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Before Fritz Lang died, he had established himself as the titan of German Expressionist cinema, and he often referred to this week’s movie recommendation, M (1931), as his masterpiece. The film deals with the murderous impulses of Hans Beckert, played so well by Peter Lorre that he would reprise a similar character in many of [...]
Archive for the ‘Film’ Category
May 3rd, 2013
Category: Film
You’ve watched the scene countless times before, so much so that it’s known by a common trope: The ‘One Last Job.’ The gangster protagonist, with his career of crime behind him, has retired to a more sedate life. This new life offers a different kind of satisfaction – the banality of providing for one’s family, [...]
April 5th, 2013
Category: Film
This week’s movie recommendation is a new favourite of mine: Nanni Moretti’s recent Italian film Habemus Papam [We Have a Pope] (2011). White smoke billows above the Vatican, as the College of Cardinals selects its newest Pope. An unwitting and reluctant Cardinal Melville exchanges red vestments for pristine white, and is led towards the balcony [...]
March 13th, 2013
Category: Film
I don’t share most audience members’ love of being disoriented by the camera in films. In trailers, however, I appreciate that the game is a little different – the director wants to give an audience member enough cause to be intrigued, but not enough material from the feature to think that they’ve already got the [...]
January 11th, 2013
Category: Arts reviews, Film, Film, France, Income distribution, Literature, Music, Popular Culture, Reviews, Uncategorized
Based on its vivid colors and exaggerated gestures, one is tempted to dismiss Academy Award Best Picture nominee Les Miserables as a cartoon. But cartoons have clarity of line and a sense of direction, not to mention momentum from frame to frame. This movie is more like the result of dropping the Sunday funnies in [...]
December 30th, 2012
The film has many virtues, but it makes hash of the rules of the House, sacrificing both realism and drama to – what, prescisely?
December 2nd, 2012
Category: Film
The cost of making movies seems to climb every year, with $100 million productions being common nowadays. Yet few people would argue that Hollywood’s product is better than it was when budgets were smaller. It takes money to promote a movie and to get big stars in a movie, but fundamentally you can make a [...]