It’s how The Lost City of Z begins, showing us how Percy Fawcett (Hunnam) is not like the other men. The other military men going on this hunt are not his equals in… Read More The Lost City of Z (2016)
Dir. James Schamus. Starring Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts Rather than reading American Pastoral or Portnoy’s Complaint for the millionth times, the first Philip Roth novel I read after his death was one I’d never read before. Indignation, a slim and recent addition to his oeuvre, was at the library; so was Indignation, the… Read More Indignation (2016)
Dir. Paul Feig. Starring Kristen Wiig, Rose Byrne, Maya Rudolph What makes Bridesmaids work several years down the line, and what I expect will make it stand the test of time for at least a couple decades, is its keen eye on the Recession. Annie (Wiig) is one of the only characters in the film… Read More Bridesmaids (2011)
Seeing Things Secondhand 