Paul Newman has been TCM’s star of the month this May; presumably because the programmers knew just how many of his films I hadn’t seen and decided to make me happy. On my must-watch list, Paris Blues, a film I’ve longed to see, if only to further appreciate the origins of this gif: Directed by […]
The Circus is a Wacky World: ‘Inside Daisy Clover’ (1965)
Inside Daisy Clover has urgent news to impart: Hollywood is full of phoneys. Beneath its sparkling veneer, Tinseltown is a snake pit filled with sycophants and fiends who pay millions for your smile, while also stealing your soul. This revelation isn’t particularly shocking, or much of a revelation, but the film repeats it endlessly and […]
Lonely Town: ‘The Crowd’ (1928)
Here’s the second instalment in my ‘New York State of Mind’ series. The Crowd is about a man who moves to a big city and waits for his life to get started, without realising that his life has become waiting. So desperate is he to stand out from the crowd, he never considers there might […]
A Piece of the Action: ‘Quick Millions’ (1931)
Quick Millions moves like a getaway car—at speed. Within the first two minutes we meet a lowly truck driver who dreams of becoming a big shot. Within five, he’s committed a crime. Within 10, he’s laying out plans for a protection racket, the first of many schemes which pave his way to the top. Like […]
A Thing About Machines: ‘Westworld’ (1973)
What happens when man’s reach exceeds not just his grasp, but also his common sense? That’s the premise of Michael Crichton’s Westworld, in which visitors go to an amusement park for the experience of a lifetime—and get it. Welcome to Delos, the resort which promises its guests “the vacation of the future, today”. For a […]
All That Money Can Buy: ‘The V.I.P.s’ (1963)
Ensconced in the lobby of Grand Hotel, Dr. Otternschlag famously observes: “People coming, going. Nothing ever happens.” The joke is of course that he’s wrong. The V.I.P.s is filled with people coming and going, specifically a group of passengers at a London airport en route to the US. We witness one tumultuous day in their […]
Grand Tapestry: ‘War and Peace’ (1966-67)
Yesterday I spent eight and a half hours swept up in the great current that is Sergei Bondarchuk’s adaptation of War and Peace—now playing in a dazzling new restoration at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A patriotic Soviet response to King Vidor’s 1956 version—which starred Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn and had been a […]
Love on the Lower East Side: ‘Crossing Delancey’ (1988)
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here’s the first instalment in my ‘New York State of Mind’ series. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jewish grandmother in possession of an eligible granddaughter and an enterprising disposition must be in want of a grandson-in-law. Such is the tale of Crossing Delancey, Joan Micklin Silver’s […]
Street Fighter: ‘The Way of the Dragon’ (1972)
In The Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee fights in an alley behind a restaurant, in the restaurant itself, on a rooftop, in a park and at a World Heritage Site. The film exists so that we might have the pleasure of watching its hero dispatch thugs in increasingly imaginative ways. When the hero is […]
La Belle Dame sans Merci: ‘Baby Face’ (1933)
Baby Face has earned a reputation as one of the films that led to the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code—and it’s easy to see what gave censors the vapours. Not only does Alfred E. Green’s film dare to speak plainly about female exploitation, it depicts a woman ruthlessly exploiting men and celebrates her. (The story […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- …
- 7
- Next Page »