The Sight and Sound poll invites more than a thousand real critics (i.e., not me) to submit their top ten films to be compiled as part of their decennial results. There will be a new Sight and Sound poll this year, which I’ve been indecently excited about for the past three or four years now,… Read More My Sight and Sound 2022 Ballot (It’s Not Real, I’m Just Jealous and Want to Participate)
Steven Hyden introduced his five-albums test more than a decade ago as a third way to judge a band, short of its popularity or its critical acclaim. While this one is not meant to stand on its own—for example, he’s not sure that either Bob Dylan nor the Rolling Stones had made five great albums… Read More The Five-Movies Test or: Which Director Has Had the Best Stretch of Consecutive Feature-Length Films in English?
Dir. Jim Henson. Starring the Muppets, Diana Rigg, Charles Grodin My ten favorite gags in The Great Muppet Caper, which has been one of my favorite movies since the mid-1990s. (I’ll save you some suspense. “What color are their hands now?” is not going to make this list.) 10) No respect for the British Society… Read More The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
Dir. Clarence Brown. Starring Mickey Rooney, James Craig, Frank Morgan I enter ninety percent of the movies I watch with an almost a ludicrous amount of optimism. I want them to surprise me and move me; at least once a week, I think to myself as I start a movie, “Maybe this will be the… Read More The Human Comedy (1943)
Dir. Amma Asante. Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Reid, Sarah Gadon When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place,… Read More Belle (2013)
Dir. Rick Alverson. Starring Tye Sheridan, Jeff Goldblum, Hannah Gross The movie this most reminded me of was Solaris, and it had everything to do with the production design. It’s not the look of it so much, for Solaris is a film which constantly has something jutting out of a wall or something on the… Read More The Mountain (2018)
Dir. David Lean. Starring Ann Todd, Ralph Richardson, Nigel Patrick Dir. Christopher Nolan. Starring John David Washington, Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Pattinson In two bloated ages of blockbuster filmmaking, David Lean and Christopher Nolan are curious rejoinders to their times. Lean, while not immune to the bloat of the 1950s and 1960s, made films which more… Read More The Sound Barrier (1952) and Tenet (2020)
Dir. Sidney Lumet. Starring Al Pacino, Charles Durning, James Broderick Enter another one of those Andy Griffith Conundrums, although maybe this is more like a Daniel Kaluuya Conundrum. Like Judas and the Black Messiah, a film based on actual events which featured name-brand actors in leading roles, Dog Day Afternoon makes most of its hay… Read More Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Dir. Fred Schepisi. Starring Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah, Shelley Duvall I’ve been watching this movie for, oh, fifteen years or so now, but it’s taken me until this most recent viewing to see what Fred Schepisi saw when he was making this movie. (Maybe I was dazzled by the pitch-perfect ’80s theme by Bruce Smeaton,… Read More Roxanne (1987)
Dir. John Ford. Starring Henrietta Crosman, Maurice Murphy, Marian Nixon Pilgrimage is built on three shots. Not scenes, not sequences, not moments, but shots. Pilgrimage, John Ford on a diet of F.W. Murnau, designed this film around three shots. The characters, the story, the beats, the emotions, the ideas: they are all sublimated to these… Read More Pilgrimage (1933)
Seeing Things Secondhand 