In 1964, Britain’s Granada Television charged Michael Apted (then a researcher) to select 14 seven-year-olds from disparate backgrounds for the television program, Seven Up! The aim was to get a feeling of what the future of Britain looked like: “Give me a … Continue reading 63 UP
Silent pictures are the purest form of cinema. —Alfred Hitchcock For many, he was the Master of Suspense. The eyes and hands behind Rear Window, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. The droll voice and the rotund figure behind the popular TV show, Alfred … Continue reading Blu Tuesday — Hitchcock: British International Pictures Collection
Three men work the line at the Checkered Taxi auto plant in Detroit, Michigan. Their lives revolve around hard labor and heavy drinking, getting yelled at by their supervisors and trying to keep their heads above water at home. They’re … Continue reading Blu Tuesday: BLUE COLLAR
Mr. Rodgers doesn’t feel like he should be part of this world. His gentleness, kindness, and saint-like patience seem better placed in the world of make-believe — right next to King Friday XIII and Daniel Tiger. Until the recent (and … Continue reading A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Set in London 2009 — for somewhat arbitrary reasons — The Good Liar opens with two lonely souls seeking companionship via a dating website: Distinctive Dating. Both are elderly, and both check various boxes and add personal information while the opening titles … Continue reading THE GOOD LIAR
It must have come as a surprise to filmgoers in the mid-90s that the next Martin Scorsese feature film would focus on the childhood of the 14th Dalai Lama. Then again, it probably came as a similar surprise in the … Continue reading Blu Tuesday: KUNDUN
Painted between 1348 and 1350, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains is one of the few surviving works from painter Huang Gongwang and considered by many to be one of China’s finest works. It’s a painting of rivers and mountains, and the movie … Continue reading DWELLING IN THE FUCHUN MOUNTAINS (CHUN JIANG SHUI NUAN)
Truth is a slippery thing. So are lies. There are bald-faced lies, little white lies, and evasions. But there are also constructs; stories and parables that aren’t necessarily true but point to an underlying and undeniable truth. Where the lies … Continue reading THE TRUTH (LA VÉRITÉ)
There are a great number of personal movies playing at this year’s Denver Film Festival, but Honey Boy is the rare intersection between personal memoir and commercial enterprise. One that ought to break out of the festival circuit and into mainstream theaters. … Continue reading HONEY BOY
Released in 1989, New York Stories is an omnibus film, three shorts stitched together by a city. And though two of the directors’ oeuvres are inseparable from the city streets, tenements, and high rises that dot the New York skyline, it is … Continue reading Blu Tuesday: NEW YORK STORIES
