When you begin the month with a film like “Incendies,” it’s downhill for the remaining 30 days. Luckily I started reading “Trust.”
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Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” (2010): Seeking Expiation
In Denis Villeneuve’s 2010 film “Incendies” siblings seek a brother and father never known to deliver letters from their recently deceased mother.
Continue reading...René Clément’s “Forbidden Games” (1952): Mourning as Indifference
Forbidden Games (1952) tells a story of how children, uninitiated in the rituals of mourning, recognize the loss of those dearest through substitution.
Continue reading...Ain’t it cool?!: “John Wick” (2014)
The culture of the exotic, fascinating underworld thrills us in John Wick, not merely the ironic, at times graceful, well-choreographed gun-fu.
Continue reading...“Collateral” (2004): Notes on Michael Mann and Modern Urban Space
Notes on the debt to Miami Vice, the treatment of urban space, and stylistic gunplay in Michael Mann’s 2004 film Collateral, which stars Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise.
Continue reading...Joseph Losey’s “Accident” (1967): Elliptical yet fascinating
The 1967 film Accident narrates the sexual and professional tensions between an Oxford philosophy professor, his collegue, and his students, in events leading to the title event. What threads the film does not develop make the film compelling and its characters sympathetic.
Continue reading...Read, Viewed: January 2021
January 2021 inaugurated both a new year and (Gott sei Dank!!!) a new president, during which I read and watched Vertigo, Stanley Cavell, Signs, Inside Llewyn Davis, and others.
Continue reading...Read Viewed Consumed 2020-12
Perhaps I began the month of December inauspiciously, insofar as I read/viewed/consumed nothing on the first day of the month (see below). In fact, I did read two different Harry...
Continue reading...“Marauders” (on Netflix now) is Sooooo Bad
The 2016 film Marauders is a gunplay and bank robbery story that is not so bad that it’s good.
Continue reading...Read Viewed Consumed 2020-11
During the month of November what I read and viewed—what I consumed—was less varied and somewhat sparse. In fact, lost some weight.
Continue reading...“Sudden Fear” (1952): Neither sudden nor fearful
Sudden Fear tells the tale of a playwright that married the wrong man and was almost written out of the script.
Continue reading...The Genius of Ozu’s “Good Morning” (1959)
Children in Good Morning protest social mores because they fail to appreciate the rules governing the relations of families and neighbors.
Continue reading...Is Writing About Bad Movies a Waste?
In which I performatively answer the question with reference to an episode of The Mandalorian, whether one should write about bad movies/televisions shows.
Continue reading...Joanna Hogg’s “Unrelated” (2007): The Desire to Belong
Reflections on an early film by the British film director Joanna Hogg, which I viewed in preparation for seeing The Souvenir (2019).
Continue reading...200107: Reading Journal
The January 2010 reading journal addresses In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, Our Idiot Brother, Filmed Thought, and Jamaica Inn
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