Directed by Ted Demme Life is one of those movies I hadn’t seen since I was a kid and which apparently stuck with me. As an adult there’s nothing so striking about it, at least compared to what else we’ve all seen in movies. It’s ostensibly a comedy, at least it feels like it, and Lawrence … Continue reading Life (1999)
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Say Anything… (1989)
Directed by Cameron Crowe Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything… is almost anarchic in its sincerity. It’s earnest, direct and yet doesn’t cut corners with its love story or belittle the audience’s intelligence. We meet a young man, Lloyd Dobbler (John Cusack) on the fringes of the high school social hierarchy, and his love interest, Diane Court … Continue reading Say Anything… (1989)
The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
Directed by Clay Kaytis The Christmas Chronicles has trouble getting going, but once it does it’s not far from the Christmas movies I remember so fondly from my childhood. It follows two siblings, ten year old Kate and teenaged Scott, on the night of Christmas eve, the first since the death of their Christmas-loving father. … Continue reading The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
Amarcord (1973)
Directed by Federico Fellini Amarcord depicts a series of vignettes, spread amongst a Simpsons-like cast of characters in a small town in the Italian countryside. It's a nostalgic comedy, full of slapstick and vulgarity, which occasionally pulls back far enough to remind you that this was all happening within a fascist state. The most memorable sequence … Continue reading Amarcord (1973)
The Lego Movie (2014)
Directed by Phil Lord, Chris Miller The Lego Movie is all about the hero's journey, that old tale in which an ordinary person is plucked out of reality and told they're special. It's Neo from The Matrix, Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker, all set in a stimulating world like that of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Emmet Brickowski (Chris … Continue reading The Lego Movie (2014)
High Sierra (1941)
Directed by Raoul Walsh "It's infernally cold up here, maybe it's nerves. The rock above, where Earle is hiding looks like a huge ice berg. Whenever the flares are lit, the faces of the crowd gathered around here look like great masts of snow. They look dead, all but their eyes..." - Radio Reporter at … Continue reading High Sierra (1941)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Directed by the Coen Brothers The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is about death, even as it starts as a broad comedy and certainly as it transitions into a surreal drama. It's a Coen Brothers' comedy in the mostly in the style of Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Intolerable Cruelty. Also O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Hail, Caesar! These … Continue reading The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Directed by Stefano Sollima Sicario: Day of the Soldado isn't a movie that needs to exist. It's a sequel to the 2015 Sicario, a movie that establishes complex characters who don't seem conducive to a series of further cinematic adventures, though as this one suggests there may be a third. Like with other surprisingly successful movies, … Continue reading Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Burning (2018)
Directed by Chang-dong Lee Burning is a wonderful, tense character study. It's a thriller in some sense, though not initially. Such genre construction only develops over time from Jong-su's (Ah-In Yoo) obsession with and dissatisfaction over losing a girl he sleeps with, Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jeon). She's a classmate from middle school whom he once called ugly. … Continue reading Burning (2018)
The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
Directed by Susanna Fogel The Spy Who Dumped Me has a lot in common with the old Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn thriller/romance/comedy Charade (1963). In both cases the protagonist finds herself caught up in a world of deception and murder thanks to her connection to a dead or dying romantic interest. In Charade it was Hepburn's deceased husband, … Continue reading The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
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