Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)

[The following is my July entry for Blind Spots.] Some Came Running  opens with antithetical moods. Lush but subtle color paints the bus rid...

The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

Christopher Nolan's Batman  films have seriously, sometimes ponderously, probed the ramifications of superheroes in the "real"...

25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)

I continue to love Spike Lee's 25th Hour , one of his most shamelessly white elephant features (topped only by Miracle at St. Anna  and,...

Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004)

Ocean's Twelve  is one of my favorite Steven Soderbergh films and the best reflexive takedown of the sequel ever made. It jovially begin...

First Name: Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard, 1983)

If Passion juxtaposed a largely aimless narrative with another artform, painting, as a means of offering clues to its solution, First Name:...

Capsule Reviews: Sullivan's Travels, Christmas in July, Hellzapoppin'

Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges) After my intensely negative experience with The Lady Eve , a comedy that struck me as caring more f...

Charles Chaplin's 11 Features

[The following is an entry in the monthly Favorite Directors Blogathon. A master list of my choices for all 12 filmmakers (with links update...

Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2012)

I greatly enjoyed Yorgos Lanthimos' breakthrough feature Dogtooth , even if its nastiness was just a bit too much at times. Alps  is no ...

Favorite Directors Blogathon

My blogging buddy Carson Lund recently told me about a meme started by Loren Rosson that highlights a favorite director each month and rank...

Passion (Jean-Luc Godard, 1982)

If Sauve qui peut (la vie) represented Godard’s return to cinema, Passion illustrates how frustrated he still was with the artform and its...

The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925)

I adored Chaplin's The Gold Rush  the first time I saw it, taking to its deft comic staging and its occasional, well-judged sentimentali...

¡Que Viva Mexico! (Sergei Eisenstein, 1932/1979)

¡Que Viva Mexico!  marks the first time Sergei Eisenstein truly hit a wall during production, though unlike his later hassles with Stalin...

Stella Days (Thaddeus O'Sullivan, 2012)

Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Stella Days  is pianissimo drama about an old Irish priest and his muted sorrow that gets so bogged down on it...

A Burning Hot Summer (Philippe Garrel, 2012)

Oh, that I had watched a Philippe Garrel film before this. Routinely praised by critics, Garrel has been a major blind spot of mine for some...

The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012)

Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man  would be a decent movie if it had nothing to do with comic books. When left to his own devices, Andr...