Dir. Gus van Sant. Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin There are some real howlers in the history of Best Picture winners. One thinks The Artist in 2011. 2011 wasn’t a terribly strong year, but Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy were at least viable options. (Bridesmaids and A Separation, for their own reasons, would… Read More Milk (2008)
Dir. Martin Scorsese. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, John C. Reilly In the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap, once Hal and Annie have both been sent to the “Isolation Cabin” to work out the problems the two of them have with one another, a storm breaks out and the window gets stuck. The wind swirls. The girls work… Read More The Aviator (2004)
Dir. Nicholas Hytner. Starring Richard Griffiths, Stephen Campbell Moore, Samuel Barnett The film adaptation of The History Boys manages to bring everyone back, as it were, for another term. Alan Bennett wrote the play and the screenplay. Nicholas Hytner directed the play and the film. The cast of the play and the film is identical. (Nearly… Read More The History Boys (2006)
During my student teaching (it was technically a “practicum” and not “student teaching,” but that’s another kettle of sardines), I made it to school every day. On one day, though, I couldn’t stay long enough to teach anything. I managed to get up at 6:30, throw on my clothes, drive over to the school, and… Read More Freaks and Geeks S1E7, “Carded and Discarded”
Dir. Joe Wright. Starring James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan In the past twenty years, I think moviegoers’ penchant for a twist ending has become stronger. People have always loved having that “Whoa!” moment at the end of a film – Vertigo and Psycho both indulge here – but since The Usual Suspects I think our appetites have been… Read More Atonement (2007)
Dir. Martin Scorsese. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brendan Gleeson Gangs of New York is the movie that made me love movies, which is like saying that All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the album which made someone love music. I apologize for nothing. The first half of Gangs of New York is remarkable. In 1862, Irish… Read More Gangs of New York (2002)
Dir. Fred Zinnemann. Starring Paul Scofield, Leo McKern, John Hurt Watching A Man for All Seasons forces the viewer to put The Crucible on the brain. Thomas More is the antithesis of John Proctor; where Proctor sees himself already neck-deep in the quicksand of his sin, Thomas More walks on water. Yet both are on trial, both of… Read More A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Dir. Nicholas Hytner. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Scofield, Joan Allen I always get nervous when writers get to redo their own work. George Lucas is the alpha and omega of this model, but fans of Amadeus or The Crucible or Doubt must know that even when excellent playwrights turn into screenwriters, they find themselves touching up scenes or… Read More The Crucible (1996)
Dir. Michael Haneke. Starring Burghart Klaußner, Christian Friedel, Susanne Lothar There’s a scene fairly early in The White Ribbon where the schoolteacher, fishing for trout, sees one of his students – Martin, the pastor’s eldest son, maybe twelve or thirteen years old – walking on the rail of a wooden bridge high above the stream. If he fell,… Read More The White Ribbon (2009)
As anyone who has ever taken a high school French class knows, French high school functions differently from American high school. There’s more emphasis placed on a single test in France than there is in the U.S. (here we tend to spread our attention around to about a dozen), and students get part of their… Read More How to Make College Football and Basketball Work: A Series of Options
Seeing Things Secondhand 