At the 96th Academy Awards, Diane Warren failed to win Best Original Song for the fifteenth time in fifteen tries. Shockingly, “The Fire Inside,” written for the movie about the guy who did not in fact come up with the idea for hot Cheetos, did not win. On the other hand, I’m willing to wager… Read More The Warren Index: Will They Win a Competitive Oscar Before Diane Warren?
The actor: Saoirse Ronan The character: Jo March The film: Little Women The line: “And I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is good for. I’m so sick of it. But I’m so lonely!” There are so many good adaptations of existing text in the American movies of the 2010s.… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #44
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. For every 2015 movie that ultimately made this list, there’s another one that I liked but which never had the energy to climb aboard. For a… Read More Top Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2015
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. I feel a bit on an island rating 2019 as low as I do in this decade. Only two years debut on my list later than… Read More Top 100 Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) — 2019
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. Greta Gerwig. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet How many people do you think have said “No spoilers!” and “They’ve made this book into a movie seven times” in the same week? I hesitate to say that “everyone knows” what will happen in Little Women, but like, if you’re going to see Little Women you… Read More Little Women (2019)
For a brief introduction and a running list of movies covered in this project, click here 30) This Sporting Life (1963), directed by Lindsay Anderson The British New Wave, for all of its depictions of angry young men, was not always good at finding actors to credibly play them. It is a line that Laurence Harvey… Read More Better than BFI’s Top 100: 30-26
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. Mike Leigh. Starring Alison Steadman, Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent Dir. Greta Gerwig. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts Some spoilers below for Lady Bird. And Life is Sweet, too, but that movie is older than me and I think I’ll be forgiven for “spoiling” it. Patience is a virtue, so we hear, and… Read More Life is Sweet (1990) and Lady Bird (2017)
Dir. John Crowley. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Jane Brennan Saoirse Ronan, the Girl with the Huge Pupils, is costumed beautifully by Odile Dicks-Mireaux in this film. Ronan wears rich orangey-browns and cool blue-greens in the beginning, but by the end seems at home in bright yellow and pink; in one scene, she wears an… Read More Brooklyn (2015)
Seeing Things Secondhand 