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. Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Angeliki Papoulia, Christos Stergioglou, Mary Tsoni. Dir. Nicholas Ray. Starring James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo. I don’t think anyone besides crusty parents and out-of-touch principals ever denies that growing up is difficult, and even then those people only exist in the pictures. Certainly this is the premise of Rebel Without a Cause,… Read More Dogtooth (2009) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Dir. Whit Stillman. Starring Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen Barcelona is the middle film in a loose trilogy, placed between Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco. I’ve briefly reviewed the former, while the latter has its own essay. In the final act of Barcelona, before the rapid and dizzy epilogue that sees Ted… Read More Barcelona (1994)
Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Starring Rinko Kikuchi, Adriana Barraza, Brad Pitt Babel is one of those movies one wants to reward because of its boldness, an irrational confidence all-star which belongs in the same stratum as Cloud Atlas. Babel is less affecting, I think, and less compelling. It doesn’t call for us to be curious about… Read More Babel (2006)
Dir. Samuel Fuller. Starring Peter Breck, Constance Towers, James Best Here’s the movie equivalent of finding a worm in your apple, and a good apple too. There’s a story edged with lightning to work with here: a journalist (Breck) with a little too much ambition and much too much confidence decides to have himself admitted… Read More Shock Corridor (1963)
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)
Dir. Albert Brooks. Starring Albert Brooks, Julie Hagerty, Garry Marshall Dir. John Carpenter. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, Peter Jason Any fool can point at an American movie from the ’80s and say, with some authority, “Well, I declare! This picture here’s a critique of Reagan-era capitalistic excess!” What strikes me about the pairing of… Read More Lost in America (1985) and They Live (1988)
Dir. Sidney Lumet. Starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall 12 Angry Men is a magnificent fantasy. Choose your player! Juror 8 (Fonda) does enough outside research that he essentially manages to retry a case in the jury room which, if we’re honest, probably should end this movie with a mistrial as opposed to a “not… Read More 12 Angry Men (1957)
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. Rene Clair. Starring Veronica Lake, Fredric March, Cecil Kellaway Most of us in our movie judging lives reach a point where we begin to generally credit directors instead of actors for film quality. It’s easy to get carried away on this front, especially if you’re André Bazin or Andrew Sarris or someone like that,… Read More I Married a Witch (1942)
Seeing Things Secondhand 