Ernst Lubitsch brings “the Lubitsch touch” to this light but witty romantic comedy starring Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones.
Category: Criterion
‘Ace in the Hole’ – newspaper noir on Amazon Prime and Criterion Channel
Billy Wilder is the American cinema’s most famous cynic, but nothing in his career is as scathing as this noir-tinged newspaper drama, an indictment of the American media circus.
‘Breathless’ – Jean-Luc Godard’s new wave classic on HBO Max, Criterion Channel, and Kanopy
Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a charming rogue of a street thug in this cinematic blast across the bow of the French filmmaking and international cinema.
‘Three Colors’ – Kieslowski’s sublime trilogy on The Criterion Channel and HBO Max
The three colors are blue, white and red. They are the colors of the French flag, of course, and they are appropriated by director Krzysztof Kieslowski along with the themes of the motto they more or less represent: liberty, equality, fraternity. But the films Three Colors: Blue (1993), Three Colors: White (1993), and Three Colors: […]
Marlon Brando in ‘On the Waterfront’ on Amazon Prime
On the Waterfront (1954) –”I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” Marlon Brando won his first Academy Award as Terry Malloy, the former prize fighter turned longshoreman on the mob-dominated docks of New York. Directed by Elia Kazan and starring Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, […]
Last chance: David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Dr.’ on HBO Max
Mulholland Dr. (2001) – David Lynch pulled a near magic trick in what can only be an exercise in creative rewriting and re-conception. Taking an open ended TV pilot rejected by the networks, he added 45 minutes and created closure in a weird, mystical logic that, in its unique Lynchian way, makes a twisted emotional […]
Last chance: Burt Lancaster is ‘The Leopard’ in Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece on Criterion Channel
The Leopard (Italy, 1963), Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel (said to be a national touchstone for Italy), is his masterpiece. Burt Lancaster (his voice is dubbed by a deep-voiced Italian) may seem an unusual choice to play Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, an idealistic 19th century Sicilian prince (Visconti favored Laurence Olivier, a […]
Last chance: The glory of Astaire and Rogers in ‘Swing Time’ on HBO Max
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the most elegant of Hollywood’s dance teams in the golden age of American musicals and Swing Time (1936) is the peak of their ten-film output. The plot is as absurd as anything from the era: Astaire is a dancer and gambler who is set to marry his hometown sweetheart […]
David Lean’s ‘Great Expectations’ on Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel
Great Expectations (1946), David Lean’s handsome adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, captures the warm humor and richness of character that so many filmmakers miss in their reverent recreations of Victorian England. From the nightmarish opening sequence on the windswept graveyard where young orphan Pip (Anthony Wager) meets the desperate escaped criminal Magwitch (Finlay Currie) […]
‘Red River’ – the great cattle drive epic on Amazon Prime
Howard Hawks reworks Mutiny on the Bounty as a frontier epic in Red River (1948), the sweeping tale of a journey that can’t be made and the story of a son forced to battle the father he loves and adores. Montgomery Clift made his film debut opposite grand old icon John Wayne, playing Matthew Garth, […]