Film
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Fritz Lang directed this 1953 film noir, which would lead one to expect that it would be at minimum pretty good. I think it's way better than that, one of the best of its type, although it isn't my favorite (my favorite so far is Out of the Past–see this post). Glenn Ford stars as
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Not great, but in many ways very good, and definitely worth seeing. It's about the pastor of a small church in a small New York town, a part of what we generally refer to as one of the "mainline" Protestant denominations, presumably the Dutch Reformed (I can't remember whether this is stated explicitly or not).
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In case you aren't in the habit of reading Craig Burrell's blog All Manner of Thing, here are links to his three annual best-of-the-preceding-year posts: Books. Music (mostly classical). Film. In addition to the always-interesting subjects and opinions thereon, Craig is an elegant writer and a pleasure to read. While I'm at it, Craig mentions,
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Maybe it's the result of early imprinting, of the fact that moody, mostly black-and-white, mostly European films from the '50s and early '60s were more or less the definition of "art film" when I was in college in the late '60s and first encountered the concept and the thing itself. I remember seeing this one
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I meant to mention this a couple of weeks ago. After reading the book, I wanted to see the film, and did. I'm talking about the 1949 one, with Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark. Three-word opinion: it's pretty good. Slightly more expansive opinion: it doesn't do justice to the book, which of course you wouldn't
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Terrence Malick's Tree of Life was released in May of 2011, so it must have been at least sometime in that year that I saw it. Surely I mentioned it here…oh yes, I saw it in August of that year, and here's the brief post I wrote about it. An interesting conversation follows in the comments.
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In the effort to see more of the yet-unseen Bergman films in the FilmStruck catalog before it shuts down, I started watching Thirst. About fifteen minutes in I realized that I'd seen it before, only two years ago. I had not cared much for it then (see this post) and decided not to finish it. I proceeded
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This is the 100th anniversary of what used to be known as Armistice Day. God help us, what a century of slaughter that war began. What do we make of the fact that the modern era has seen both a greater awareness of and sensitivity to injustice and suffering of all sorts, not to mention
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Television is a drug, we've been told for decades. It really is. I don't like to think I'm hooked on it, and I can say in a certain sense that I "don't watch television." But that certain sense is what the phrase used to suggest (and I guess still does in many cases)–watching the stuff
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I had planned to write about something else tonight, but last night I watched the last two episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return, and for the moment am obsessed with it. I can't remember whether anyone who comments here besides Rob G is a fan and would care, and I know he's seen it, but I'll
Light On Dark Water 