An apparition standing in grassy weeds on the other side of a river. No words, movement, gestures. Like a mannequin, and in bright sunlight yet. And then she’s gone. All my life I’ve felt vaguely creeped out by this scene in Jack Clayton‘s The Innocents (’61). Alas, your typical horror fan wouldn’t so much as … Read more
If you could easily move into any home or apartment in which a movie character resides, what would you select? A recent Facebook thread asked this question, and believe it or not the author said he’d like to live in Scotty Ferguson‘s Vertigo apartment in San Francisco. The guy has his pick of any residence … Read more
Last night I attended a screening of Benedict Andrews‘ Seberg (Amazon, 12.13), a bland and under-energized dramatization of the FBI’s persecution of actress Jean Seberg for her support of the Black Panthers in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It struck me as the kind of thing that used to be called “an HBO movie” … Read more
Is Suspiria to Luca Guadagnino what The Women was to George Cukor? I don’t know why I just wrote that. I’ve heard that Suspiria contains a striking en masse nude scene (all women, all ages and shapes). Given that this trailer is more of a show-and-tell than the last one and especially considering that this … Read more
The Cannes jury press conference happens today (Tuesday, 5.8) at 2:30 pm, but there’s nothing to see until Asghar Farhadi‘s Everybody Knows screens this evening. It screened last week for Parisian press, and the loose talk during last night’s La Pizza gathering was that it might be on the “meh” side. One journo said he’d … Read more
In a 5.2 N.Y. Times article called “Dear Movie Industry, We Have Thoughts’, critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis riff on this and that. A diverting enough thing until I came upon Scott’s startling suggestion that anyone offering a historical analogy about today’s near-tyrannical climate of politically correct admonishing is up to no good. “Please … Read more
Roger Ebert once wrote that “the great movies enlarge us, they civilize us, they make us more decent people.” I’d like everyone reading this to stop what they’re doing for ten seconds, take a breath and ask themselves the following two questions: (a) “Has there ever been a Marvel or a D.C. Comics film that … Read more
I’m afraid that Ridley Scott‘s All The Money In The World is one of my picks of the litter, and so HE’s Best of 2017 roster has to be once again recalculated: Top ten: (1) Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name, (2) Chris Nolan‘s Dunkirk, (3) Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird, (4) Darren Aronofsky‘s mother!, … Read more
When I say “the Get Out cabal” I’m not talking about the critics who are crazy for Jordan Peele’s horror-thriller. If they want to call this modestly clever allegory about racial relations one of the year’s best, fine. Earlier today a Sight & Sound poll of 2017’s finest films had Get Out in the #1 … Read more
Ridley Scott‘s All The Money In The World screens today for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but the rest of us will be on hold until, I’m presuming, next week. This aside I’ve seen almost everything (not all but most) and so here, almost finally, are HE’s Best Films of 2017 — chosen not on … Read more
Four words automatically come to mind when I think of senior Indiewire critic David Ehrlich — “brilliant if occasionally deranged.” I will never forgive Ehrlich for praising Quentin Tarantino‘s The Hateful Eight as “a national treasure” and “The Thing meets an early John Ford movie”…never! He is, however, a skilled editor with a talent for … Read more
The recent celebration of the box-office performance of Andy Muschietti‘s It is not only premature (again, the domestic tally so far is nowhere close to even a third of what The Exorcist made back in ’73 and ’74) but grotesque. Especially when compared to the obviously superior quality of Olivier Assayas‘ Personal Shopper and its … Read more