This one hit me hard–the first classic Japanese movie to really connect with me emotionally. And even this was touch and go at points, largely due to my difficulty in reading the Japanese style of acting. I was able to parse more nuance than usual, I think, and when those subtle bits of characterization hit… Read More Tokyo Story (1953)
Really disliked it. Choppy and episodic in structure, silly story, bad ending.
Oh, this was really pretty good. I thought I was tuning into an Ed Wood-style B-movie, but this was actually my favorite style of science fiction. Very light on the fantastic, and heavy on the real-world implications of the fantastic developments. While this is a movie that is clearly a product of its times, it… Read More The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)
Almost forgot to write this review, the movie was so bad. And it’s not BAD, right? There’s beauty there–but the beauty comes from mythologizing the destruction of native peoples and their lands, and there’s no amount of amazing cinematography that can erase the feeling that we’re watching something reprehensible. Hard pass.
Back and forth on this one. There were moments where I felt really engaged: Bogart’s performance here felt pretty raw and more authentic than I’ve seen from him in other movies–he was hitting similar notes in parts as his role in something like Sierra Madre, but his performance here was more felt, less rote (more… Read More In A Lonely Place (1950)
Liked this even better than Rome, Open City, despite a weak ending. The pathos here was enormous, using the naturalism of the performances to really amp up the tragedy of the otherwise mundane event. This is a simple story of a stolen bicycle, but the movie becomes something really universal. This is a picture about… Read More Bicycle Thieves (1948)
This movie has been high on my list for a while now, and it did not disappoint. This film noir was downright dirty–it was seedy, it was dark. It featured a really fine performance from Robert Mitchum, marked by this casual sense of insouciance that was almost unsettling. But even better was the performance by… Read More Out of the Past (1947)
What a strange, quirky, little gem of a movie. An RAF pilot falls out of an airplane without a parachute, but due to a cosmic clerical error (strong Good Place vibes) ends up landing without injury. As he’s falling to his death he and the radio operator fall in love, and the whole movie ends… Read More A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Really incredible achievement, filmed as I understand it while WW2 was still taking place. Heartbreaking finales to both of the movie’s two acts. This is more in the category of “historically important” more than “rip-roaring entertainment”, but I still recommend watching for the performances of Pina and Don Pietro–both will stick with me for a… Read More Rome, Open City (1945)
Whattttt was this movie. I can’t think of a movie where expectations and reality have been so starkly disparate. This movie is dark, dark, dark–leavened, of course, by a lot of humor including a really fine (almost a touch too manic in parts) performance by Cary Grant. But the plot elements–serial killer aunties, a man… Read More Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Winkie's Diner 