La Nouvelle Vague (The French New Wave)
Included are my favorite thirteen films. Four are directed by Godard, three by Truffaut, two by Renais, and one each by Chabrol, Demy, Malle, and Varda.
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Category: Criterion Collection
The Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
All twenty JLM films rated to coincide with a retrospective at the Criterion Collection. This includes his masterpiece “All About Eve”.
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Classic Film Noir At Twentieth Century Fox
Fox Noir: Welcome to the world of the femme fatale and multiple flashbacks. Otto Preminger’s “Laura” with Clifton Webb is the crown jewel. And Gene Tierney.
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Godland (2023) Hlynur Pálmason’s Masterpiece A+
Pálmason, his cinematographer (Maria von Hausswolff), and his composer (Alex Zhang Hungtai), bring back colonial memories of such movies as “Black Robe”.
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Grey Gardens (1975) Film Review A+
After its release, the film’s high campness – a tragic story set in the faded milieu of New York high society – developed a significant gay following.
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Fox and His Friends (1975) B+ Rated: Seventeen Fassbinder Films.
A fascinating look at gay life in the seventies, it’s one of a dozen great movies Fassbinder wrote and directed in the decade before his untimely death.
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Jeanne Dielman (1975) Film Review A+
In “Jeanne Dielman”, a feminist masterpiece, the everyday details of a caring mother contrast with her life as a prostitute.
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The Swimmer (1968) Film Review B
With a near-great performance by Burt Lancaster as the title character who “swims his way home” through his “river” of backyard swimming pools…
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Portrait of Jason (1967) Film Review A
A true breakthrough and a film that has improved with age. Documentary filmmaker Shirley Clarke interviews gay African American hustler and aspiring cabaret performer Jason Holliday in his apartment at the Hotel Chelsea.
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Purple Noon (1960) Film Review B+
Although it lacks the emotional depth and the great supporting cast of Minghella’s film, this version has a unique style thanks to director Rene Clement.
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Vertigo (1958) Film Review A+
Anchored by an incredible performance by James Stewart as Scotty Ferguson a private detective and ex-cop who suffers from vertigo (fear of heights) after a coworker fell to his death, and Kim Novak is spectacular in the dual role of Judy/Madeleine.
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Written on the Wind (1956) Film Review B+
The film’s central tenet is that Kyle (Oscar Nominee Robert Stack) and his ruthless sister Marylee (Oscar winner Dorothy Malone) lust after the same man.
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Rear Window (1954) Film Review A+
Stewart, Kelly, and Ritter are all magnificent. Kelly, looking radiant, gets to deliver one of the big screen’s all-time sexy lines.
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Rope (1948) Film Review A-
The story, which is based on the Leopold and Loeb case is irresistible. Granger and Dall are perfection and Jimmy Stewart is also amazing.
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Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Film Review A+
Alfred Hitchcock, the cinema’s greatest director, made seven perfect films in which every shot, every camera move, every editing sequence is, well, perfect.
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