February 15th I suppose if you compare virtually anything to Gunga Din or The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, it starts to look surprisingly nuanced about imperialism, but Wee Willie Winkie demands that we give the British Raj some side-eye from the very beginning. Priscilla does not immediately grasp the idea of what colonialism is,… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (2/15-2/19): The IQ of a Rabbit and the Faith of a Child
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?
I’m joining in the spirit of the year-in-review post, even though the way I watch movies isn’t really conducive to the kind of list that one usually sees at the end of the year. (Incidentally, if you happen to be a recent music aficionado, friend of the blog Matt will have his year-end list of… Read More 2018 Year-End Review: Fifty Movies
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. Peter Weir. Starring Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Dragos Bucur The Way Back is awfully cool to the touch, which is an issue I’ve always had with Peter Weir movies. His films, so frequently conceptual and odd, sound like movies I would love but all too often devolve into these technically remarkable and emotionally empty endurance… Read More The Way Back (2010)
Dir. Peter Weir. Starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas The line between “wants to make you feel this” and “doesn’t make you feel much of anything” is one of the most difficult and most subtle lines to walk in a movie. Go too far to the former, and the viewer is alienated by the… Read More Witness (1985)
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) Cloud Atlas (2012), directed by Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer Look,… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Sprawling, 10-6
Dir. Peter Weir. Starring Helen Morse, Margaret Nelson, Rachel Roberts More than forty years later it’s nearly impossible to come to Picnic at Hanging Rock without knowing that you’ll not receive satisfaction from the movie, at least in terms of the plot. That’s not to say that some kind of satisfaction – or at the very least… Read More Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Dir. Peter Weir. Starring Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Max Pirkis From whatever side you look at it, Master and Commander feels like a movie that was destined to be forgotten. It’s a movie about sailing and naval combat and intrigue which premiered the same year as Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. It would have been… Read More Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Seeing Things Secondhand 