Sunday, March 17, 2024

The Detective (1954) **

Guinness and Finchy are the standouts here. It's kind of dull otherwise but nicely made.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Poor Things (2023) **

Production design overwhelms the story. Proves you can get good photography with modern effects. Good cast, not up to Lanthimos's high standards.

Monday, March 04, 2024

Ruten no ôhi (The Wandering Princess) (1960) **

Plays like a Japanese Zhivago and as beautifully shot.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Celebrity (1998) **

Beautifully shot in b/w with a top star cast but disappoints in its dearth of funny one liners and in the glaring miscast of the lead. Charlize literally walks away with the picture.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Warning Shot (1966) ***

Terrific twist on the police procedural blends noir elements with a satisfying whodunit. Top notch cast and a tight, witty script. Only drawback is shoddy production values.

Friday, February 16, 2024

The President's Analyst (1967) **

Another attempt at satire on film has a number of terrific spots but too many heavy-handed unfunny ones as well. Very much of its time but with a lot of ideas that were unfortunately to come to pass.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

An Unlikely Life | David A. Bell | The New York Review of Books

A film like Gance’s, long and complex, would not do well at the box office today. Scott has said, “I couldn’t get through it, honestly.” But we need films that take history as seriously as Gance did. In the global culture wars of the twenty-first century, history has become a major battleground. Vladimir Putin’s Russia criminalizes criticism of the Red Army, British conservatives defend the legacy of the British Empire, Israelis and Palestinians duel over the events of 1948, American progressives cast 1619 as an alternate national origin story, and everyone squabbles over statuary. Historical films like Scott’s Napoleon make for reasonable entertainment, but they also represent an opportunity lost. Today, more than ever, we could use more translations of the past that engage seriously with it, rather than just riffing on it or reducing it to a colorful but empty spectacle.