Full disclosure: I read Washington Square years ago and hated it. I hated it because of Catherine, the main character, whom I felt was one of the worst characters I’d ever encountered in a novel. So I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t realize this was an adaptation of that novel. SPOILERS
Tag: Drama
War and Peace [Voyna I Mir] (1965, Sergey Bondarchuk)
This is an epic, 7 and a half hour adaptation of War and Peace, sort of on the scale of The Human Condition, but not nearly as long and far more ambitious. Apparently made in response to the Hollywood version, this film (or series of films) mostly realizes the promise of Peak TV decades earlier …
Il Posto (1961, Ermanno Olmi)
For most of its run, this is a pretty classic Italian neo realist film that demonstrates its neo realist chops and hits most of the marks you would think for such a film. And then there’s the final shot, one of the great ones of the decade, which was almost enough for me to bump …
A Separation [Jodaeiye Nader az Simin] (2011, Asghar Farhadi)
The is an unrelentingly bleak tragedy about the dissolution of a marriage in Iran that leads to a misunderstanding that compounds into a destructive feud between two families. It is well shot, well constructed, and well acted and it was a chore to watch as a result. (I mean that as a compliment.)
Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman)
I’ve finally gotten around to watching the film that temporarily killed Charlie Kaufman’s career as a director. If you don’t know Charlie kaufman was one of the most acclaimed American screenwriters of his era, and then he made this film. Though it is now regarded by some of one of the best movies of that …
Make Way For Tomorrow (1937, Leo McCarey)
This film is maddening and all the more maddening given its reputation. I suspect its reputation is earned in part from the Americans who had not seen films like this and decided that this must be some kind of masterpiece. Why did Orson Welles like this movie so much? Had he never seen anything like …
Nights of Cabiria [Le notti di Cabiria] (1957, Federico Fellini)
Some people say, I prefer the “early, funny” Woody Allen, in preference to his more ambitious and serious films of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Well, I have similar feelings about Fellini; I prefer the “early, realist” Fellini, or what I might less charitably call the “early, good” Fellini. I find Fellini’s later films incomprehensible …
Samurai Rebellion [Jôi-uchi: Hairyô tsuma shimatsu] (1967, Masaki Kobayashi)
This is an exceptional samurai film from a little bit past the genre’s early heyday, that manages to do nearly everything right. I have only one criticism, but it feels like a minor one given the overall quality of the film.
Obchod na korze [The Shop on Main Street] (1965, Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos)
This is a mostly excellent Slovak film about when the Jews were taken away in 1942. It’s a pretty remarkable film and, though I have some minor quibbles, I think I am willing to say it is one of the essential films of 1965.
Apur Sansar [The World of Apu] (1959, Satyajit Ray)
At long last, I’ve finish the Apu Trilogy. I no longer remember when I watched the second movie (first). But it was a long time ago. Somehow, in the last few months, I’ve seen both the first movie and third. So, um, hooray!
Tôkyô monogatari (1953, Yasujirô Ozu)
Some critics consider this simple drama to be the best movie ever made. I don’t really understand that, as I don’t really believe that there is a “Greatest Movie of All Time.” I know there are movies I’ve watched that have felt “near perfect” to me but I’m not sure too many of them would …
Carnival Magic (1983, Al Adamson)
There are some terrible movies that are technically awful and might have actually been saved by some budget. And there are some terrible movies that are bad for story reasons, in addition to some other issues (the cast, the script…). This is one of the latter, presumably a product of the animal craze caused by …
Ugetsu (1953, Kenji Mizoguchi)
This is another Japanese film (another downer) from decades ago that is ranked by some among the best ten films of all time. I don’t really know how you narrow down literally millions of movies to 10 but I guess some people feel they can. The issue with so many of these lists which include …
Fortitude (2015)
So this is a hard show to review for me because we watched the first season a few years ago, we watched the second season maybe at the beginning of the pandemic and we just watched the abbreviated final season this week. My memory of both the first and second season has faded and it’s …
Sátántangó (1994, Béla Tarr)
Since I re-ordered my list of films to watch, to prioritize critical opinion, I’ve been watching a lot of extremely long films. I think these types of films are critically celebrated for at least two reasons: There’s a self-selecting group who watch these types of movies: only certain types of people will sit through a …
Zalava (2021, Arsalan Amiri)
This is a psychological horror drama set in an absolutely gorgeous part of Iranian Kurdistan pre Iranian Revolution. There’s a bit of a Wicker Man vibe to it, though it is a little more grounded in reality (and a hell of a lot prettier). SPOILERS
Arthur Rambo (2021, Laurent Cantet)
This is the story of a rising French literary star (and YouTube personality) whose career is derailed right at the moment of his big triumph by his Twitter history. it’s something that happens seemingly every day in our world and yet I don’t think I’ve seen yet seen a movie that explicitly deals with this, …
True Things (2021, Harry Wootliff)
This movie follows a predictable arc, if you’re familiar with its type: the main character is struggling with their life, a mysterious stranger comes in and entrances said character (or “insert other plot device here”) , and then life lessons. (Sorry for the mild spoiler.) I point this out so early in the review because, …
Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (2021, Edwin)
This film is many things all at once. It is, kind of incredibly, based on a novel, which made my confusion over what happens all the deeper, as the thing that I can’t resolve feels like its the kind of issue that wouldn’t exist in a book. So I’m wondering if something was lost in …
I, Claudius [I·CLAVDIVS] (1976)
I don’t know when the first TV adaptation of a novel or series of novels was, but I suspect this has a claim to be one of the earlier ones. Even if we spread out to movies, there were very few thorough and complete adaptations of novels, as movies were just too short. So, whatever …
Magic Mike (2012, Steven Soderbergh)
This is an entertaining and engaging comedy drama about male strippers during the financial crisis. It’s sort of an oblique comment on the consequences of the financial crisis and it’s fascinating that Channing Tatum wanting to star in a movie about his life as a stripper before he got famous turned into this film.
The Human Condition (1959, 1961, Masaki Kobayashi)
This is an epic film, released as a series, that adapts an epic novel. Taken as a whole film, it is one of the longest narrative films ever – by my count the 8th or 9th longest ever, and probably the longest ever made at the time of its release. But it was released as …
Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)
Don’t ask me why I saw Aparajito first but I did. (It’s an A movie and I must not have known it was a sequel years ago when I saw it.) But it was long enough ago that I don’t really remember it (and long enough ago that I lost my review when Zip.ca died). …
Woman in the Dunes [砂の女 or Suna no onna] (1964)
This is a really distinct and kind of crazy film that pairs a plot that could be in a horror film with a bit of a retelling of the story of Sisyphus. It is also, perhaps, the most incredible use of sand in a movie in film history. Very mild spoilers
Sansho dayu [Sansho the Bailiff] (1954), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
There’s a high standard to meet “The Greatest Film of All Time.” Though it’s sometimes not #1 on lists, Sansho the Bailiff has been called “The Greatest Film of All Time,” “Perfect” and many other things and when it’s not considered the single greatest, it’s often on a very short list. It’s even harder for …
The Singing Detective (1986)
Had I encountered this remarkable TV miniseries in my 20s, when I had my highest tolerance for meta commentaries on storytelling, I might have lost my mind over it. However, that tolerance has waned over the years and I struggled with it instead.
Zana (2019, Antoneta Kastrati)
This is, I believe, the first Kosovar film I’ve ever seen. However, it’s far from the first “woman loses a child and goes batshit crazy” film I’ve seen. In fact, I’ve seen so many of those movies, that the torp feels like a sexist cliche to me. This film was directed and cowritten by a …
The Leftovers (2014)
This is a well-made show with at least one fatal flaw. (And possibly two. I didn’t get that far.) Recommended as ideal for watching during the pandemic we found quite the opposite: that the pandemic actually made the whole thing seem far less believable than it might have seemed when it first aired.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007, Cristian Mungiu)
This is an extraordinarily bleak film. You probably know it as the “Romanian abortion movie”. It’s a pretty extraordinary film despite its bleakness and is very close to being a masterpiece, in my opinion. If you haven’t seen it yet – it took me nearly 14 years for some reason – I would recommend it …
Private Fears in Public Places aka Coeurs (2006, Alain Renais)
This is an incredibly stagey French adaptation of a British play. I’m not familiar with the playwright but I can’t imagine getting excited about seeing one of his plays, if this is faithful.