The directorial of Tommy Lee Jones is an odyssey of a contemporary western both rough and poetic, laconic and passionate.
Category: Cannes winner
‘Amores Perros’ – A dog-eat-dog world on Criterion Channel
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s trilogy of stories connected by a crippling car wreck is quite literally a portrait of a violent dog-eat-dog world in the margins of Mexico City.
Ken Loach’s ‘I, Daniel Blake’ on Hulu
This classic Loach social commentary, a defiant cry for dignity and respect for the folks at the bottom of the social ladder wound through a touching portrait of human compassion, won the Palm d’or in 2016.
‘Drive’ – Ryan Gosling’s getaway on Peacock
Sleek pulp crime cool meets arthouse style thriller in Drive (2011, R) starring Ryan Gosling as a taciturn getaway driver. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (a veteran of gritty, brutal Danish underworld dramas) with a silky smoothness and a stylized cool that recalls Le Samourai and Walter Hill’s The Driver, and an eighties vibe and […]
Oscar-winning Hollywood love letter ‘The Artist’ on Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max
The Artist (2011) is a valentine to silent movies. You’ve likely heard that before and it’s true, but it’s more than that. A modern movie in a classical mode, shot in glorious black and white without spoken dialogue (but filled with music and sound) and directed with a lively spirit of romance and adventure and […]
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 […]
‘Fantastic Planet’ – the animated cult classic on HBO Max and Criterion Channel
La planète sauvage, the original French title of Rene Laloux’s legendary animated feature Fantastic Planet (France, 1973), is a better indication of the torments that await the inhabitants of this cult science fiction classic. The oppressed (and very human-like) Oms live in a world ruled by blue-skinned giants called the Draags, who treat the diminutive […]
Last chance: ‘My Golden Days’ on Criterion Channel
My Golden Days (2015), from French filmmaker Arnaud Desplichin, is ostensibly a sequel / prequel to Desplichin’s breakthrough feature My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument (1996) but it lives on its own as a remembrance of times past. Mathieu Amalric (Desplichin’s cinematic alter-ego) reprises his role as Paul Dédalus twenty years […]
Kirk Douglas in ‘Detective Story’ – the original precinct cop drama on Peacock
Detective Story (1951) is the godfather of the TV precinct show. Adapted from Sidney Kingsley’s Broadway play and directed by Hollywood master craftsman William Wyler, it plays out almost entirely in the detective squad room over the course of a long shift. Kirk Douglas stars as Det. James McLeod, a law and order zealot with […]