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)
Dir. Bradley Cooper. Starring Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott We could talk about spoilers, but the concept for this movie is eighty years old, and let’s face it, we all know what happens. The politics of A Star Is Born are what we might euphemistically call “old-fashioned.” They are the politics of whites in… Read More A Star Is Born (2018)
Dir. Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Starring Grant Bardsley, Nigel Hawthorne, Susan Sheridan I really wanted to like The Black Cauldron, which has a reputation as the bête noire of Disney at its lowest point of the 20th Century. As ever with Disney, that’s a low point concerning profits, not quality. From 1977 to 1986,… Read More The Black Cauldron (1985)
Dir. Stephen Frears. Starring John Malkovich, Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer Valmont (Malkovich) emotionally withdraws from as many situations as he can, not because “emotion is weakness” or some other flaccid cliche, but because it’s silly to be emotionally involved in a situation where only one of you is in real life. Valmont is in a stage… Read More Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Dir. Matt Reeves. Starring Michael Stahl-David, T.J. Miller, Odette Yustman There are so many movies which really only have forty minutes of material and which stretch on for two hours or so. (Here’s a perfectly random example: I just watched The Lion in Winter, which is 135 minutes, and I’d say forty or so were… Read More Cloverfield (2008)
Dir. Michael Hazanavicius. Starring Uggie, Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo. At the end of The Artist, George Valentin (Dujardin) has made a new career for himself as, more or less, Peppy Miller’s (Bejo) sidekick. In a tap number, the two of them bounce and smile and do all sorts of other generic tap things. (Call me a… Read More The Artist (2011)
Dir. Frank Lloyd. Starring Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone The mutiny on the Bounty is a fairly exciting scene, as far as these things go, filled with rapid cuts and people swinging swords and punching each other in tight spaces. A ship that had been mildly claustrophobic before becomes airless, as the men loyal to… Read More Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Dir. Billy Wilder. Starring Ray Milland, Howard Da Silva, Jane Wyman The holy grail of movies about alcoholism, with apologies to My Name is Joe or Withnail and I or The Shining, remains Wake in Fright. Somewhere a little behind those masterpieces, which stare alcoholism in the face and lock your head in a vise so you can… Read More The Lost Weekend (1945)
Dir. Leo McCarey. Starring Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Risë Stevens “Schmaltz isn’t selling this season,” Father O’Dowd (Frank McHugh) reports to his buddy, Father O’Malley (Crosby). O’Malley—Chuck to his friends, a label which contains multitudes, including some guys who will go on to father Jets and the diva of the Metropolitan Opera—is a little chastened.… Read More Going My Way (1944)
Dir. Elia Kazan. Starring Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Audrey Christie In The White Ribbon, the kids doing the evil deeds in pre-World War I Germany are given an opening because all four loci of power—business, medicine, education, and religion—fail to maintain their control; they abdicate, depending on one’s point of view, their responsibilities or positions.… Read More Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Seeing Things Secondhand 