“Poignant and absurd in equal measure, Albert Brooks taps into the conflicted push-and-pull at the heart of parent/child relationships. Vulnerable, pleading, and anxious in an equilibrium thatās daring to watch, Mother finds Brooks going full Oedipal complex as a man reexamining his life choices, m” read more
“Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss have both mentioned a deep love and appreciation for 1944ās A Guy Named Joe and discussed remaking it as far back as 1975ās Jaws. A Guy Named Joe is one of those heavily romantic studio era films that easily moved into magical realism territory. You buy into” read more
“The late 60s were a confusing, unmooring time for everyone, especially those expositing the virtues of total honesty and āfree love.ā Enter Paul Mazurskyās Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a comedy not so much about wife-swapping as it is about the confusion of the era of its making. ā” read more
“More fascinating as thought experiment than it is satisfying as finished film, Uptight is still a complicated, contradictory experience thatās worth the effort. How often do you come across something thatās an update of classic John Ford movie, this time substituting Irish revolutionaries for a ” read more
“The cycle of violence becomes an ever-widening gyre in Frank Borzageās Moonrise. Less a violent story than a story about violence, and there is a difference between the two, where each successive action strengths that cycle of violence and chaos. The aftereffects of a parentās death by capital p” read more
“Time to demonstrate my gay card as I speak positively over Gaslightās two hours of diva in full martyrdom! George Cukorās gothic melodrama about a naĆÆve young wife being slowly driven insane by her gold-digging husband is a lot of fun. Itās as atmospherically cluttered and inky as a Universal” read more
“If youāve ever wanted to watch a rigidly square peg try to slink into a round hole, then Two-Faced Woman is the film for you! Itās not that Greta Garbo couldnāt do comedy, sheās a sensation in Ninotchka, but that film built humor around her dour, serious iconography and found a sly way to su” read more
“Louisa May Alcottās oft-filmed story gets a wonderfully warm, charming, if rushed treatment in George Cukorās celebrated version. Two prior silent film versions, from 1917 and 1918 respectively, beat this one to the screen, but this was the first version where all the disparate pieces came toget” read more
“Our Betters wants to both titillate us with its tale of the idle rich and their different rules for love, marriage, and society while finger wagging over amorality. It wants to build up its main character, an American socialite who married into the British upper class, while also slut shaming her to” read more
“While not exactly the foundational brick for the four official versions of A Star Is Born (to date, tick-tock on the fifth), What Price Hollywood? is still owed a debt of gratitude and payment when discussing those films. If you were to officially rank it among the four, it would slide obviously abo” read more
Total: from Joy Division to New Order
“Total: from Joy Division to New Order isnāt exactly the all-encompassing expansive set that its title would promise. Joy Division gets a meager five songs out of eighteen, and the last chunk of New Orderās section prove that theyāve been a confused legacy act for a while. I suppose if all you ” read more
“James Grayās passion play of a Polish woman discovering the American dream and its seedier realities and rot is built upon the silent eraās pantomime and impressionistic imagery and the melodramatics of the 40s and 50s. The Immigrant is a ripe film that manages to paper over its occasionally wea” read more
“Butter never goes as balls deep as it often threatens. Itās shallow thrusts at political satire, race, and conservative middle Americana and its weird folksy rituals. Itās dissatisfying as its climax whimpers out when it should shudder and scream. Ā I think thatās enough metaphorical sexual” read more
“Big, perfunctory, and obviously reaching for the lofty heights of Martin Scorseseās gangster epics or Francis Ford Coppolaās Godfather series, American Gangster is the bloated sight of a former master coasting. Here is a wannabe prestige epic about a real-life figure that coasts along an unearne” read more