4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

This is a truly exceptional movie. It got a 97 at Metacritic, an almost unprecedented score. It is set in the 1980s, in the Bucharest of the Ceausescus, two of the more bizarre psychopaths ever to run a communist worker’s paradise. Abortion is illegal, and two ... Read more »

The 400 Blows

Sometimes life just ain’t fair. Francois Truffaut was born in 1932. In a better world he’d be 74 today, quite likely still active, probably the “Grand old man” of French cinema. But no, he died at 52 of a brain tumor. Sigh. Well, at least he was a worker, averaging one film per year. This was his first one, and one of the most influential films of all time as one of ... Read more »

42

There is absolutely nothing in this biopic of Jackie Robinson that you haven’t seen in a hundred other baseball films … and that’s okay. You go into something like this understanding that. If you aren’t interested in baseball or the great Jackie Robinson, you won’t be seeing this film, anyway, right? No one is out to dish dirt here (not that I’m aware of any dirt to dish in Robinson’s ... Read more »

42nd Street

Though Busby Berkeley had previously choreographed huge musical numbers, including his trademark overhead kaleidoscope of chorus girls, and he would go on to direct even larger numbers than what we see here, this one, to me, is the granddaddy of huge musical films. It’s the one that has lasted the longest, and has become a classic. It contains all the lovely clichés of the backstage ... Read more »

45 Years

One thing you know going into a movie starring Tom Courtenay (age 79) and Charlotte Rampling (70) is that you are going to see some seriously good acting. I remember him for his fantastic performance in Billy Liar, his third film. And she amazed and startled us all with her brave S&M performance opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Damned. ... Read more »

49-Up

The latest and possibly last of the monumental study of human growth that began in 1964 with Seven-Up! I wrote an extensive essay about the series, which you may read if you wish, so I won’t repeat any of my raves here, merely update.

… and there’s ... Read more »

5 Against the House

TMC was running a day full of films about heists. I love those films, and we caught a couple I hadn’t seen. Here a group of four students at “Midwestern College” are on a toot in Reno. Back on campus one of them comes up with a scheme to rob Harold’s Club. (When my family went west when I was 14, there was a sign for ... Read more »

5 Flights Up

In 1975 Korey Jackson and Claire van der Boom buy a cheap fifth-floor walk-up in unfashionable Brooklyn. By the time 2015 rolls around, they have grown old and turned into Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman, and the stairs are a real problem. Even their little dog can barely make the climb. But the good news is that their area of Brooklyn is trendy now, and the apartment which really has only ... Read more »

The 5 Obstructions

What an odd little movie. The grand old man of Danish cinema, Jørgen Leth, made a 13-minute experimental film called “The Perfect Human” in 1967. Leth’s student and current bad boy of Danish cinema, Lars von Trier, who professes to love Leth and his film, challenges the master to re-make his film 5 times, each time under conditions, or “obstructions,” dictated by Lars. First obstruction: ... Read more »

50 First Dates

I really hate Adam Sandler. It’s almost a personal hatred. Almost single-handedly he has lowered the standards of funny movies to a level I’ve never seen before. But from time to time he has tried to do a movie above this shitty level. I hate him so much that I haven’t seen Read more »