A determined but hapless man who thinks he’s more competent than he is gets mixed up in a crime, and everything proceeds to go horribly wrong. That's a plot hook that the Coen brothers have riffed on several times throughout their shared career, most visibly so in Blood Simple, Fargo, and this, their first film conventionally adapted from a literary source.* What distinguishes No Country for Old Men’s take on this plot hook from its predecessors’, and indeed from the…
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The Rules of the Game 1939
When you’re starting out on your cinephile journey, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game* is one of the first experiences you’re likely to have where a film’s lofty reputation confuses you. I say this as someone who had such an experience. I first saw the film at age 16, when my knowledge of world cinema and filmmaking in general was still developing - to give you some sense of where it was, I was confident enough to say that…
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Licorice Pizza 2021
Apparently people are finding this... funny? And - and emotionally resonant? I don't know what film those people saw, but I don't think it can have been the one I saw, because the one I saw was a completely neutral experience from start to finish. The acting is pretty good, the cinematography does a magnificent job of aping Gordon Willis (a good thing), and it's wonderfully designed and dressed, but the screenplay isn't up to it. There's no characterisation to…
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Baby Doll 1956
I can't really get a handle on why this doesn't work for me. It feels as though Kazan (who's never been known for his light touch) is either unwilling or unable to treat this as a comedy, while Tennesse Williams's script is very obviously the work of a playwright, and so the finished product just lumbers along without much energy.
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Allen v. Farrow 2021
Why don't we all just forget about when Mia Farrow's legal team, which included one Alan Dershowitz, offered to make the molestation charges go away if Woody Allen would agree to a $5 million settlement? I don't know about you, but to me that doesn't exactly look like something a woman who feared "for years" that her boyfriend was a paedophile would do (see also: allowing him to co-adopt their children in 1991).
Oh, and another thing: if it doesn't…
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Singin' in the Rain 1952
I've been feeling pretty crappy lately, and I've decided that, from now on, I'll watch a favourite of mine whenever I'm like this to remind me that all is not lost. I'm going to have a hard time topping tonight's selection, Singin' in the Rain - a film I more or less grew up with, which is something I'll be eternally grateful for. I can't imagine my life without this film, one of the happiest there is. Nor do I…
