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Burn After Reading
Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand in Burn After Reading (dir. Ethan and Joel Coen, 2008).When the Coen Brothers are in top form, as they are in their new CIA comedy Burn After Reading and last year's No...
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Hell Is a City
Stanley Baker and John Crawford in Hell Is a City (dir. Val Guest, 1960).Billie Whitelaw.The coin game on the moors.Well-shot Manchester noir from Hammer Films that struggles not to be stodgy and...
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The Matador
Pierce Brosnan in The Matador (dir. Richard Shepard, 2005).Neither winning performances by Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear nor some clever plotting can compensate for the lazy, feel-good moral...
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The Baron of Arizona
Vincent Price in The Baron of Arizona (dir. Samuel Fuller, 1950).Loosely fact-based story of James Reavis, the brazen swindler who faked centuries-old Spanish documents bequeathing the entire Arizona...
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Man of the West
Julie London and Gary Cooper in Man of the West (dir. Anthony Mann, 1958).This film--its story, presentation of character, plot movement, implied heroic code--is best watched as one would attend to the...
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Smiley Face
Anna Faris in Smiley Face (dir. Gregg Araki, 2007).[Thanks to Mike Hauser for recommending this!]The little I remember of Gregg Araki's doom-and-gloom extrusions of decadent Gen-X trauma from the 90's...
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Hang 'Em High
Bruce Dern and Clint Eastwood in Hang 'Em High (dir. Ted Post).If you stare at that title long enough, it stops looking like English.The biggest surprise for me about Hang 'Em High--a movie that's been...
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The Mack
Max Julien as Goldie in The Mack (dir. Michael Campus, 1973).Could director Michael Campus possibly be the same Michael Campus responsible for this year's made-for-DVD Thomas Kinkade's Home for...
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W.
Josh Brolin in W. (dir. Oliver Stone, 2008).W. is a movie almost entirely without a point of view. Oh sure, it depicts the Bush presidency and the Iraq invasion as a massive travesty, but that's not a...
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Appaloosa
Renée Zellweger in Appaloosa (dir. Ed Harris, 2008).When the only two bad things about a movie are the title font and the song that initiates the end credits, it's an occasion for celebration. Ed...
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Avida
Anselme as le chanteur de faïence in Avida (dir. Gustave de Kervern and Benoît Delépine, 2006).Velvet as Avida.Claude Chabrol as le zoophile débonnaire.At eighty-three minutes, Avida still feels long....
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Forty Guns
Barbara Stanwyck in Forty Guns (dir. Samuel Fuller, 1957).Gene Barry, Robert Dix, and Barry Sullivan.Sandra Wirth.Barbara Stanwyck's role in Forty Guns is in some ways similar to the part she played a...
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Moontide
Ida Lupino in Moontide (dir. Archie L. Mayo [replacing Fritz Lang], 1942).Jean Gabin as Bobo.Alcoholic montage sequence courtesy of Dalí.The massive publicity campaign undertaken by Twentieth...
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Changeling
Angelina Jolie in Changeling (dir. Clint Eastwood, 2008).I usually like Clint Eastwood movies best when he's in them--his own presence serves to distract him from his over-inclination towards...
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Across the Bridge
Rod Steiger in Across the Bridge (dir. Ken Annakin, 1957).A businessman (Rod Steiger) fleeing to Mexico to avoid prosecution for financial corruption throws a fellow passenger off the train in order to...
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Synecdoche, New York
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton in Synecdoche, New York (dir. Charlie Kaufman, 2008).The heading for one of the message board threads at the IMDb page for Synecdoche, New York reads, "Maybe...
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Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Brooke Chia Thao, Chee Thao, and Ahney Her in Gran Torino (dir. Clint Eastwood, 2008).The critical controversy surrounding Gran Torino is that Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a...
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Top Ten Films of 2008
This year's list took some padding and slippery conceptualization before it would satisfy me. If it had been a list of just comedies, it would have been easy to complete: many of the top ten are...
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The Wrestler
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2008).Mickey Rourke has never been one of my favorite actors, and it's odd that this stale dirty-realist draaaaama should show him to best...
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Pit and the Pendulum
Barbara Steele in Pit and the Pendulum (dir. Roger Corman, 1961).Larry Turner as the young Don Medina.Vincent Price.The second of Roger Corman's eight or so Poe adaptations (depending on which ones you...
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