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) Cloud Atlas (2012), directed by Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer Look,… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Sprawling, 10-6
Dir. George Stevens. Starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean In recent television dramas, much has been made of the inclination towards male antiheroes at the expense of virtually any other type of protagonist. Since the form hit its heights with Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White, it’s become fashionable to simply give us… Read More Giant (1956)
Dir. Martin Rosen. Starring John Hurt, Michael Graham Cox, Richard Briers In the late ’70s and early ’80s, there was a beautiful trend in animation which has by and large been abandoned by major studios. Characters would be rendered in a cartoonish, borderline cutesy style, but backgrounds and establishing shots would be rendered in these… Read More Watership Down (1978)
Dir. John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy. Starring Henry Fonda, William Powell, Jack Lemmon Roberts (Fonda) has just traded his chance to get into the war and away from the dyspeptic tyranny of his commanding officer, Morton (James Cagney). Roberts, a onetime medical student who volunteered for the war instead of finishing his degree, is an… Read More Mister Roberts (1955)
Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz. Starring Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, Said Taghmaoui An old man pops out of a bathroom stall after Vinz (Cassel), Hubert (Kounde), and Said (Taghmaoui) have been having a fairly incriminating conversation. All of their conversations, to be fair, are incriminating in one way or another, but in this one they reference Vinz’s… Read More La haine (1995)
Dir. George Stevens. Starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters In a movie that frequently sits on Montgomery Clift emoting – a very good choice, that – and lingers on closeups of Elizabeth Taylor, the most important player is Shelley Winters, the patron saint of women who want things too much and never can take… Read More A Place in the Sun (1951)
Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Starring Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House. After watching Zootopia eight or nine months ago, I thought that Disney movies were starting to stick to their claim outside musicals. After watching Moana, the latest entry to the Disney canon, I’m more sure than ever that the best elements of… Read More Moana (2016)
Dir. Barbet Schroeder. Starring Jeremy Irons, Ron Silver, Glenn Close I think if screened Reversal of Fortune for ten other people and then asked them what they thought the film was about, I would get at least seven or eight different answers. Is it about Claus von Bulow (Irons), far and away the most interesting person… Read More Reversal of Fortune (1990)
Dir. Michael Cimino. Starring Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges At the end of the movie – and I mean the Director’s Cut, which is a pretty nimble three and a half hours – we’ve been transported to a place that the film never hinted we’d go to. After a relatively quick stop at Harvard… Read More Heaven’s Gate (1980)
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) Groundhog Day (1993), directed by Harold Ramis “What if a man… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Speculative, 5-1
Seeing Things Secondhand 