Directed by Charlie McDowell The One I Love is a movie I loved when I first saw it a couple years ago.  It's a small, seemingly lean story about love, science-fiction, ego and the projection of that ego onto other people.  It's a story about a couple trying to avoid falling completely out of love, … Continue reading The One I Love (2014)

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni L'Avventura is a film about the people left behind after a woman's disappearance during a yacht trip.  Even though Anna (Lea Massari) is the one who disappears on a small, rocky island, the remaining characters, Claudia and Sandro feel like the ones stuck behind.  Over the next two hours following her … Continue reading L’Avventura (1960)

Written by William Monahan The Gambler is a bit of a slog to get through.  It's a story about a man who likes to get beaten up.  This character, Jim, turns out to be a UCLA English professor who spends his lectures (in very long scenes) discussing his life philosophy and various ways of saying … Continue reading The Gambler (2014) [Script Only]

Directed by David Lowery A Ghost Story has to teach you how to watch it.  The film is so quiet, so lingering, so meditative, and it has to show you how to sit with it.  There is no real plot, but there is a point, and it's all building to something.  In the first 30 … Continue reading A Ghost Story (2017)

Directed by the Coen Brothers Every time I watch a Coen Brothers' film, I think it might be my new favorite.  Inside Llewyn Davis seems to follow the mold of their most recent films that blur the lines between parody and honesty and are jam packed with memorable characters, sharp dialogue and an ultimate sense … Continue reading Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Directed by Kirsten Johnson Cameraperson is presented as Kirsten Johnson's memoir.  She has been a documentary camera operator and cinematographer for over 25 years, and the clips that make up this documentary are assembled from what she has shot for other movies over that career. Each vignette, some of which we return to and some … Continue reading Cameraperson (2016)

Directed by Olivier Assayas Personal Shopper is sold as a type of thriller, a supernatural thriller to be exact, but that is an almost forgettable aspect of the story.  The movie is a character study, following Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart) around the boutiques and creaky houses of Paris as she deals with the stress of … Continue reading Personal Shopper (2016)

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts I don't think I was supposed to enjoy Kong: Skull Island as much as I did.  It's a large movie with too many stars, and it came and went from theaters before I knew it.  It just kind of happened without much fanfare.  But this movie is surprisingly entertaining.  It's well-shot, … Continue reading Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Directed by Christopher Nolan Dunkirk is a tense viewing experience.  It places you right there in the cockpit, on the beach, in the sinking battleships, underwater and in the small civilian boats.  It's another one of Christopher Nolan's IMAX landscapes, large in scope yet ultimately intimate in character.  Dunkirk is about the mass rescue of … Continue reading Dunkirk (2017)

Directed by Vittorio De Sica Bicycle Thieves is like Italy's Citizen Kane.  I took a series of film classes in college, and I swear we watched Citizen Kane at least three times.  It's supposed to be this highly influential epic, and it's great and all, but it's almost too well-known to be... well, cool.  And that was … Continue reading Bicycle Thieves (1948)