Big Night [1996] – ★★★★ They say there can never be two chefs in the kitchen, but Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci proved there can be two directors on a movie set and a glaring success. This drama-comedy is based on a book by Joseph Tropiano and set in the 1950s, telling of two very…
Category: Short Reviews
Short Reviews: Utama (2022), & There Will Be No Leave Today (1958)
Utama [2022] – ★★★1/2 Everything seems close to extinction in this film: a place, a mode of life, a language (Quechua), and maybe even the film itself, with its slow pace which may now be compared unfavourably with the recent popular trend of fast-paced, genre-bending flicks. Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s debut film Utama follows an elderly…
Classic Courtroom Dramas: Witness for the Prosecution (1957), & Anatomy of A Murder (1959)
I am continuing the celebration of classic films this month with this double film review post. American legal dramas of the 1950s were in the league of their own, and, apart from the two films I will discuss below, there were also such films as Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957), Edward Dmytryk’s The Caine…
Short Reviews: Dark Waters (2019), & Thank You for Smoking (2005)
Dark Waters [2019] – ★★★1/2 Directed by Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven (2002), Carol (2015)) and based on a magazine article that tells of a true story of one corporate lawyer who challenged a multi-billion chemical empire, Dark Waters focuses on Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) who travels to his home-town in West Virginia to discover evidence…
“Out to Sea”: Kramer’s Ship of Fools (1965), & Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944)
I. Ship of Fools [1965] – ★★★★ “When I think of the things I have seen on this ship. The stupid cruelties. The vanities. We talk about values? There’re no values. The dung we base our lives on…We are the intelligent, civilized people who carry out orders we are given. No matter what they may…
Short Reviews: The Servant, A Kiss Before Dying, & Isle of the Dead
The Servant…one of Britain’s most memorable cinematic creations.
Short Reviews: Raise the Red Lantern, Quiz Show, & Close-Up
With an exquisitely beautiful cinematography (by Zgao Fei), Raise the Red Lantern is one of the most important films of the 1990s and a true cinematic masterpiece.
Short Reviews: The Red Shoes, West Side Story (1961), & Black Narcissus
I. The Red Shoes [1948] – ★★★★1/2 The Red Shoes is about the rise to stardom of a dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) who falls under the strict control of one charismatic, but elusive and mysterious company director Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). Page becomes truly famous after appearing in Lermontov’s ballet “The Red Shoes”, but…
Spotlight on Film 