Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin In The Seventh Seal, Max von Sydow comes across Bengt Ekerot. The knight, strong and tall with a noble face, meets Death himself, who is one of the most distinctive characters in movie history, a two-tone figure with a white face and an enormous black… Read More The Magician (1958)
Dir. Michael Haneke. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel, Annie Girardot No director on the planet has Michael Haneke’s stomach, an organ which can eat rotting meat and human shame in equal portions without so much as a gurgle. Similarly, the number of performers with Isabelle Huppert’s willingness to embrace difficult material is a small one… Read More The Piano Teacher (2001)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Bertil Guve, Ewa Froling, Jarl Kulle The first ninety minutes of Fanny and Alexander are among the most moving ninety minutes in Ingmar Bergman’s entire oeuvre, which sounds impossible because they are, by and large, intensely joyful. No one describes Christmas at Grandmother Ekdahl’s (Gunn Wallgren) as anything other than “joyful,” and it’s… Read More Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Vicky Krieps, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville Spoilers, for those averse to them. One of the interesting developments in Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting is how thin he’s gotten. The man has never been chunky, but it’s been twenty-five years since Last of the Mohicans and fifteen since Gangs of New York, two… Read More Phantom Thread (2017)
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, Nicole Kidman Spoilers below, for those who want to be surprised. There are two versions of the same story which don’t appear to us until late in the picture. They are fairly similar, as both acknowledge that the surgeon had had some alcohol in his system when… Read More The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Dir. Wolfgang Petersen. Starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Rose Byrne One of my least favorite games to play, maybe because it’s too easy or maybe because it reminds me of horoscopes, is deciding how a movie is a “movie of the moment.” It is not merely enough for a film to be of its own… Read More Troy (2004)
Dir. Alexander Mackendrick. Starring Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Michael Gough Brilliant and a touch erratic, retiring and obsessive, Sid Stratton (Guinness) raises a truly frightening question when he succeeds in making an eternal fabric. Indeed, it is scary enough that the movie does not dare to answer its own question, relying on a flighty and… Read More The Man in the White Suit (1951)
You can read up on the basis for this series here, and also find links to other posts in the series. Movies I’ve reviewed on this site have a link in the title which you can follow to read my full review. 5) The Great Escape (1963), directed by John Sturges It all goes bad so… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 5-1
You can read up on the basis for this series here, and also find links to other posts in the series. Movies I’ve reviewed on this site have a link in the title which you can follow to read my full review. 10) The Hunt for Red October (1990), directed by John McTiernan If Red… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in Ten Genres: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10-6
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Mary Astor In The Razor’s Edge, a novel which postdates Dodsworth the film by a little less than a decade and Sinclair Lewis’ novel Dodsworth by fifteen years, Somerset Maugham creates a rather memorable character named Elliott Templeton, an American who long ago forsook his uncultured native land for the… Read More Dodsworth (1936)
Seeing Things Secondhand 