The Class of 2021: My Favorite Movies
A short story about breath: Having become fully vaccinated against COVID-19 a month ago, I’ve begun taking regular trips to the movie theater again. Few topics are as perennially popular […]
Category Archives: Film
“We’ll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet” — My 10 Favorite Capra Movies
There’s no denying that the year 2020 was a fallow period for my blogging efforts. A set of new routines brought on by both personal and global events made it […]
My Most Anticipated 2021 Movies
A lot can change in a year, I believe it’s safe to say. At this point last December, I was thinking about the end of a decade of movies, in […]
Announcing My 2021 Movie Retrospective: The Films of Frank Capra
The director of my current choice for “favorite movie of all time” was a paradigmatic American success story: a Sicilian immigrant who rose through the ranks of a booming industry […]
Double Feature: For Sama and A Diary for Timothy
The shot lasts only about seventeen seconds, a simple downward tilt. First we see Sama, the young daughter of journalist and filmmaker Waad al-Kateab, being held by her father, Hamza, […]
Overdue: A City of Sadness
Here begins a new blog series, in which I pick at a list of movies that I’ve never seen before but really should have by now. The parameters are just […]
Double Feature: Memento and Irreversible
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”–Kierkegaard “He destroyed my ability to live.”–Leonard Shelby, Memento “Paranoiacs need everything explained. Some things can’t be explained.”–Alex, Irreversible […]
Sullivan’s Travels by Preston Sturges
A message movie disguised as a frothy comedy when it isn’t a frothy comedy disguised as a message movie, Sullivan’s Travels (1941) is an inside-baseball satire on Hollywood’s self-importance and […]
Double Feature: Murder by Death and Clue
Detective stories were among Hollywood’s very first franchises, offering durable structures and just enough variation to keep people wanting more. For the most part, these films were based on popular […]
The Felliniesque Century
Consistently regarded as one of the world’s very greatest filmmakers, Federico Fellini is a daunting subject. Developing a bombastic and playful style, he is one of the few who can […]
