The Island (Bay, 2005)
Sean Bean and McGregor get tied together through the barbs. We are all interconnected. It’s allegorical. It’s metaphorical. It’s allephorical.
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Les Miserables (Bernard, 1934)
Victor Hugo's novel is a timeless classic which has been retold and well loved since its inception, in part because it tells the story of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The contemporary stage adaptation focuses on the antagonistic relationship between Valjean and Javert, but Bernard's film really focuses more on Valjean's spiritual development, echoing the novel's emphasis on his experience of grace and the way that it changes him gradually. Valjean is one of the great characters in the history of literature, and Harry Baur is totally up to the task of bringing him to life. The film feels less like an adaptation than a translation, and every time I assumed there would be a concession to staging or special effects--the barricades, the sewers--Bernard is able to take us there without drawing attention to the effects for effects sake.
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Love in the Afternoon (Rohmer, 1972)
The Criterion DVD had an interview with Neil Labute talking about how Rohmer influenced him, but I confess that towards the end of Love in the Afternoon, the film I kept thinking about was Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
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Taxi to the Dark Side (Gibney, 2007)
A well deserved Academy Award (for best documentary) went to Gibney's investigation into the policies and practices that created the Abu Ghraib scandal. Eschewing sensationalistic tactics and avoiding an over-reliance on the photos themselves (which appear but aren't the final word), Taxi builds persuasive force until the viewers amazement reaches a level of disbelief.
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Julius Caesar (Houseman, 1954)
Question: What do the following actors have in common?: Jack Lemmon, Billy Crystal, Keanu Reeves, Nathan Lane, Robin Williams, Alicia Silverstone. Answer: They were all exposed trying to do Shakespeare.
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Lars and the Real Girl (Gillespie, 2007)
Lars and the Real Girl is a sweet film that gets a lot of emotional mileage out of showing people being kind. It is a film in which people are loving for no other reason than they can be and where they choose to be compassionate rather than cruel because doing the former seldom costs more than the latter.
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The Big Shot Caller (Rhein, 2009)
Everyone wants to to be able to lay claim to being the first to recognize potential greatness, even if that means valuing present performance only in connection to future growth potential.
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Lust, Caution (Lee, 2007)
What makes the film's ending so sad and tragic is that I'm not sure that the characters themselves know. One can only spend so much time trying to keep truth hidden before one begins to lose the ability to recognize what it is.
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The Great Dictator (Chaplin, 1940)
A lot of critical ink has been used to talk about how politically brave the film is, given that the outcome of the war was in no ways assured in 1940. So I was ready for the political satire and the humanistic speech at the end. Here's what I wasn't ready for--how darn funny the film can be.
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Michelangelo Antonioni
If the name "Antonioni" gives the neophyte cinephile pause, he can take solace in the fact confusion loves company almost as much as misery does. Andrew Sarris begins his introduction of Jean-Luc Godard's interview with cinema's Michelangelo by reminding readers that L'Avventura (1960) was hissed at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.