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)

Directed by Federico Fellini 8 1/2 must be the most autobiographic film of Fellini's career.  From what I've read, each of his films has an autobiographic quality, but this one, the title of which refers directly to the number of films he had mad, is specifically about a movie director (Fellini's same age) who suffers from … Continue reading 8 1/2 (1963)

Directed by Federico Fellini I Vitelloni is like a handful of other college/post-grad movies.  The first one that comes to mind, though probably not the best example, is Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming (1995).  Each film is a loose collection of stories following a group of friends as they attempt to put their lives together even … Continue reading I Vitelloni (1953)

Directed by Federico Fellini Giulietta Masina, Federico Fellini's wife, plays Cabiria, an escort looking for a way off the streets.  She is bold, brash, loud, proud and Chaplin-esque.  Between her expressive face and entertaining dance moves, she's hard not to enjoy just form a visual standpoint.  Those same attributes were harnessed in La Strada (1954) to … Continue reading The Nights of Cabiria (1957)

Directed by Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker, Kenneth Stilson Adventures on the New Frontier was a television documentary produced for ABC in 1961.  It offers a surprisingly candid portrait of President John F. Kennedy as well as First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, the man Kennedy defeated in the primaries before the general … Continue reading Adventures on the New Frontier (1961)

Directed by Fritz Kiersch Children of the Corn is a terrible movie, but it might be a good terrible movie.  It's very 80s, between the crappy computer effects and Linda Hamilton (of Terminator fame) as well as Burt's mullet and faded blue jeans.  The story is very simple, but it's stretched out to fit its 90 … Continue reading Children of the Corn (1984)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann) is an actress who suddenly goes mute, and when nothing is found to be medically wrong with her, she is described as struggling from "crippling apathy."  Elizabet goes to stay at a beachside house with her nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), a young woman who admires Elizabet and … Continue reading Persona (1966)