New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditsy Annie Hall.
The Story about the Story is an intelligent man who worries about the issues of film-making. The primary concern, the very first problem, is always to decide what the relationships are among the audience, the camera, the narrator if any, and the characters. Woody was on...
Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.
The Petaled Swirl of Influences am generally not a fan of Fellini: his early work is too sentimentally trivial for his talent, and his later work is just lazy. But in this film, he reaches more than one height. In terms of basic worlds, it is...
A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.
Film as Execution of the benefits of writing film comments is that readers will sometimes send me recommendations. If that were the only benefit, and if this were the only recommendation I would get, it would be worth it. By reading the comments, you may think...
When a secret marriage is planned between Othello, a Moorish general, and Desdemona, the daughter of Senator Brabantio, her old suitor Roderigo takes it hard. He allies himself with Iago, who has his own grudge against Othello, and the two conspire to bring Othello down. When their first plan, to have him accused of witchcraft, fails, they plant evidence intended to make him believe Desdemona is unfaithful.
Dimensional Filmmaking on Shakespeare films is rather like admiring Easter Eggs. First the inside: this was never a great play, relative to Shakespeare's other works. His great plays are about ideas, with characters as vectors to prod and activate them. This play is merely about characters,...
A sex-obsessed woman, a suicidal man she meets on the street, and a gun-crazy wannabe gangster become trapped in an underground hideaway.
Solid Shadows with Conflicting Death Wishes know a few of this man's films. They are among the richest experiences I know, but I was surprised at how deeply this one worked on me. The surprise comes in part from knowing how specific his target audience was....
An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.
Knowledge as an Impediment follow several threads of fine films. Most of these concern intelligent notions of structure, of architecture. Welles, Greenaway, Eisenstein, Kurosawa. These mend sense and intellect enhancing both. But there is another thread, one that eschews selfaware structure -- where idea is anathema....
In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.
Charming by Watching pride themselves on being direct, but Australian cinema is anything but. It is one of the most engaging trends in film today and -- so far as I can tell -- we first see it here. Actually we first see an inkling...
A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.
Magic Kitty with the notion that film has life. Film life has its own cosmology and energy that adapts and sustains. Stripped of all the unnecessary bumph, this is the notion behind the New Wave, the Old New Wave that is. At first, they mistook this...
After a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind, witnessing how filmmaking affects the locals.
Build Your own Layers does an opportunity come like this. I would like to encourage you to share it. First, you should know that I am not representing this as a "good" movie. At the same time I am putting it on my list of "films...
A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.
Seeing and Being Seen me, this film falls not into the category of favourite films (I'm a Marx brothers kind of guy) but earns instead a place on a very short list of most important movies. That's because it has two features that I truly appreciate. It...