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.
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Beau Travail (Denis, 2000)
There is no way this film should be this good. A retelling of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" set in the French Foreign Legion, directed by a woman born in France, and culminating with an electric break dance by the Claggart character (Denis Lavant as Galoup)? Are you kidding me?
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Mogambo (Ford, 1953)
Okay, the plot is pure melodrama, but talk about star power...
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Sansho The Baliff (Mizoguchi, 1954)
One mark of a newbie cinephile is that you tend to think that all world film is alike. That Kurosawa is the same as Ozu is the same as Naruse is the same as Koreeda is the same as Mizoguchi.
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At the Death House Door (Gilbert and James, 2008)
I have read some responses to film that dismiss as (and for) being too politically slanted. Maybe, but as with Hoop Dreams and Stevie, Gilbert and James are interested, first and foremost, in people. The film reflects the beliefs of the people in it.
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Still Walking (Koreeda, 2008)
What is surprising--and delightful--about the film is how clear-eyed the portrait of the family is even when the setting for it is a situation that would normally invite excessive sentimentality. Bittersweet is one of the hardest tones to capture, perhaps because we are so cynical that we tend to assume instinctively that it is parody. Koreeda reminds us that emotions that we too often mock (because we find them embarassing or painful) are real and, often, beautiful.
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Lorna’s Silence
The greatness of the brothers Dardenne is not really in dispute. It may be the case that years from now this particular film is deemed less great than some of their previous works. But I'm not convinced that the process of trying to find it has actually happened yet. We shall see.