Directed by Bruce Beresford The small Texas roadside motel upon which Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall) stumbles might as well exist outside of the real world. It's the place of his rebirth, a slow, arduous process that takes place over the course of this film. The movie opens there with a drunken fight that leaves him … Continue reading Tender Mercies (1983)
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Tony Manero (2008)
Directed by Pablo Larrain There's some overlap between the physicality of violence and dancing, or at least they seem to be paralleled in certain movies and media. In the music video to The Shoes' "Time to Dance" Jake Gyllenhaal plays a serial killer whose compulsion seems to come from his inability to dance (so he … Continue reading Tony Manero (2008)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
Directed by Joe Talbot The Last Black Man in San Francisco wears its heart on its sleeve, to say the least. It feels like an amped up version of a Barry Jenkins film, taking the tone and texture of If Beale Street Could Talk and combining it with the place and subject matter of Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy. … Continue reading The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)
The Way We Were (1973)
Directed by Sydney Pollack The Way We Were is a good 'ol fashioned romantic drama set against a politically charged backdrop over the course of a couple decades. The couple is Katie and Hubbell (Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford), college classmates and political opposites. Well it's not so much that they're opposites, just that their political … Continue reading The Way We Were (1973)
Absence of Malice (1981)
Directed by Sydney Pollack Okay, so Absence of Malice tackles a journalist's responsibility to ensure truth in reporting and the women's liberation movement. The latter is only mentioned a couple times in passing, but I think it's intrinsically tied to the way the former is presented here, and I think the message is a little muddied. … Continue reading Absence of Malice (1981)
The Yakuza (1974)
Directed by Sydney Pollack "A Yakuza pays his debts/A Yakuza does his duty/A man without debt/A man without duty/Is not a man." This is the song sung midway through Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza and which sums up the philosophy which guides the characters of the film. It's an eastern philosophy into which the western character, Harry Kilmer … Continue reading The Yakuza (1974)
Fargo (1996)
Directed by Joel, Ethan Coen Marge Gunderson, Jerry Lundegaard and Gaear Grimsrud all feel like they've been pulled from vastly different movies. They are so unique, not just in personality but by the deepest codes by which they guide their own lives, and yet here in Fargo they will all cross paths because of a crime … Continue reading Fargo (1996)
The Souvenir (2019)
Directed by Joanna Hogg The best movies, it seems to me, don't always reveal themselves fully until long after the final shot. A great movie burrows its way into your mind and may even start to feel like a dream you've had. If it really speaks to you in some way it may even feel … Continue reading The Souvenir (2019)
Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
Directed by S. Craig Zahler Dragged Across Concrete is a purposefully slow genre movie. It moves with what at first seems like the type of patience that implies something more going on underneath the surface, but ultimately I think it's just the scattered first draft of a movie that isn't sure what it wants to … Continue reading Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
M (1931)
Directed by Fritz Lang Holy sh*t is this film alive. From the unexpected twists and turns of what has since become a fairly standard, predictable type of story to the daring use of silence and mind-boggling camera movements (still not sure how they pulled them off), there is a lot to admire in Fritz Lang's M. … Continue reading M (1931)
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