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The Future is Now: Remembrance of Things to Come (2001)
To view Remembrance of Things to Come click here. “Gone and never to return and being for myself alone a remembrance of things to come who fancied being a human” – From a poem by Claude Roy, quoted in...
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“Isn’t that enough?” The American Friend (1977)
To view The American Friend click here. Tom Ripley only ever wore a cowboy hat once. In Hamburg. And Wim Wenders loved it. Playing Tom Ripley, Dennis Hopper dons the hat as he roams about, confused...
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The Complicated Morals of a Revisionist Western
In 1961, legendary author and screenwriter Elmore Leonard released his critically-acclaimed modern Western novel Hombre, a story about a white man, John Russell, raised by Apaches and his eventual...
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I Know I Am: Breaking the Waves (1996)
To view Breaking the Waves click here. There are two moments near the beginning of Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) that capture a little bit of what I love so much about his style of...
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Laurence Olivier and the Anemic Little Medium
To view our theme “Icons: Laurence Olivier” click here. In the last years of his life, Laurence Olivier was lauded as the world’s greatest actor in print interviews, on talk shows and during...
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The Bank Job: Perfect Friday (1970)
To view Perfect Friday, click here. There is a blessed simplicity to a heist film, with its basic elements of planning and execution. Last week I looked at an elaborate cat-and-mouse variation of this...
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Still Money After All These Years: Swingers Two Decades Later
To view Swingers click here. That’s right, Swingers is twenty years old. Ouch. Anyone who’s been in Los Angeles for more than a day or two can tell you it’s impossible to go anywhere without meeting...
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Equal Shares for All: The League of Gentlemen (1960)
To view The League of Gentlemen click here. The League of Gentlemen (1960) contains one of my favorite moments from postwar British cinema; a group of ex-soldiers carrying submachine guns plow through...
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Sometimes a Movie is a Dance: In the Mood for Love (2000)
To view In the Mood for Love click here. There is a clamor in the apartment house as people come and go, eat dinner, play mahjong and discuss the day. The shots are tight. We see faces, bodies moving...
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Discovering Men Are Not Gods (1936)
To view Men Are Not Gods click here. One of the exciting thrills of being a film fan is that there are always new-to-me movies to be discovered. Throughout my journey as a cinephile, I’ve become a fan...
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Revisiting Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
To view Jesus of Nazareth Part 1 click here and for Part 2 click here. Being raised protestant, specifically Methodist, I wasn’t fully immersed into the culture of the Passion of Christ. Although we...
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On the Road Again with Thelma & Louise (1991)
To view Thelma & Louise click here. I recently showed Thelma & Louise in one of my film history courses. I had never shown the film in a class before, and I had not seen it for over a decade....
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Hollywood Babylon: The Big Knife (1955)
To view The Big Knife click here. In The Big Knife (1955) Jack Palance is a blunt instrument, barreling his way around a Bel Air living room set like a finely chiseled bull in a china shop. He plays...
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Let’s Go Bananas (1971)
To view Bananas click here. Thanks to its frequent afternoon rotation on cable TV, I’m pretty sure Bananas was the first Woody Allen film I ever saw. I don’t think anyone who grew up later than the...
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Tokyo Gone Gagaga: Otaku (1994)
To view Otaku click here. Otaku: (in Japan) a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills. (definition from The Oxford...
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Birdshead Revisited: Judex (1963)
To view Judex click here. The first time we see the magician, he is standing alone, legs spread slightly apart, a lifelike bird mask covering his head. Next to him, on a stone block, lies a lifeless...
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A Fish Called Wanda (1988): The Greatest Modern Comedy?
To view A Fish Called Wandaclick here. There’s nothing more disappointing than revisiting a film that was considered great at its release, only to discover that it’s horribly dated. Many of the films...
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François Truffaut’s The Last Metro (1980)
To view The Last Metro click here. François Truffaut was a nostalgic sentimentalist, someone who enjoyed the idea of telling stories without too much cinematic edge or experimentation getting in the...
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On the Rebound? Sherman’s March (1986) Is the Movie for You!
To view Sherman’s March click here. As a film studies professor, I recognize Sherman’s March (1986) by Ross McElwee as an example of a performative documentary. In this type of doc, the filmmaker...
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Jean Renoir: Whirlpool of Fate (1925)
To view Whirlpool of Fate click here. In a fortuitous sequence of events, right after I acquired Pascal Mérigeau‘s biography of Jean Renoir, FilmStruck started streaming 16 of the director’s features...
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