Eleventh Hour, Year Zero: My 10 Favorite Italian Neorealist Movies
The question of how to define a neorealist film, much on my mind for the first five months of this year, received unexpected clarification just under two weeks ago. For […]
The question of how to define a neorealist film, much on my mind for the first five months of this year, received unexpected clarification just under two weeks ago. For […]
The more I’ve read about the movement — or oeuvre — or feeling, labeled “Italian neorealism,” particularly in recent months, the less of a grasp I feel I have on […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
In addition to a pair of silent film adaptations and a 1959 Julien Duvivier film starring Brigitte Bardot, the two most notable cinematic takes on the 1898 Pierre Louÿs novel La […]
There are several interesting ways of contrasting these two landmark films about cybernetic organisms, or cyborgs. One could play up the dystopian angle, thinking of RoboCop as the Brazil (or […]
Earlier this month, the Oscars happened, at which, to my great surprise and delight, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite took home Best Picture in addition to three other awards. It bested eight competitors, […]