The opening with its black and white nostalgia of small towns as they are dying and cinema obsession made me fearful that Kings of the Road would merely be a German The Last Picture Show, but fortunately Wenders instead does something entirely unique to himself with the cinema being less born out of cinephilia so much as it being the perfect window dressing for isolation in the modern age (though I guess now he'd be a computer repairman). It might…

At the very least this restoration Olive has put out is one of the greatest in history. I can't think of any other 100+year old film that looks this perfect and it really adds to the enjoyment of the film which is honestly only memorable for how crisp and clear it makes the world of Hungary circa WWI look. The story is a fairly generic European melodrama for its time with little to differentiate itself from, say, The Marriage Circle.…

If this isn't the worst film nominated for best picture it comes pretty close considering how it offends all senses and sensibility. This is just an incompetently made film with stuff out of focus and a shaky cam that makes Greengrass look sober. I can't think of anything that should do worse for the reputation of amateur productions then this. Though the worst aspect of the film is how it renders an object of romance the poor. I honestly thought…

This is eerily similar to Killing Them Softly from a few years ago with its desperation to appear important through over emphasizing the topicality of the plot. Every moment is built to either underline the cruelty of the recession or complain about the speed with which times are a changing. The western, region not genre, setting of the place compliments the themes a bit better than the other film's Atlantic vibe, but that mostly works to make the genre stuff…