The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 75-71
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 80-76
Dir. Alan J. Pakula. Starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Peter MacNicol There’s a lot about Sophie’s Choice that works, but none of that addresses the central problem in the story: everything is too exaggerated to work well. Wouldn’t a jealous lover suffice as well as one with paranoid schizophrenia? Wouldn’t a haunting experience outside the Holocaust have… Read More Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Dir. Clint Eastwood. Starring Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, Annie Corley The Bridges of Madison County is empty. In a movie that needs beautiful moments to live, there is only one beautiful moment in the entire flick. Happily it occurs at a key moment, lingering on a turn signal, the sight of a man through a windshield,… Read More The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Dir. Karel Reisz. Starring Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Hilton McRae Movies don’t usually come with morals (glory to God in the highest for that), but occasionally one comes across a film which contains within itself a parable. The French Lieutenant’s Woman is such a film, which uses the story of a pair of protagonists to create… Read More The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)
Dir. Laurent Bouzereau. I’ve spent some time thinking about what made Five Came Back so effective as a lens to view World War II, and at first I thought it was the subject matter. Entering this documentary and having little more prior knowledge than some vague understanding of John Ford and Frank Capra’s World War II service, I assumed that… Read More Five Came Back (2017)
Dir. Phyllida Lloyd. Starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan It’s about eighty percent of the way through the movie. Sam (Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), and Harry (Colin Firth) have all learned why they’re on this little Greek island. The daughter of a woman each of them had a fling with about twenty years back… Read More Mamma Mia! (2008)
Seeing Things Secondhand 