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. 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)
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Fay Bainter Jezebel is a Civil War movie without a single glance at the Civil War, as its story ends sometime in 1853, but the movie still leans heavily on the Lost Cause mythology which permeates so much Hollywood filmmaking. (The article I’ve linked to does a… Read More Jezebel (1938)
Dir. Bob Rafelson. Starring Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Ellen Burstyn Jason (Dern) and David (Nicholson) are walking on the boardwalk when they come across a marching band with its color guard. Their banner states that they are from Mainland High School in Linwood, New Jersey, and they march on for a few moments, Jason coolly… Read More The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
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. James Ivory. Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Julian Sands There’s a neatness in A Room with a View that is a little offputting. The Edwardian neatness makes sense within its context, but in the film’s rush to create an opposition to that neatness, created almost entirely with looks to Wordsworth’s Nature, the movie… Read More A Room with a View (1985)
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet This is weird for me to say about him, but Charlton Heston was the right man for the job. Judah Ben-Hur spends the vast majority of this movie, which is probably about as famous for being long as it is for anything else, planning to… Read More Ben-Hur (1959)
Dir. Guillermo del Toro. Starring Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon I can’t help but feel I saw The Shape of Water for the first time back in October, when I went to see Murder on the Orient Express in theaters and first encountered the trailer for Shape of Water. If you’ve seen the trailer, or if you watched the Oscars… Read More The Shape of Water (2017)
Dir. Ryan Coogler. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan Everything else being equal, all of us can choose between a Golden Corral steak and a filet from a good steakhouse; the tougher choice comes when the Golden Corral option disappears and is replaced with a lobster. There are two good choices in Black… Read More Black Panther (2018)
Seeing Things Secondhand 