Dir. Nigel Cole. Starring Sally Hawkins, Geraldine James, Daniel Mays There’s a strand of thought which automatically equates what’s right with vegetarianism. One does it because it’s healthy, or good for the planet, or because it’s more ethical than eating animals. One doesn’t do it because it opens the palate to the widest possible range… Read More Made in Dagenham (2010)
Dir. Craig Gillespie. Starring Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney I, Tonya reminds me of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. They begin similarly. Both of them are absolutely terrified that you might not get the point, and so they begin with this awful lectorial pedantry. Three Billboards starts with the billboards, unveiling them interminably (Too… Read More I, Tonya (2017)
Dir. Richard Brooks. Starring Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a competent waste of time and energy, occasionally pretty and from time to time infuriating for the right reasons. My inclination is to say that it’s not much of a movie, but I’m willing to admit I’m wrong… Read More Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
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. Charlie Kaufman. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams Everyone loves Caden Cotard’s (Hoffman) production of Death of a Salesman. He casts young people to play older ones, and in so doing has put in the mind of the audience the sense that eventually young people will turn old, and dawn will go down… Read More Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Dir. Peter Weir. Starring Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Dragos Bucur The Way Back is awfully cool to the touch, which is an issue I’ve always had with Peter Weir movies. His films, so frequently conceptual and odd, sound like movies I would love but all too often devolve into these technically remarkable and emotionally empty endurance… Read More The Way Back (2010)
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. Vincente Minnelli. Starring Louis Jourdan, Leslie Caron, Hermione Gingold Dir. Gus Van Sant. Starring River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, William Richert “Thank heaven for little girls,” Honoré (Maurice Chevalier) sings, and it’s as apt an opening for the film as there could be; there can be no question of why they are thanking heaven. The men… Read More Gigi (1958) and My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Dir. Clint Eastwood. Starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman Hurt, sad, defeated, [Emma Stone] collapses, face first, onto her bed while a wall-sized image of Ingrid Bergman smiles behind her. It’s not often that a movie finds a way to create a self-describing image, but La La Land, bless its heart, pulled it off.… Read More Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Seeing Things Secondhand 