Dir. Martin Scorsese. Starring Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson I’m contractually obligated to bring up the rat crawling in front of the Massachusetts State House, one of my least favorite shots ever, but on rewatching The Departed for the zillionth time, it seems like the reason it’s in the movie at all is because the filmmakers… Read More The Departed (2006)
Dir. Penny Marshall. Starring Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Jared Rushton Over the course of a year, three separate comedies put women at the upper echelons of late ’80s business and simultaneously ensnared them in love triangles. The world of business and work entwine each other until there is no clear separation between the profitable and… Read More Big (1988)
You can read up on the basis for this series here, and also find links to other posts in the series. Movies I’ve reviewed on this site have a link in the title which you can follow to read my full review. 5) Marie Antoinette (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola – featuring Kirsten Dunst as… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Biopics, 5-1
You can read up on the basis for this series here, and also find links to other posts in the series. Movies I’ve reviewed on this site have a link in the title which you can follow to read my full review. 10) The Hunt for Red October (1990), directed by John McTiernan If Red… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in Ten Genres: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10-6
Dir. Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart Whether or not this can be called a trend I’m not sure – do three movies over seven years constitute a trend? – but Still Alice falls neatly into the same subgenre that Away from Her and Amour do. Each one takes a seriously different approach to their… Read More Still Alice (2014)
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)
Seeing Things Secondhand 