|
10/10
|
Tokyo Olympiad
(1965)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
[Kon Ichikawa is] equally concerned with defeat as he is with victory, finding a compassionate nobility in the losers and their need to compete and struggle in the face of impossible odds.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
10/10
|
War and Peace
(1966)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...an essential masterpiece.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
3/10
|
Supernatural
(1933)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
A big fat goose egg.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
2/10
|
Connecting Rooms
(1969)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
A painful failure.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
9/10
|
Salesman
(1969)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
It's so detached from the outside world that it might as well be from a different planet.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Antonio Gaudi
(1984)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
[Hiroshi Teshigahara attempts] to grapple with the Catalan architect's legacy, traversing his work in a state of raptured reverie like a shell-shocked museum guide.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Holiday
(1938)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Even at his most self-reflexive, Grant's Case is effused with a certain detached aloofness as if he knows that life is one big game and his unexpected betrothal into Manhattan royalty a bizarre plot twist.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Teorema
(1968)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
There are many ways to react towards Teorema, and barring the harassment of cast and crew, none are wrong.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
The Song of Songs
(1933)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The main pleasure in the film is Dietrich's performance.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
5/10
|
A Man Called Peter
(1955)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
There's beauty, meaning, and truth here, but precious little lifeblood.
Posted Jun 23, 2020
|
|
9/10
|
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen
(1961)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
[It's the] insistence on the presence, validity, and importance of science amidst the Baron's fantastical proto-Looney Tunes madness that makes the film distinctly [Karel] Zeman's own.
Posted May 14, 2020
|
|
8/10
|
The Fabulous World of Jules Verne
(1958)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
One of the most superbly realized pieces of visual art to grace 1950s cinema.
Posted May 14, 2020
|
|
8/10
|
Journey to the Beginning of Time
(1955)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
There's not a drop of sarcasm or insincerity anywhere, merely wide-eyed wonder.
Posted May 14, 2020
|
|
5/10
|
The Wilby Conspiracy
(1975)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The film is a confused mishmash of genres and inexplicable character moments that fail to coalesce into something greater.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Klute
(1971)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
But Klute feels vibrantly alive in a way that betrays its subdued chilliness.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
9/10
|
Now, Voyager
(1942)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Davis' performance anchors [the story], preventing it from flying off into the realm of camp, turning an outlandish story into one painfully human and universal.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Tunes of Glory
(1960)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
A marvelous indictment of institutional machismo and performative masculinity that saw two of England's best actors...play against type and deliver two of their finest performances.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
3/10
|
Joan of Arc
(1948)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...an unequivocal bore and slog.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
The Story of Temple Drake
(1933)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Essential Pre-code cinema? Yes.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Trigger Jr.
(1950)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The film is patented nostalgia, cinematic comfort food meant for sick days home from school or visits to relative's houses that smelled vaguely of mothballs.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
8/10
|
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
(2001)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The film hums with the plasticine kineticism of Terry Gilliam as the camera tilts and moves with all the abandon of one of Hedwig's shows.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
8/10
|
Blackmail
(1929)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...crackles with the energy of a genius reckoning with a new toy-box.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
9/10
|
The Circus
(1928)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...one of [Chaplin's] most unforgettable and melancholy films, one filled to the brim with unforgettable gags and set pieces.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
6/10
|
Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice
(1952)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...a gentle satire among a sea of [Ozu's] family dramas and tragedies.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
Cluny Brown
(1946)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Cluny Brown is a late, minor [Lubitsch] film, but nonetheless enjoyable.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
6/10
|
Captain From Castile
(1947)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...suffers from many of the same problems Hollywood epics from that era faced: an interminable length hampered by poor pacing...and a certain deadening heaviness.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
6/10
|
A Fistful of Dollars
(1964)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Eastwood's magnetic presence and Ennio Morricone's unforgettable soundtrack blending flamenco guitar with haunting whistling elevates the film above its pilfered story.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
9/10
|
A Face in the Crowd
(1957)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Consider this [film] an essential one for these equally essential times.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
7/10
|
The Baker's Wife
(1938)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The film's a time capsule of pre-war French cinema, flawed yet charming, problematic yet inviting.
Posted Jan 09, 2020
|
|
6/10
|
Call Northside 777
(1948)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...the film is more than just a stylistic curio, it's a portent of things to come.
Posted Nov 15, 2019
|
|
7/10
|
The Escape Artist
(1982)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The Escape Artist doesn't always make sense, but the ultimate magic trick is that we don't care.
Posted Sep 10, 2019
|
|
10/10
|
Police Story
(1985)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...a bona fide masterpiece of action cinema.
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
5/10
|
Jackie Chan's Police Story 2
(1988)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The film's paralytic self-seriousness fails to mesh with its outlandish characters and scenarios.
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
7/10
|
My Cousin Rachel
(1952)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...a delicious romantic melodrama ruthlessly dissecting the fragility of the male ego that's remembered less for its own merit than the notedness of its cast and crew.
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
8/10
|
The Magic Flute
(1975)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
If anything, The Magic Flute gives viewers the clearest window into Bergman's fascination with the otherworldly, as the project allowed him to realize his childhood dream of filming his favorite opera.
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
7/10
|
The Kid Brother
(1927)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The Kid Brother demonstrates some of the best and most moving of Lloyd's acting...
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
6/10
|
Forever Amber
(1947)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
However, the adaptation's studio-mandated propriety keeps it from truly transcending the tired strains of soap opera melodrama.
Posted Jun 03, 2019
|
|
5/10
|
No Orchids for Miss Blandish
(1948)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...one of the most inexplicable, poorly conceived, and even more poorly executed genre exercises of its time.
Posted Mar 24, 2019
|
|
7/10
|
True Stories
(1986)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Byrne brings [his] big-hearted love of the nakedly quotidian to his first directorial effort...
Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
8/10
|
Shame
(1968)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...one of [Bergman's] most unfairly overlooked films of the 1960s.
Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
7/10
|
Chikamatsu Monogatari
(1954)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
Here is the rare Japanese period film of its era that also explicitly recognizes the double standards of sexual morality between the sexes...
Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
6/10
|
Shampoo
(1975)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...unhurried if not slow, it at times feels downright deflated as characters wander ponderously through mansions and backyards or drive down crowded highways and empty hillside roadways.
Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
7/10
|
Cold Water
(1994)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...autobiographical influences aside, the film feels a decidedly minor work
Posted Mar 11, 2019
|
|
9/10
|
The Princess Bride
(1987)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...a lavish studio spectacle...
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
|
9/10
|
Andrei Rublev
(1966)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...a sprawling historical biography that sought to connect a godless society with the medieval monasticism that defined them as a separate ethnocultural entity.
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
|
6/10
|
Nostalgia
(1983)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...the film seems positively out of place compared with the two decades long string of challenging masterworks that preceded it.
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
|
8/10
|
The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez
(1983)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...an indie godfather of Chicano cinema...
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
|
9/10
|
Dragon Inn
(1967)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
...the rare coalescing of disparate artistic modes into something so new, so bold, so defiantly different that the history of a genre can be demarcated into eras before it and after it.
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
|
9/10
|
Dead Man
(1995)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
If not the best American Western of the 1990s, then certainly the most original and unusual.
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
|
4/10
|
Wild Bill
(1995)
|
Nathanael Hood
|
The main problem in Wild Bill is that it seeks-and fails-to balance New Hollywood introspection with B-movie theatrics and action.
Posted Dec 29, 2018
|
>