FROM LON CHANEY TO LOUISE BROOKS: SILENT FILMS THAT SPEAK
An uncommon number of rare and significant silent films have made their way to DVD and Blu-ray in recent months…and I want to spread the word about them. On the documentary front, Milestone has issued a valuable two-disc…
ONLY THE BRAVE: TRUE TO ITS PROMISE
I wasn’t anxious to see Only the Brave, as I knew it would be upsetting. What I didn’t expect was a film that would make me care so deeply about its heroes, the members of the Granite Mountain Hot Shots.…
78/52: EXPLORING HITCHCOCK’S SHOWER SCENE
How many movie sequences have taken on the mythic power of the shower scene in Psycho? Few, if any, I would say. It is for that reason that Alexandre O. Philippe has been able to build an entire feature film…
THE SNOWMAN: NO THRILLS, NO CHILLS
It’s often a sign of trouble when there are three prominent screenwriters credited for a movie, especially one that’s based on a successful novel. The fact that The Snowman also features separate credits for two editors (one of them Thelma Schoonmaker,…
WONDERSTRUCK: NOT WHAT I HOPED FOR
I wanted to love this movie and had every reason to think I would. Wonderstruck wowed many critics on the festival circuit, but somehow it never drew me in. Much as I wanted to be engaged, I remained aloof from the…
CLOSE-UP ON HENRY FONDA AND JAMES STEWART
HANK & JIM: THE FIFTY YEAR FRIENDSHIP OF HENRY FONDA AND JAMES STEWART by Scott Eyman (Simon & Schuster) You may think you’ve read all you need to about Henry Fonda and James Stewart. After all, they are two…
FACES PLACES: IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST
I’ve exhausted my thesaurus trying to find new words to describe Faces Places: “charming” and “disarming” seem too obvious and overused. Suffice it to say that this collaboration between photographer and installation artist JR (age 33) and beloved French filmmaker…
