Category: Film
-
Reel 92: Critical Response
If you’re going to be a film director—if you’re going to work anywhere in the entertainment industry, really—It’s important to have a thick skin, because critics are absolutely everywhere. Some directors will insist that the critics are wrong; that they’re out of touch with audience tastes. Other directors will own their failures. For example, Roland…
-
R.I.P., Robert Duvall
It remains one of the great screen entrances in movie history. Near the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, director Robert Mulligan’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s controversial novel (adapted by Horton Foote), Jem (Philip Alford) is taking his sister Scout (Mary Badham) home from a school pageant when they’re attacked by Bob Ewell (James “Buddy” Anderson),…
-
Short Subject: Sean Looks Back at the Sundance Film Festival
As you no doubt know, actor/director/producer Robert Redford died last week at the age of 89. Now, lots and lots of people took the time to look back at his film career, so Sean and Claude took a different tack and reviewed a different aspect of Redford’s legacy: the Sundance Film Festival. Redford wasn’t one…
-
In Memoriam – Robert Redford
Early in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman, there’s a blackjack game happening in a bar between a couple of players. The man dealing the cards, a blond-haired man with a mustache, has been winning hands, and one of the players, Macon, accuses the other man…
-
Top 10 (well, 11) Movies Of The 21st Century
This past week, The New York Times published a list of what their critics consider the 100 best movies of the 21st Century, with Parasite topping the list. At a cursory glance, I’ve seen 97 of the 100 on the list, and probably agree with a number of them. I myself did not participate in…
-
Reel 86: The Magnificent Andersons
And this, children, is what happens when you don’t hit the “Publish” button. Enormous apologies and thanks for your patience. I’ll make up for it by publishing another episode tonight, since that was the plan anyway. While I’m at it, I also apologize for the cover art. I couldn’t come up with anything good. This…
-
R.I.P., Gene Hackman
Ever since the movies became a business in the U.S. (which started way back in the silent era), the men behind them sold an image not only of the U.S., but of glamour and beauty, which extended to the people that appeared on-screen. Many of the best movies ever made in Hollywood then (and even…
-
Network (1976) – Review
It may be hard to imagine in this day and age of “Peak TV” (or “Too Much TV”), when television is considered an art form equal to, if not greater than, movies, but back even 40-50 years ago, television was considered “a vast wasteland”, to quote Newton Minow, in a speech he made when JFK…
-
A Face in the Crowd (1957) – Review
In his career, Andy Griffith was best known for playing likable characters who are either dimwitted (No Time for Sergeants) or are smarter than they appear (The Andy Griffith Show, Matlock). That likability first came through in his time as a stand-up comedian and in routines such as “What it Was, Was Football”. So it…
-
When Harry Met Sally… (1989) – Review
Many of my friends from high school and college, and whom I still keep up with, are women. I find it easier to relate to them, and easier to talk to them. So the idea of a movie whose professed message is, “Men and women can’t be friends” would, at first glance, seem like something…