The actor: John C. Reilly The character: Dewey Cox The film: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story The quote: “Goddammit, this is a dark fucking period!” This is probably my favorite part of Walk Hard because, despite the wet willy that this movie gives to every movie that had been or would be made about… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #53
To see the entire list of my 100 top movies of last decade, or to find the landing page for the other years in this series, click here. For every 2015 movie that ultimately made this list, there’s another one that I liked but which never had the energy to climb aboard. For a… Read More Top Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2015
The landing page, with rationale and links to other posts in this series, can be found here. We’re entering the Wolfgang Reitherman portion of the program, which I’m pretty jazzed about. (Everything from here on out is at least okay, which is kind of a relief…writing about bad movies isn’t super fun.) There’s good and bad… Read More Disney/Pixar Rankings: 50-46
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here 55) Sabotage (1936), directed by Alfred Hitchcock I wasn’t ready for Hitchcock to do it, and then he did it anyway. That sounds naive, but the man was called the “Master of Suspense,” not the “Master of Dropping the Hammer,” and Sabotage is… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 55-51
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here. 85) 49th Parallel (1941), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger One way to avoid the trouble of making an action-adventure movie that’s just loosely tied setpieces is to lean fully into the naturally episodic tendencies of the… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 85-81
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
In the following talk, Tim and Matt think about the career of Paul Thomas Anderson, his movies, Phantom Thread in particular, and where he sits at what is probably the midpoint of his career. In lieu of an actual podcast, we give you this lightly edited conversation. You can find Matt’s work here. Tim: After… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations, #2: Paul Thomas Anderson
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) Long Day’s Journey into Night (1962), directed by Sidney Lumet Picture links… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Family Drama, 10-6
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux Upon reflection, it’s stunning how many of our expectations about marriage are ridiculed, satirized, or otherwise contended with in The Lobster, and how often it’s done well. Forty-five days to meet a mate corresponds with our own arbitrary yet nearly ironclad ideas about how old… Read More The Lobster (2015)
Dir. Lynne Ramsay. Starring Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell We Need to Talk About Kevin is terribly powerful. During the first half-hour, I found myself doing something which, philosophically, I am deeply opposed to: I tried to turn the movie into a single word. I thought “unsparing” might be the right word, but that’s… Read More We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Seeing Things Secondhand 