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. 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)
Dir. John Ford. Starring John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers The standout sequence of The Horse Soldiers is about the cadets of the Jefferson Military Academy, which is to say that the best part of this movie about Marlowe (Wayne) and Kendall (Holden) has very little to do with either one of them. In a… Read More The Horse Soldiers (1959)
Dir. John Ford. Starring Will Rogers, Stepin Fetchit, Henry B. Walthall Featured image links back here During the Civil War, Kentucky declared itself a neutral state, though in practice what that meant was that it stayed with the Union, choosing native son Abraham Lincoln over native son Jefferson Davis. Tens of thousands of men from… Read More Judge Priest (1934)
Dir. John Ford. Starring Tyrone Power, Maureen O’Hara, Betsy Palmer Some soldiers, just through luck or probability or God’s will, are doomed to be the ones to watch others die. Marty Maher (Power), though he enlists annually for decades on end and is in the service for both world wars, never actually goes to battle.… Read More The Long Gray Line (1955)
Dir. John Ford. Starring John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, Harry Carey, Jr. It may be my contrarian inclinations, it may be my childlessness, it may be that I just prefer critters, but I know that whenever someone has a baby on a sitcom it bores me. It is one of two common topics in fiction (the other being… Read More 3 Godfathers (1948)
Dir. John Ford. Starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Gilbert Roland There’s a shot in Cheyenne Autumn that my little heart took note of, either because I am very sensitive to bravado or because I am very partisan. Wright (Walter Baldwin), a Quaker ministering to the Cheyenne’s needs on the reservation as best he can, works with his… Read More Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Tim: Happy Super Bowl Sunday, buddy. May the Pats be struck down. Matt: Now and forever, amen. Tim: (This is going to look worse when this goes up and the Patriots win by thirty two hours later.) Speaking of championships, ha ha, today we chat a smidge about this championship belt project that both of… Read More Baumann and Burch Conversations #12: Belts
One of the Grantland legacies I’m fond of, although I’m sure the idea didn’t start there, is the championship belt (RIP Grantland, long live Barnwell and Hyden). The purpose is to go year by year and create a list of who’s at the top of some field, which is a deceptively simple task, and one… Read More Anglophone Director Championship Belt, 1918-2018
Seeing Things Secondhand 