The guy Toller is arguing with at the diner about climate change is the most unlikable character in any of these three Schrader movies, and that’s saying a lot.
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Master Gardener 2022
As my friend Norah and I decided where to eat before the movie, the following texts were exchanged:
Me: “Where would the master gardener eat?”
Norah: “He’d only eat food from his master garden.”
Me: “Olive Garden?”And the rest was history. Our stomachs filled on their unlimited salad and breadsticks, we walked into the AMC where I was immediately greeted by the sight of a collectible Fast X cup. I have not seen Fast X yet, as my friend…
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Raging Bull 1980
A primal unraveling of the male ego captured in stark black & white photography by Michael Chapman and centered on a career defining performance from Robert De Niro. Raging Bull sees every key figure operating at the peak of their power.
Thelma Schoonmaker cuts a kinetic, disorienting, and powerful downward spiral of this haunted character. Paul Schrader pens arguably the greatest and most incisive portrait in his series of films on troubled men, albeit with credit shared to Mardik Martin. Martin Scorsese…
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The General 1926
Its ironic that Keaton sought to make this film more accessible by flipping the history to paint the Confederacy in a positive light, only to have it become one of his biggest financial failures. Despite The General having a deserved critical re-evaluation as one of his best works, the Civil War history muddies the waters of an otherwise fantastic film.
The skewed perspective is a sign of Keaton’s artistic and performative genius perhaps not quite translating to a genius level of…
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Battling Butler 1926
Keaton’s performance— not as a physical comedian but as an emotional presence— is the best I have seen from any of these movies so far. Butler feels like a real person and he hits the dramatic beats in such subtle ways.
The downside is that Battling Butler is so low-concept that there are never any explosive set pieces, and the physical comedy is mostly confined to the boxing sequences.
It’s still entertaining, but a bit more of a slog at times.
Scorsese definitely watched this when he was working on Raging Bull because the boxing scenes are weirdly familiar.
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Go West 1925
Keaton’s typical persona is so vacant that the magical thing about him is how much mileage you get out of just saying “What if he was a detective? A sailor? A cowboy?”
Go West is essentially just a story of a young man who befriends a cow named Brown Eyes. This and Sherlock Jr. are by far the most wholesome of his plots from what I’ve seen. So much great time spent with cows doing cow things in the city.
Not as heavy on the mindblowing stuntwork, but I loved this one.
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Seven Chances 1925
The last half hour has a lot of great imagery. The hundreds of brides packed into the church is very funny. The plot set up is a funny idea for a movie that translates well enough to modern times that they even tried to remake this one with Chris O’Donnell.
Generally a pretty fun watch, the crane stunt is wonderful, and the use of technicolor at the beginning of the film is fascinating to see in such an early stage.…
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White Men Can't Jump 2023
Jack Harlow is one of Louisville’s most famous natives right now, and the theater I manage was incredibly fortunate to host a theatrical premiere of this movie last night. Harlow was there, along with our wonderful state governor Andy Beshear. I got pictures with both & they seemed like nice people.
Not letting the excitement of that experience cloud my judgement of the film, also considering I admittedly don’t have a strong association with Harlow’s music and haven’t seen the original…