Directed by Robert Eggers In The Lighthouse two men are trapped on a desolate, stormy island for much longer than they signed up for. They are so isolated, in fact, that the film quickly leaps beyond any suggestion of realism and describes instead some version of hell or purgatory. The lighthouse keeper is Tom (Willem Dafoe), … Continue reading The Lighthouse (2019)
black and white
The Party (2017)
Directed by Sally Potter The Party is one of those dinner party movies in which everyone starts off chic, civilized and egocentric, and by the end they will be humbled, humiliated and return in some sense to a more primal state of being. As the havoc of The Party plays out, characters will question their own … Continue reading The Party (2017)
Hud (1963)
Directed by Martin Ritt Hud is a black and white Neo-Western about generational differences, all embodied by a young man and his elderly father. They are Hud (Paul Newman) and Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas), and their relationship is underscored by strife and the long-teased absence of Hud's better-loved brother, whom we later learn died in … Continue reading Hud (1963)
Ed Wood (1994)
Directed by Tim Burton Ed Wood is the original The Disaster Artist, a movie about a director, who shouldn't be a director, making possibly the worst movie ever made. Before Tommy Wiseau's The Room took home that dubious title, Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) held the honor. It's a horror film that brings together zombies, … Continue reading Ed Wood (1994)
Roma (2018)
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron Roma is breathtaking and incredibly moving, not just from an emotional standpoint but because of the grace with which it is constructed. It's a deeply intimate story shot in the manner of an epic, something Cuaron is well adept at doing following movies like Children of Men (2007) and Gravity (2013). The smallest … Continue reading Roma (2018)
High Noon (1952)
Directed by Fred Zinnemann High Noon takes place over the course of a tense but mostly uneventful 90 minutes, at least until the expected gunfight which ends the film. The story concerns a freshly married, newly retired Marshal, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), whose sense of duty compels him to stay on the job just a … Continue reading High Noon (1952)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Directed by Alain Resnais The world of Last Year at Marienbad is constructed before our eyes. Like with Charlie Kauffman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) we watch the environment unravel and expand as the movie unfolds. It's near impossible to tell what is "real" or fabricated because for us to know that we would have to understand the … Continue reading Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Computer Chess (2013)
Directed by Andrew Bujalski Analyzing Computer Chess seems a daunting thing to do. Half the people who find a way to see it will love it, and half will hate it. I fall into the former camp, but even then it's hard to figure out why it works when it does and when it doesn't work, … Continue reading Computer Chess (2013)
Winter Light (1963)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Paster Tomas' plight is such a bare, direct expression of his existential crisis. His overt vulnerability is hard to take but also hard to deny because the rigidity of his devout despair refuses cliche or sentimentality. Instead it's almost robotic, like a programmed emotional breakdown, a … Continue reading Winter Light (1963)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Directed by Don Siegel In the first scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, we look inquisitively at a panic-stricken doctor, Miles (Kevin McCarthy), who claims that there have been a series of strange events. He is surrounded by those who doubt whatever story it is he’s about to tell, even as they are quite … Continue reading Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
idrawonmywall.com 