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Jour de fête (1949)
Director/Coscreenwriter: Jacques Tati By Marilyn Ferdinand This is part of the Criterion Blogathon hosted by Criterion Blues, Speakeasy, and Silver Screenings. Jour de fête was the very first film I...
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Home Care (Domácí péce, 2015)
Director/Screenwriter: Slávek Horák 2016 European Union Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand If we live long enough, we will be confronted with the crisis known as middle age. Some middle-aged men live...
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Latin Lover (2015)
Director/Coscreenwriter: Cristina Comencini 2016 European Union Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand The movie industry trades in all types for all tastes. Among male matinee idols, you have your...
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Director: Jim Sharman By Roderick Heath Incredible as this will sound, this week I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show from beginning to end for the first time. Oh, sure, I’d seen most of it in bits...
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Free Entry (aka One Day of Betty, 2014)
Director/Screenwriter: Yvonne Kerékgyártó 2016 European Union Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand One type of film I’ve charted through my own experience is the coming of age of a teenage girl. Having...
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Nothing in Return (A Cambio de Nada, 2015)
Director/Screenwriter: Daniel Guzmán 2016 European Union Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand If you liked The 400 Blows (1959), then I have a feeling you’re really going to want to catch Nothing in...
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I Swear I’ll Leave This Town (Prometo um dia deixar essa cidade, 2014)
Director/Screenwriter: Daniel Aragão 32nd Chicago Latino Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand The Chicago Latino Film Festival premiered in the meaning-loaded year of 1984, and numerous films it has...
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Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Director: James Whale By Roderick Heath Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus is a foundation text of both the science fiction and horror genres. Born of a dull, rainy summer by Lake...
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My Name Is Emily (2015)
Director/Screenwriter: Simon Fitzmaurice 2017 European Union Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand Although Ireland is a modern country and vibrant part of the European Union, the cliché of the quirky,...
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Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur les Pianiste, 1960)
Director/Coscreenwriter: François Truffaut By Roderick Heath The evergreen lustre the early films of the French New Wave still retain stems in part from a tangible quality inseparable from the moment...
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Car Wash (1976)
Director: Michael Schultz By Marilyn Ferdinand The American New Wave of the 1970s saw a great flowering of independent films. The ’70s were an especially fruitful time for African-American filmmakers,...
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The Women’s Balcony (2017)
Director: Emil Ben-Shimon By Marilyn Ferdinand It is with a light and generous heart that I suggest anyone within reach of a movie theater showing The Women’s Balcony pack up your necessities and head...
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The Ladies Man (1961)
Director/Screenwriter/Actor: Jerry Lewis By Roderick Heath Jerry Lewis’ partnership with Dean Martin had terminated in 1956 as Lewis increasingly dominated their movie collaborations. For every...
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Baby Driver (2017)
Director/ Screenwriter: Edgar Wright By Roderick Heath Here there be spoilers… A heist scene, both in life and in movies, is traditionally a scene of fear, ferocity, chaos, and sometimes bloodshed....
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Me, You, Him, Her (Je, Tu, Il, Elle, 1974) / All Night Long (Toute Une Nuit,...
Director/Screenwriter/Actor: Chantal Akerman By Roderick Heath Chantal Akerman’s death in 2015 at the age of 65 was a wrenching moment for many movie lovers, and closed curtains on a career beloved in...
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The Quartette (Kvarteto, 2017)
Director/Coscreenwriter: Miroslav Krobot 2017 Chicago International Film Festival By Marilyn Ferdinand I was reminded while watching the fine 2017 Brazilian documentary In the Intense Now, playing at...
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The Wedding Plan (2016)
Director/Screenwriter: Rama Burshtein By Marilyn Ferdinand The Wedding Plan is a slippery film to write about. It seems to want desperately to be a screwball comedy in the Julia Roberts mold—mostly...
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The Disaster Artist (2017)
Director/Actor: James Franco By Roderick Heath When I wrote about Tommy Wiseau’s The Room (2003) in 2011, I finished up my commentary with a flourish of mock-epic prose: The Room finishes, and yet its...
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Phantom Thread (2017)
Director/Screenwriter/Cinematographer (uncredited): Paul Thomas Anderson By Marilyn Ferdinand Leo Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina, famously starts, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is...
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The Party (2017)
Director/Screenwriter: Sally Potter By Marilyn Ferdinand Sally Potter is an independent filmmaker, a term that takes on an expansive meaning when applied to her. Potter is not constrained by custom and...
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