Favorite films

  • Model Shop
  • Two in the Shadow
  • Claudine
  • Drive My Car

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  • War and Peace

    ★★★★½

  • Donkey Skin

    ★★★★★

  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

    ★★★★★

  • A Trip to the Moon

    ★★★★★

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  • The Conformist

    The Conformist

    ★★★★★

    I've got a new column going in the Cleveland Review of Books. Paradoxically, the first one is something a bit impersonal: read on and you'll see why. We are wading into weird waters here.

    (But I'm very happy with how this turned out.)

    "T/K: A Fragment, A Letter, A Dream, and Some Movies"

    www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/a-fragment-a-letter-a-dream-and-some-movies

    _______

    One of the more memorable parasocial relationships I’ve been in began in a used bookstore. You never know what you’re gonna get at Grey Matter…

  • Babylon

    Babylon

    ★★★★★

    "I don’t think I’m very good for you..."

    Or: Vincente Minnelli Jr.'s 3 Hours in Another Town ...

    "I knew Proust, you know..."

    (UPDATE: Dec 30, 2022: I’ve consolidated my two initial reviews into one, here. I say “initial,” for there will be many more responses to BABYLON from me in the future — in review form, in fiction form, in film form — and this should obviously not be taken as an exhaustive read on the brilliances, the stupidities,…

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  • Hannah and Her Sisters

    Hannah and Her Sisters

    ★★

    One Woody Allen? I can handle. But 7 or 8 Woody Allens all running around the posh Upper West, reciting their dumb cliché little take-me-downs? Get me out.

    The poor man’s Whit Stillman.

  • The World in His Arms

    The World in His Arms

    ★★★★½

    Feels like a Hawks hangout movie, which is about the highest compliment you could pay a film. I love Anthony Quinn’s rabble-rousing sailor, known only as The Portuguese, who seems to defy all known laws of morality and reason; everyone needs a The Portuguese in their lives.

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  • Oppenheimer

    Oppenheimer

    ★½

    So, to recap: INTERSTELLAR, Love conquers all 🥰; DUNKIRK, Home is where the heart is 🏡 ; in OPPENHEIMER, it’s complicated 🤷🏻

    OR

    If I wanted the Wikipedia article, I would just read it.

    OR

    Needs more Albert Einstein randomly barging in Kramer-style.

    Two hours spent obscenely building up suspense of a vile image: the explosion of the A-bomb? two minutes of a tossed-away announcement that the bomb was dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? dumb corny Marvel-y…

  • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

    It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

    ★★★★

    I had one of the most exciting encounters at a movie theater EVER yesterday, so bear with me.

    Yesterday, I re-watched It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Bland-ley Kramer, 1963) in glorious 70mm at LACMA! It's gotten a lot of hate around these parts for being cataclysmically unfunny. And while I can see why people would think so (Kramer has an awful eye for comedic direction, and the sheer pomposity of his statement that he would make "the comedy…