For the uninitiated, film noir can be a disappointing thing. The colorful dialog often veers dangerously close to camp Calvin and Hobbes "Tracer Bullet" self-parody, while the B-movie visuals sometimes aren't quite as stylish as …
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My Favorite Movies
In-depth reviews of my favorite movies of all time.
My Favorite Movies 40 – Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997)
April 8, 2013
Gummo is a movie people either hate or love. Or, more accurately, Gummo is a movie people either hate, or are apologists for--and today I guess I will be taking the apologist tack. After all, …
German director R.W. Fassbinder has always been fascinated with the human desire for love and the soul crushing games of power that the human desire for love wreaks on those who attempt to be loved. …
My Favorite Movies 38 – The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950)
February 11, 2013
Man do I love heist movies. I'm not talking about wacky romps like the Ocean's 11 movies (though they are fine for what they are), I'm talking about the old school heist movies where EVERYBODY fucking …
My Favorite Movies 37 – The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979)
January 14, 2013
The Warriors is one of the manliest movies ever made. A gang of sweat-soaked, half-naked men run across three burroughs of New York City, periodically stopping to roll around on the ground with men from other gangs …
My Favorite Movies 36 – Destry Rides Again (George Marshall, 1939)
December 10, 2012
As one of the first, and most famous, "pacifist westerns," it is tempting to discuss Destry Rides Again in terms of the fascinatingly contradictory tenants of that genre. However, because I've already discussed pacifist westerns, I figured …
My Favorite Movies 35 – The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942)
November 12, 2012
Few directors dominated the early 1940s like Preston Sturges. While not the first writer-director, Sturges was the most famous early example of a screenwriter who also directed his own films, paving the way for Orson …
1982's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy marked the beginning of a remarkable 30 year unbroken streak of yearly film production for Woody Allen. As with any filmmaker that prolific, there are bound to be some …
My Favorite Movies 33 – Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1975)
September 10, 2012
Everybody knows that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is (along with This is Spinal Tap) the funniest movie of all time. I could go on and on listing all the funny parts, but, bottom …
My Favorite Movies 32 – Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997)
August 13, 2012
I don't tend to like directors with flashy visuals. I'm a Hawks and Rohmer man after all, for me, restrained stylistics are a sign of a master craftsman with nothing to prove. At least that's …