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Gentleman's Agreement
(1947)
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David Sterritt
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Gentleman's Agreement still comes across as a smart, incisive, and engrossing drama, and although times have changed since 1947, the subject it so boldly tackles remains timely and relevant to this day.
Posted Jan 24, 2020
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The Broken Circle Breakdown
(2012)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's a powerful film that builds to intense, overwhelming emotions with a very human core.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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The Prey
(2011)
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Sean Axmaker
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Eric Valette tries to keep it grounded in action scenes built on a physicality that is more authentic than the overkill of CGI spectacle.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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Wadjda
(2012)
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Sean Axmaker
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Filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour uses the simple story as our entry into a complex culture and a pointed perspective on how women are treated in Saudi society ...
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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The Long Day Closes
(1992)
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Sean Axmaker
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There's no traditional story to speak of here, no dramatic conflict to send the characters off on a goal or motivating action to set a series of events in motion. Rather, Davies offers cinematic snapshots capturing privileged moments...
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1923)
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Sean Axmaker
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Lon Chaney created a lot of twisted wretches, vengeful villains, and criminal masterminds, but Quasimodo remains his most sympathetic screen character.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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Strange Behavior
(1981)
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Sean Axmaker
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The title Dead Kids makes it sound like a slasher picture or a zombie film [but] it's really a mix of mad scientist thriller and revenge movie dropped into a somewhat surreal recreation of small-town Midwest America.
Posted Apr 03, 2014
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5 Broken Cameras
(2011)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a mix of citizen journalism and social memoir.
Posted Mar 24, 2013
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Silent Souls
(2010)
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Sean Axmaker
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... slow and introspective, paced in long, still shots that seem to drift in time rather than march forward.
Posted Mar 23, 2013
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Young, Violent, Dangerous
(1976)
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Sean Axmaker
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These aren't angry rebels without a cause, they are thrill killers without motivation.
Posted May 04, 2012
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Come Blow Your Horn
(1963)
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Sean Axmaker
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... like a cartoonish fantasy of the Mad Men sensibility of philandering men who treat the female sex as a buffet for their perusal.
Posted May 04, 2012
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The Visitor
(1964)
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Sean Axmaker
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... neither satire nor romantic comedy... [it] offers a much more layered and unexpected portrait in disappointment and resigned concession.
Posted May 04, 2012
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Brief Encounter
(1945)
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Sean Axmaker
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... still embraced as one of the most romantic films ever made, and it has earned its reputation.
Posted May 04, 2012
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Blithe Spirit
(1945)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a lightweight comedy built on witty remarks and upper-class smugness (which Rex Harrison so perfectly embodies), but comedy is not Lean's strong suit.
Posted May 04, 2012
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This Happy Breed
(1944)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's quite the study in domesticity and acceptance, and it even presents socialist activism and union strikes as some sort of idealistic fling...
Posted May 04, 2012
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In Which We Serve
(1942)
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Sean Axmaker
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... an accomplished, sincere, and moving piece of filmmaking that honors the characters and involves the audience.
Posted May 04, 2012
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The Nude Vampire
(1969)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a strange work of conspiracy, family rebellion, and innocence imprisoned, both a vampire film and a strange science fiction fantasy of shadowy old men performing secret experiments.
Posted Mar 10, 2012
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Belle de Jour
(1967)
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Sean Axmaker
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Luis Bunuel's cheerfully brazen satire of sexual repression, social decorum, and erotic fantasies is in the running for Bunuel's kinkiest film, and that's saying a lot.
Posted Mar 10, 2012
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Vanya on 42nd Street
(1994)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a record of a creative collaboration that has a life of its own, at once documentary, filmed rehearsal, play within a play, and private production restaged for a camera...
Posted Mar 10, 2012
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(undefined)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a heady, witty, stylistically audacious, highly compelling, and very entertaining science fiction thriller years ahead of its time.
Posted Mar 10, 2012
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No Blade of Grass
(1970)
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Sean Axmaker
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Cornel Wilde's grim, fatalistic end-of-the-world thriller... is a forgotten dystopian classic of its time.
Posted Feb 19, 2012
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Seven Chances
(1925)
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Sean Axmaker
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... Keaton transformed the material into his own brand of humor: from stage farce to snappy cinematic slapstick, with Buster turning verbal jokes into visual gags.
Posted Feb 19, 2012
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Two Flags West
(1950)
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Sean Axmaker
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... an adult and thoughtful production that explores the conflicts of men who are both enemies and allies in the waning days of the Civil War.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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I Only Want You to Love Me
(1976)
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Sean Axmaker
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... he brings a morose naturalism to the film even as creates an atmosphere of isolation through the performances.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Shakespeare Wallah
(1965)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a bittersweet drama of the twilight of a theatrical way of life.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Election
(1999)
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Sean Axmaker
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Payne and Taylor are equal opportunity satirists and their sly wit dismantles everything from high school culture to suburban complacency.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom
(1924)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a lightweight, fun-loving romantic comedy set on the bustling streets of Moscow ...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Four Times
(2010)
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Sean Axmaker
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It's both an embrace of the comfort of ritual and certainly and acknowledgement of the magic of the unexpected and the accidental bringing change to routine.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Doughboys
(1930)
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Sean Axmaker
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... (Keaton) brings his brand of comic chaos to the front lines of France and manages to turn bad luck into a happy ending in the trench warfare of World War I.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Salt for Svanetia
(1929)
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Sean Axmaker
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This film doesn't simply record the lives of an alien culture, it dramatizes it with imagery and recreations that turns documentary into drama with a passion.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Po zakonu (By the Law) (Dura Lex) (Troye)
(1926)
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Sean Axmaker
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The tension is grueling and the climax is haunting.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
(1924)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a political cartoon of a Soviet satire that knowingly spoofs American stereotypes of "Bolshevik revolutionaries" through the comically surreal odyssey of the gullible Mr. West...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Tenth Victim
(1965)
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Sean Axmaker
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Petri directs with tongue firmly in cheek, lampooning the media obsession with high risk contests and games of chance with cool sixties style ...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Torso
(1973)
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Sean Axmaker
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The motivation is right out of the Psycho playbook, only not quite as convincing.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Going Places
(1974)
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Sean Axmaker
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... Blier's portrait of showy machismo, reflexive bad behavior and empty pleasure is his sad commentary on seventies culture.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Identification of a Woman
(1982)
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Sean Axmaker
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... a film filled with mysteries that are never resolved and images that are simultaneously lonely and lovely.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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City of Life and Death
(2009)
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Sean Axmaker
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City of Life and Death puts a convincing image to the abstract history.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Quatermass Xperiment
(1955)
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Sean Axmaker
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... the film is never less than intriguing and, at is best, is haunting, horrific and riveting.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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The Rules of the Game
(1939)
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Sean Axmaker
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... at once savage social satire and a compassionate comedy of manners with a sour undercurrent.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Three Colors: Blue
(1993)
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Sean Axmaker
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As one might assume from the title, the color blue dominates the palette, from the light over the city at dusk to the glow from the swimming pool she visits ...
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Three Colors: Red
(1994)
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Sean Axmaker
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... the most densely and deftly woven of the three films.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Sherlock Holmes
(1922)
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Sean Axmaker
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While Barrymore has the profile and the intent, intelligent focus we recognize, this is a Holmes mystery without the deerstalker cap, the Meerschaum pipe or the faithful Watson at his side.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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Medea
(1970)
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Sean Axmaker
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Pasolini strips the play down to symbolic, almost abstract expressions of scenes and ideas, like the cinema equivalent of hieroglyphics.
Posted Dec 17, 2011
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La Rabbia
(1963)
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Sean Axmaker
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Though created out of documentary footage, this non-fiction production is not a documentary but an essay film, a philosophical rumination by way of a political editorial...
Posted Aug 21, 2011
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The Lickerish Quartet
(1970)
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Sean Axmaker
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You could describe this delirious erotic fantasy as a stag film reworking of Teorema as directed by Alain Resnais.
Posted Aug 21, 2011
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People on Sunday
(1930)
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Sean Axmaker
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The inventive filmmaking, breezy pace, light touch, luscious images and gentle, appreciative spirit of the film makes it a classic.
Posted Aug 21, 2011
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The Band's Visit
(2007)
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Sean Axmaker
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[Writer/director Eran] Kolirin finds bittersweet humor in the comedy of their melancholy lives and fumbling efforts at communication and common ground
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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Her Night of Romance
(1924)
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Sean Axmaker
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Director Sidney Franklin... brings elegance to the silly little romantic comedy and keeps the story moving and the comedy bouncing.
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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Battle Beyond the Stars
(1980)
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Sean Axmaker
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John Sayles manages to work some offbeat science-fiction ideas around the edges of an otherwise derivative plot...
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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Jalsaghar
(1960)
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Sean Axmaker
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[Satyajit Ray's] most accomplished film up that time and many critics still hold it as the director's masterpiece.
Posted Aug 03, 2011
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