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. Bille August. Starring Samuel Froler, Pernilla August, Ghita Norby I wonder what it says that the movie I would give to someone who had never come across a Bergman movie before would be to give them an August movie. The Best Intentions gives us for the old master what Shelby Foote referred to as… Read More The Best Intentions (1992)
Dir. Alex Garland. Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander Dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin There are two things which really stand out about Free Solo. The first is that El Capitan is really tall, and the second is that Alex Honnold is not a likable person. I don’t want to pile on the guy, because… Read More Ex Machina (2015) and Free Solo (2018)
Dir. David Lynch. Starring Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, James Cada When I was in college, I took a class on environmental writing, which was the place I first learned about Aldo Leopold and Barry Lopez, among other folks. We got to Of Wolves and Men far enough into the semester that we were all a… Read More The Straight Story (1999)
Dir. Eric Rohmer. Starring Barbet Schroeder, Michele Girardon, Claudine Soubrier Almost eight months to the day after I watched My Night at Maud’s, I finally finished Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales. By a weird set of circumstances, The Bakery Girl of Monceau is the last one I’ve added to my tally, and I’m not sure… Read More The Bakery Girl of Monceau (1963)
Dir. Damien Chazelle. Starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke It’s a Damien Chazelle movie: the answer is in Justin Hurwitz’s score. Chazelle and Hurwitz are, at this point, tied to the hip, and perhaps in thirty years they’ll even be remembered as closely (if not as fondly) as Spielberg and Williams or Fellini and… Read More First Man (2018)
Dir. John Schlesinger. Starring Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp There are better moments in Far from the Madding Crowd than this, but the most exquisitely Hardy moment of the film is at the wedding of Frank Troy (Stamp) and his pregnant girlfriend, Fanny (Prunella Ransome). (Runners-up in this movie include a thoughtless card, a fifty-pound payment… Read More Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
Dir. Barry Jenkins. Starring Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Regina King Thorough spoilers for a movie still in its wide release. There’s a noteworthy costume choice made in the first few moments of If Beale Street Could Talk. With the camera towering over Tish (Layne) and Fonny (James), we can see that their outfits go together.… Read More If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring Zoe Kazan, Tom Waits, Tim Blake Nelson If the six segments of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs are meant to cohere, then it’s as six distinct pieces of the various types of the western genre. It hits on virtually all of them from gunmen to highwaymen, wagon trails (why… Read More The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Dir. Paul Schrader. Starring Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Kyles I spent a long time preparing the joke: when an American remakes Winter Light (and sort of smushes in a little Diary of a Country Priest), he ends it with an explosion. The movie disappointed my joke, alas, although I’m not sure it would have been worse if… Read More First Reformed (2017)
Seeing Things Secondhand 