To see the results of last year’s Grouches and to check out the fuller version of the regulations, go here. The Grouches are back this year to award last year’s films, although I’ve timed this up to basically match this year’s Oscars. (Trust me, I’m glad to have the extra time!) Here are the short… Read More 2nd Annual Grouches: 2020 Movie Year Awards
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here. 80) The Last Emperor (1987), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci Nothing says communism like a dull color palette: one hundred and fifty shades of gray, dead blues, dried puke greens, dried snot yellows, orange that’s been out in the sun too long,… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 80-76
Dir. Joe Wright. Starring Keira Knightley, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jude Law The action of Anna Karenina is set, sometimes tacitly but more often very, very loudly, in a theater. This suits Wright, whose sweet spot mixes handsome people in period costumes with enough tracking shots to make a West Wing fan turn purple. There’s some fairly dazzling work with… Read More Anna Karenina (2012)
Dir. Ron Howard. Starring Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Matthew Macfadyen Howard Zinn is probably the most important historian that the United States has ever produced. (Sorry, Charles Beard. I love you too.) Regardless of how you feel about him – in other words, regardless of whether or not you think “historical revisionism” is an honest… Read More Frost/Nixon (2008)
Seeing Things Secondhand 