Discoveries

This are small, lesser-known films that I would never have seen or even known had I not embarked on this blog. Movies like are what make the effort all worthwhile.

No End in Sight (2007)

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
★★★★★

Are you telling me that’s the best America can do?

I have a feeling that a lot of trouble could have been avoided if our current president had just asked his father one simple question. “Dad,” he could have asked, “exactly why did you leave a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein in power after the 1991 Gulf War?” Bush 41 could have gone on to explain how they foresaw that power vacuum in Iraq could leave the country in a state of sectarian chaos and Iran as the sole regional power.

No End in Sight

We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 102 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | | Comments Off

Looking for Richard (1996)

Sunday, November 25th, 2007
★★★★★

If I told him about that other ten rolls of film, he’d want to use it.

Not long before this movie came out, I spent a couple of weeks in London and, among other things, took in a production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre at Bankside. And unlike my wimpy travelling companions, who splurged for box seats, I experienced the play in true groundling fashion, huddled against the stage in a rain storm. Okay, I don’t think the groundlings of Shakespeare’s day covered themselves in plastic bags, but they would have if they’d had them.

Looking for Richard

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 112 min. | Rated:  | Genres: 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | Comments Off

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
★★★★★

I’m not taking the vows. I’m only going to play the organ.

There is low-budget, ultra-low-budget and no-budget. I don’t know what term you’d use for a movie that could have been made with the change you dug out of your seat cushions. This is the only dramatic film made by industrial documentary filmmaker Herk Harvey, and you could be forgiven if you think you’re watching a lost episode of Twilight Zone. This simple but moody tale is as long on atmosphere as it is short on production values and running time.

Carnival of Souls

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 78 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | Comments Off

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)

AKA: Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
★★★★★

You will soon be standing where we are now.

Only the young and idealistic would believe that they could reverse the course of a murderous regime with a few thousand mimeographed leaflets, but that is what the members of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi student resistance group, tried to do and that is the crime for which many of their members, including 21-year-old Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch), were executed.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 120 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | | 2 Comments »

The Lookout (2007)

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
★★★★★

Everything’s a story. Stories are what help us make sense of the world.

As the screenwriter of Get Shorty and Out of Sight, writer/director Scott Frank knows his way around a caper movie, which helps give him a sure hand when dealing with the bank heist elements of The Lookout, but it’s the human drama that elevates this film to more insightful level. This is a character study framed in the traditional structure of a crime story and somewhat more successful in the first element than it is in the second.

The Lookout

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 99 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | Comments Off

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

AKA: La battaglia di Algeri
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
★★★★★

Give us your bombers, sir, and you can have our baskets.

In late August of 2003, there was a special screening of this film at the Pentagon, a few months after President Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” from the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. The Department of Defense was not shy about their belief that the film offered valuable and necessary insight into the problems of fighting an insurgency in the Islamic world. In short, the American military had no illusions that the fight in Iraq was far from over, even if the politicians were pretending otherwise. If you needed any other evidence that this forty-year-old film was still uncommonly relevant and current, note the film was also banned by the French for five years after its release. Clearly, the French didn’t like to be reminded of past transgressions that far outstrip anything that U.S. forces in Iraq have been accused of.

The Battle of Algiers

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 121 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | 2 Comments »

Miss Potter (2006)

Monday, August 13th, 2007
★★★★★

Why can’t you discuss the weather like the other girls?

The most common word used to describe a movie like Miss Potter is “charming,” a word that sometimes raises silent alarm bells with me. The British have another word: “twee.” According to Merriam-Webster, “twee” means “affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint,” and, in order to succeed, a film like this has to walk that dangerously thin line between charm and “twee-ness.” Miss Potter walks it so adroitly, it feels almost effortless.

Miss Potter

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 92 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | | Comments Off

The Twelve Chairs (1970)

Sunday, April 30th, 2006
★★★★★

Remember the famous Russian proverb: “The hungrier you get, the tastier the meal.” On the other hand, the French have a proverb: merde!

As the least well-known of Mel Brooks’s early films, The Twelve Chairs stands well apart from the others. It’s not a spoof of other films nor is it a balls-to-the-wall farce like The Producers. While it has its slapstick elements, it also has a kind of sweetness and elements of character drama not normally found in Brooks’s filmography.

The Twelve Chairs

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 94 min. | Rated:  | Genres: 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | 6 Comments »

Everything is Illuminated (2005)

Saturday, April 1st, 2006
★★★★★

I’m not a writer. I mean, I write, but I’m more of a collector, really.

Liev Schreiber exhibits a masterful control of tone and character in this quirky film that shifts seamlessly from quirky ethnic slapstick to something more transcendentally elegiac. Everything is Illuminated also holds its secrets close until the end without cheating the audience at all.

Everything is Illuminated

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 106 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | 2 Comments »

Whale Rider (2002)

Sunday, January 29th, 2006
★★★★★

A long time ago, my ancestor Paikea came to this place on the back of a whale. Since then, in every generation of my family, the first born son has carried his name and become the leader of our tribe… until now.

Whale Rider takes a premise that could have been a politically correct exercise in female empowerment and instead crafts something truly magical out of a myth-like tale of a culture in transition and a clash between two strong-willed individuals, both of whom love their people’s traditions in very different ways.

Whale Rider

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 101 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | | Comments Off

Saraband (2003)

Thursday, January 19th, 2006
★★★★★

Sometimes you act like a forgotten character from some stupid old film.

Saraband, probably the last film from the legendary Ingmar Bergman, re-unites us with Johan and Marianne, whose divorce we watched unfold 30 years ago in 1973‘s Scenes from a Marriage. The film plays out in the form of ten extended two-handed dialogues. Bergman is able to wring an amazing amount of drama out of this deceptively simple structure.

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 120 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | 1 Comment »

Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

AKA: Scener ur ett äktenskap
Thursday, January 19th, 2006
★★★★★

I love you in my selfish way. And I think you love me in your fussy, pestering way.

If I may grossly over-simplify the Ingmar Bergman worldview: we’re born, we die and in between, we treat each other like shit. The legendary Swedish filmmaker is a sheer master at pointing a camera at people and wringing buckets of genuine, truthful misery from them.

Scenes from a Marriage

Scenes from a Marriage is a three-hour distillation of a six-part mini-series he did for Swedish television. Despite its significant length and the fact that most of the film is comprised of extended dialogues between two people, the film holds your attention in an iron grip.

(more…)

Director:  | Released:  | 167 min. | Rated:  | Genres: , 

Posted by in Movie Reviews | | Comments Off

1/212