Letterboxd — Your life in film

When I first heard Michael Haneke’s next film was called Amour I laughed out loud. Was this a joke? Haneke? Love? Surely the title is ironic. But no. The Austrian provocateur matches his clinical and icy detachment to a compassionate and uncompromising story of the slow process of disintegration and death. This is a masterpiece and it is no hyperbole that it has etched itself into the essential canon in no time at all. It feels permanent. It feels vital.…

"The Great Gatsby is beloved by countless, a tale about the selfish emptiness within decadence and the upper class, a nation on the cusp of change and the increasingly unattainable American dream. It’s a book we’ve all had to read in our respective high school classes. Reigning personal memories include a horrid group project called ‘MTV Gatsby’ set up by an overcompensating student teacher. Yes, folks. We were assigned to create a music video about The Great Gatsby which clearly…

Much more satisfying than the slim pickin offerings of Haywire, Side Effects is another genre exercise, this time working within a third generation Hitchockian springboard. It’s a meticulous Jenga of a pharmaceutical potboiler headed by Scott Z. Burns’ precision and Soderbergh’s reliably yellow-hued stasis. It’s a satisfying old-fashioned romp that plays around with manipulation through perspective.

Its final act veers into somewhat uncomfortable territory. I’m not sure if we’re ready to have gleeful throwbacks to the archaic sexual politics of…