|
|
79%
|
Quartet (2013) |
"
Hoffman, of all people, should have respect enough for Smith to give her something meatier to chew on."
—
House Next Door
Posted Jan 2, 2013
|
|
|
69%
|
Les Misérables (2012) |
"
As Fantine, a gaunt Anne Hathaway plunges into her character's suffering with such unseemly relish that she practically licks her chops with self-indulgent woe. "
—
Reverse Shot
Posted Dec 27, 2012
|
|
|
75%
|
Damsels in Distress (2012) |
"
This is a very funny movie, and in some ways a dirty movie, in the old Ernst Lubitsch sense of innuendoes standing in for outright sex talk."
—
House Next Door
Posted Jul 3, 2012
|
|
|
79%
|
The Deep Blue Sea (2012) |
"
"When Davies is able to get away from the bed-sitting room Rattigan chat, he creates some of his most lushly romantic emotional spirals upward set to popular music.""
—
House Next Door
Posted Mar 24, 2012
|
|
|
100%
|
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc (Trial of Joan of Arc) (1962) |
"
The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) might be my favorite Robert Bresson film, and Florence Delay, who plays Joan and who went on to become a respected novelist in France, my favorite Bresson lead."
—
House Next Door
Posted Jan 9, 2012
|
|
|
52%
|
The Iron Lady (2012) |
"
Like most of Meryl Streep's films, The Iron Lady is mainly just a vehicle for her performance, a pretext for role-playing, another acting master class."
—
House Next Door
Posted Dec 21, 2011
|
|
|
80%
|
Shame (2011) |
"
Shame feels like the first real Fassbender vehicle in that it hinges entirely on him and his minute facial reactions and (especially) on the constant workout of his body walking and running through space. "
—
House Next Door
Posted Nov 29, 2011
|
|
|
95%
|
Paul Goodman Changed My Life (2011) |
"
I sometimes feel like I like the idea of Paul Goodman more than the reality of most of his writing, but it is this cheering idea of him as utopian sexual and societal prophet that Lee's film brings back most seductively."
—
House Next Door
Posted Oct 15, 2011
|
|
|
86%
|
My Own Private Idaho (1991) |
"
My Own Private Idaho is a seminal movie for many people. It certainly has been for me."
—
House Next Door
Posted Sep 17, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
À double tour (Web of Passion) (Leda) (1959) |
"
Chabrol was a hedonist who made no bones about how much he relished food and sex, usually in that order."
—
Reverse Shot
Posted Aug 1, 2011
|
|
|
67%
|
New York, New York (1977) |
"
A downbeat homage to bright-lights showbiz dramas, an epic orchestration that indulges in stubbornly obsessive riffs, Martin Scorsese's New York, New York (1977) seems to value awkwardness and indecision above all else. "
—
House Next Door
Posted Jun 16, 2011
|
|
|
88%
|
Deep End (1971) |
"
In all of the best work of the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, there is a barely-there surrealism in play that keeps his films excitingly unsteady."
—
House Next Door
Posted Jun 10, 2011
|
|
|
94%
|
Le Rayon vert (The Green Ray) (Summer) (2011) |
"
Delphine is the sort of person who would rather be unhappy than compromise her own expectations of life; this is a woman who's idea of beach reading is Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. "
—
House Next Door
Posted Jun 9, 2011
|
|
|
97%
|
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) |
"
"I am the earth mother, and you are all flops," Martha proclaims toward the end, and Taylor never had a line of dialogue that better suited her fighting maternal spirit."
—
House Next Door
Posted May 22, 2011
|
|
|
84%
|
The Tree of Life (2011) |
"
Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life never stops moving forward. "
—
House Next Door
Posted May 22, 2011
|
|
—
|
75%
|
Hakuchi (The Idiot) (1963) |
—
House Next Door
Posted Apr 22, 2011
|
|
|
50%
|
Mildred Pierce (2012) |
"
Haynes's Mildred Pierce finally seems like the most elaborately produced critical close reading of a novel of all time."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 26, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Red Line 7000 (1965) |
"
Howard Hawks is a great film director; his reputation is assured and seldom assailed today, so the revelation of a Red Line won't do him much harm."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Poil de Carotte (The Red Head) (1932) |
"
Duvivier's Poil de carotte (1932, Carrot Top in English) is one of the most touching films about unhappy childhood that I've ever seen."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
66%
|
The Blind Side (2009) |
"
The Blind Side, which has reportedly made close to 200 million dollars, is based on a true story (the operative word is "based," of course). "
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
76%
|
The Eclipse (2010) |
"
No, this is not The Eclipse where Monica Vitti and Alain Delon fail to rendezvous on Antonioni's empty street corner."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
62%
|
Howl (2010) |
"
Like one of those ghastly Vanity Fair black and white photo spreads where hot young actors dress up and pose as bygone icons."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
87%
|
Black Swan (2010) |
"
Stuck in some netherworld of not-quite-exploitation and maybe-serious."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
93%
|
The Kids Are All Right (2010) |
"
This is very tricky material to parse, mainly because the movie is telling us one thing in dialogue and showing us quite another visually. "
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
96%
|
The Social Network (2010) |
"
I've read a lot about The Social Network at this point, mostly raves about how it supposedly captures The Way We Live Now, but no one has really zeroed in on how deliberately alienating it is."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Hôtel Monterey (1972) |
"
Akerman sets herself a technical goal and fulfills it admirably."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
80%
|
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (The Meetings of Anna) (1978) |
"
A not particularly believable, conventional narrative about a film director (Aurore Clément) who feels alienated (surprise!) and listens to a lot of disparate people talk, talk, talk. "
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
100%
|
I, You, He, She (Je, Tu, Il, Elle) (1975) |
"
Akerman must have had enormous confidence in herself to be so bold both aesthetically and sexually so early in her career."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
60%
|
My Son John (1952) |
"
Robin Wood has written about how McCarey loves romantic couples but seems to loathe families, and this point is borne out most harrowingly in My Son John, the skeleton film in his closet, and one of the most personally revealing."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
A Matter of Time (Nina) (1976) |
"
Vincente Minnelli disowned his last movie, A Matter of Time (1976), when it was taken away from him by its producers, American International Pictures, and after its initial release it pretty much disappeared from view. "
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
——
|
Mademoiselle (1966) |
"
Jeanne Moreau made a lot of seminal movies in the 1960's,but her feral contribution to Tony Richardson's Mademoiselle (1966) has acquired a deserved cult following all its own."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
71%
|
Somewhere (2010) |
"
Coppola has shamelessly retreated to what worked for her before in Lost in Translation."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
77%
|
Tiny Furniture (2010) |
"
Dunham is a comedian of the Elaine May school; she's not as freakishly talented as that comparison might suggest, but there are moments in this film when Dunham very much resembles May's own daughter, the actress Jeannie Berlin."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
67%
|
Kitten with a Whip (1964) |
"
The laughs keep coming, and the biggest one is always when existentialist Grant (Richard Anderson) barks to Troy Donahue-like Ron (Peter Brown), "Now cool it, you creep, and co-exist!""
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
82%
|
After Dark, My Sweet (1990) |
"
Patric plays one of those sweet and totally limited ex-boxers that only seem to exist in the movies and in pulp novels."
—
Reverse Shot
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
90%
|
Public Speaking (2011) |
"
One of the greatest movies based around talk of all time."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
73%
|
Heartbeats (2011) |
"
So much of the impact of Heartbeats is erotic because it always withholds sex or breaks it up into pieces."
—
House Next Door
Posted Feb 23, 2011
|
|
|
100%
|
The African Queen (1951) |
"
A long-overdue disc of a longtime audience favorite, with an absolutely tip-top image restoration that makes this old tub look good as new."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Mar 20, 2010
|
|
|
26%
|
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2009) |
"
Markell has valiantly created a mild bit of Williams ephemera that could have been more than a curiosity piece with a more dynamic actress at its center."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Jan 14, 2010
|
|
|
80%
|
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Will o' the Wisp) (1958) |
"
Sirk is a past master of handling the most dubious writing and acting and still somehow making it conform to his overall vision."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Oct 15, 2009
|
|
|
——
|
La Bandera (1999) |
"
Was Julien Duvivier an auteur (like his countryman Jean Renoir), a skilled craftsman (like Michael Curtiz) or a pure hack (like, say, Ray Enright)?"
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Aug 5, 2009
|
|
|
63%
|
Chelsea Girls (1966) |
"
The dueling image visual feast is endlessly stimulating, even if you don't take the requisite drugs beforehand."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Aug 5, 2009
|
|
2.5/4
|
75%
|
Julie & Julia (2009) |
"
There's almost no conflict in either of the stories presented in Julie & Julia, and though this is preferable to contrived conflict, it still leaves us with a rather overlong, lovey-dovey picture."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Aug 5, 2009
|
|
|
100%
|
Repulsion (1997) |
"
It's hard to know how to take Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) at this point, and not just because of the inescapable echoes and resonances it sets off relating to his own grotesque, tragic life."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Aug 3, 2009
|
|
|
94%
|
Les Plages d'Agnès (The Beaches of Agnes) (2008) |
"
Varda turns the camera on herself and her own life, even though she convincingly posits that she's much more interested in other people."
—
House Next Door
Posted Jul 2, 2009
|
|
2/4
|
51%
|
Chéri (2009) |
"
Cheri strikes a jarring note right from the start."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Jun 25, 2009
|
|
|
——
|
Interlude (1957) |
"
During the last twenty minutes of Interlude, Sirk goes in for the kill"
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Feb 10, 2009
|
|
3.5/4
|
82%
|
Two Lovers (2008) |
"
The buried themes in James Gray's fourth film, Two Lovers, slowly emerge from its accumulation of quotidian, seemingly small details."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Feb 9, 2009
|
|
|
——
|
Griffith Masterworks 2 (2008) |
"
There's some filler here, but the restored Abraham Lincoln is impressive, and everyone should have a copy of Way Down East."
—
Slant Magazine
Posted Jan 8, 2009
|
74%
21%
63%
85%
46%
40%
