Dir. David Lean. Starring Ann Todd, Ralph Richardson, Nigel Patrick Dir. Christopher Nolan. Starring John David Washington, Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Pattinson In two bloated ages of blockbuster filmmaking, David Lean and Christopher Nolan are curious rejoinders to their times. Lean, while not immune to the bloat of the 1950s and 1960s, made films which more… Read More The Sound Barrier (1952) and Tenet (2020)
Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke In the last six or seven years, the conversations about Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have turned. We’ve gone from “These two can’t act worth a crap” to “These are two of our best actors under thirty-five.” The impetus for that first part, of course,… Read More Twilight (2008)
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. To read the first half of this post, click here. 51) The Lost City of Z, directed by James Gray I like to use the example of… Read More Top Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2016, Part 2
You know, because I’m grouchy, and because “Oscar” and “Grouch” go together, ha ha. Rules! Most importantly, the Grouches hold themselves to movies that it is not impossible to imagine the Oscars themselves might have given attention to. Ways in include production companies that the Oscars have awarded in the past, filmmakers the Oscars have… Read More 1st Annual Grouches: 2019 Movie Year Awards
Dir. Robert Eggers. Starring Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, a very sassy bird As this is still in theaters, here’s a spoiler warning, but also I don’t know that this is a movie someone who cares about spoilers would be into, so… Persona: Ingmar Bergman’s twenty-seventh movie 3 Women: Robert Altman’s fourteenth movie Mulholland Drive:… Read More The Lighthouse (2019)
Dir. Mike Newell. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint The Potter books total over a million words. The movies come to nearly twenty hours. There are any number of scenes that must have been difficult to adapt for myriad reasons, but the absolute most difficult scene to turn from words to images is the… Read More Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
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
Dir. James Gray. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller Would it be a movie about fin-de-siécle Englishman without a stag hunt? It’s how The Lost City of Z begins, showing us how Percy Fawcett (Hunnam) is not like the other men. The other military men going on this hunt are not his equals in… Read More The Lost City of Z (2016)
Seeing Things Secondhand 