Directed by Preston Sturges The camera pushes in slowly and dramatically on Alfred (Rex Harrison) as he conducts a lavish orchestra for a high-class audience.  He is the center of this world, all eyes on him, and this shot happens three times, zooming from a wide angle all the way into his left eye. The following … Continue reading Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

Directed by Martin McDonagh Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a bit of a mess, both the situation and the movie itself.  It can still be incredibly entertaining at times, but it doesn't quite hold together.  There are too many intriguing characters with not enough screentime, a few heavy-handed dialogue exchanges, plenty of action to … Continue reading Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Directed by Preston Sturges "Now there's no question about it: Preston Sturges is definitely and distinctly the most refreshing new force to hit the American motion pictures in the past five years" begins the 1941 New York Times review of The Lady Eve written by Bosley Crowther, a man with the most 1940s name I've ever … Continue reading The Lady Eve (1941)

Directed by Billy Wilder The story goes that Billy Wilder made The Lost Weekend in response to working alongside Raymond Chandler while writing the script for his previous film, Double Indemnity.  Chandler was an alcoholic, and the two had trouble working together, so when Wilder read the book on which The Lost Weekend is based, he decided he … Continue reading The Lost Weekend (1945)

Directed by Billy Wilder Double Indemnity helped establish the film noir genre on the big screen.  So many of the plot points and so much of the film's style has been replicated countless times, from the narration of a doomed, morally-compromised protagonist to the slicing light that isolates part of a character's face, hiding them … Continue reading Double Indemnity (1944)

Directed by Sofia Coppola Lost in Translation is steeped in melancholy.  It's a lonely story about lonely people in a foreign land.  They are affluent, mostly spending their time in an expensive hotel that rises above the rest of the city, and this affluence suggests a failure of the soul to identify what really matters.  … Continue reading Lost in Translation (2003)

Directed by Richard Linklater Is Bernie based on a true story or just a literal reenactment of a true story?  The film feels incredibly silly for a story about cold-blooded murder, and yet from what I can tell it seems a pretty faithful account of what happened between Bernhardt Tiede (Jack Black) and Marjorie Nugent (Shirley … Continue reading Bernie (2011)

Directed by James Foley Glengarry Glen Ross is famous for that speech Alex Baldwin yells at the struggling salesmen, the one with "always be closing."  I'm trying to figure out if that speech out of context is a good representation of the film as a whole.  Baldwin's character is never again seen in the film, … Continue reading Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Directed by Michael Dowse What If is to the romantic comedy genre what Geostorm is to the 'fate of the world' genre, except that What If is fantastic.  It's a straight down the middle rom-com, which means it hits a lot of cliches.  Let me list a few... down on his luck guy; girl in a relationship; respective … Continue reading What If (2013)

Directed by Richard Linklater Me and Orson Welles is a very neat movie.  It's a melodrama about a series of romances, all involving our young hero, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron).  The first romance involves his admirations for the arts, expressed through his mentorship with Orson Welles (Christian McKay).  The second involves romantic feelings for Sonja … Continue reading Me and Orson Welles (2008)