That Night’s Wife Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) The words “crime drama” bring to mind shadowy characters doing dirty deals in back rooms or pool halls. Noir is token “crime drama,” and noir is awesome. But noir is not Yasujirô Ozu’s bag. His crime drama is still a Ozu film, but its inciting incident is a thrilling caper. It’s this […]
The Lovers on the Bridge Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) With a production history as troubled as just about any movie this side of Apocalypse Now, Leos Carax’s The Lovers on the Bridge is a startling depiction of love at its most foolish. Juliette Binoche’s Michele and Denis Lavant’s Alex are far from a perfect match—he’s an addict, she’s going blind, and […]
Mean Streets Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) With Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese became a made man. The semi-autobiographical 1973 film unquestionably represents the director’s coming out party as a major talent, and it does so without even the slightest hint of the man abandoning the principles of his low-budget debut—Who’s That Knocking at My Door. Mean Streets is film […]
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Martin Ritt’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold captures the essence of its source material almost eerily well. Adapted from what’s arguably John le Carre’s best and most well-known novel, the film and its lead character are portraits of Cold War malaise. Though it came out in 1965, during the […]
Radio Days Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Radio Days comes at an interesting time within the Woody Allen canon. That output that follows it (excepting Crimes and Misdemeanors) for the next several years is generally regarded as a series of high-concept, well-intentioned misfires. Preceding Radio Days, of course, were Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Broadway […]
A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) With more than 40 titles on his resume, Woody Allen‘s career has rarely been static. He wouldn’t be working today if he made the same movie every year. While Woody Allen movies most certainly can be defined reflexively, his style is much more a matter of applying a precise tone to an […]
Boxcar Bertha Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) The winsome harmonica that opens Martin Scorsese’s second feature film, Boxcar Bertha, should be all the indication you need that it isn’t the kind of movie we’ve come to expect from the king of the gangster flick. Boxcar Bertha is Southern-fried pulp through and through. From the characters’ unmistakable drawl and the […]
The Paper Review
RATING: (2 STARS) It’s almost stunning how quickly Ron Howard’s The Paper collapses in on itself. Here’s a film that’s mostly fine, if a little familiar, for 80% of its running time. But my God, when it fails, it fails spectacularly. Almost any good will Howard and his all-star cast build is gone by the […]
Bringing Out the Dead Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) Arguably one of Martin Scorsese‘s most forgotten (and forgettable) titles, 1999’s Bringing Out the Dead is a slippery eel of a film that eludes classification as defiantly as it does a traditional narrative trajectory. We never see our protagonist, Nicolas Cage‘s Frank Pierce, in a good place, so as far as the […]
Casino Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The 1990s were a fascinating period in the career of Martin Scorsese. It might not have been his most creatively fruitful decade, but he really started to experiment and step away from what’d become known for—The Age of Innocence, Kundun, etc. Casino, then, is an anomaly because it’s so (for lack of […]
Night and Fog Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Alain Resnais originally didn’t want to make Night and Fog, and following its production, he suffered from prolonged nightmares. A viewer might experience something similar. It isn’t an easy task to sit down and consume Night and Fog, despite its mere 30-minute running time, and its disturbing imagery will leave that viewer […]
Die Hard Review
RATING: (4 STARS) There’s a reason why, 25 years after its release, John McTiernan’s Die Hard is such a ubiquitous film. There’s a reason why it’s been sequelized and duplicated to death. There’s a reason why, following it, Bruce Willis became a star. There’s a reason why it’s often named among the very best action […]
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
In my latest Essential Docs piece for Sound on Sight, I took a look at the making-of-Apocalypse-Now documentary Hearts of Darkness and the trouble with chasing absolute truth through one’s art. It’s a pretty fascinating film, made up almost exclusively of archival footage from Francis Ford Coppola’s wife Eleanor’s on-set video and audio diaries. Give […]
Man with a Movie Camera
I’ve begun writing a column for Sound on Sight called “Essential Docs.” It’s exactly what you think it is—a discussion of non-fiction movies, specifically the films that have endured as cultural and cinematic milestones years and decades later. My first piece discusses Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent documentary Man with a Movie Camera, which is magical […]
Metropolitan Review
RATING: (3 STARS) It takes a bold man to craft a film around a group of really snotty, spoiled teenage Manhattanites, but Whit Stillman did just that with 1990’s Metropolitan. He judges these characters without coming across as too judgmental, crafts them in a way that they deserve our scorn and sympathy simultaneously. It’s a […]
Sunday Afternoon with Criterion: The Earrings of Madame de… Edition
I: Intro II: The Earrings of Madame de… III: What’s New? Intro Welcome to Sunday Afternoon with Criterion, a series of posts on JohnLikesMovies.com covering everything Criterion—the company’s newest releases, just-announced projects, reviews, lists, links, and more. In the midst of the bi-annunal Barnes and Noble Criterion sale comes a killer lineup announcement. February 2014—like […]
