La Regle du jeu

The Rules of the Game is one of the finest films that I have seen and I am definitely better for having watched it and Jean Renoir is one of the tops.

Citizen Kane

In 1941 writer, director, and actor Orson Welles redefined filmmaking with his classic picture Citizen Kane. There are only a very few directors who received any notoriety from their freshmen attempts at the time of their release. Orson Welles had made a name for himself on the stage and, a few years before Kane was […]

Tokyo Story

Ozu’s 1953 film, Tokyo Story, is one of the very few films that I have ever watched that made me want to telephone my mother as soon as it was over. The movie follows an aging mother and father as they take a trip to Tokyo to visit their family, which is made up of […]

Some Like It Hot

Billy Wilder’s 1959 film, Some Like it Hot, was ranked, by the American Film Institute, on their Top 100 at number 22 and at number 1 on their Top 100 Comedies and the BFI ranks it at 42. I can appreciate the effect that it had on cinema and the enduring history of Marilyn Monroe, […]

Singin’ In the Rain

Singin’ in the Rain may be my all-time favorite mix-tape that you try give a narrative. There are few musicals that have made me stop what I am doing.

Breathless

Everything you need to know about Breathless, a film from 1960 by Jean-Luc Godard, you can learn in the first six minutes. Godard lets you know, from the very first line – “After all, I’m an asshole” – that he is not too concerned with your opinions. Straight out of the gate, Godard hot-wires French […]

The Godfather

I considered spending my evening watching the many hours of special features to really dig into the heart of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II by Francis Ford Coppola, but I decided that just watching the (three) movies with the commentary gave me a sufficient amount of information. I have seen the three films enough […]

Late Spring

As an amateur film lover, my knowledge of Japanese cinema has been by a handful of Kurasawa pictures and various Kaiju smash-em-ups. I have always accepted that I exist in a sphere of naiveté when it comes to foreign films, a trait that I am eager to shed with this project. From 1949, Late Spring […]

Shoah

I have just finished watching Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, a 550-minute documentary film about the Holocaust. I cannot imagine what words I can say about the film. How do you comment on the cinematography when the subject matter is so bleak? It was a very well-made documentary and I can see why Sight & Sound […]