The music and dance are plusses, independently, almost excerptibly, in Satyajit Ray's portrait of a declining and then withdrawing aristocrat, who is in some sense ridiculous and in some sense tragic. The latter aspect is less well under Ray's control and may be a little beyond his comfortable reach.
The topper of all of Hitchcock's cross-country cat-and-mouse thrillers. The species that was spawned in the Thirties with Young and Innocent and The 39 Steps has undergone some body-building after all these years of exercise, and emerges here in a form higher (the United Nations building), wider (the Midwest corn …
The topper of all of Hitchcock's cross-country cat-and-mouse thrillers. The species that was spawned in the Thirties with Young and Innocent and The 39 Steps has undergone some body-building after all these years of exercise, and emerges here in a form higher (the United Nations building), wider (the Midwest corn …
The third and last movie of Bresson's best decade, before he went round the bend with Joan of Arc. (Not that it is impossible to titter in the wrong places at this one, too.) The details of training for, and plying, the pickpocket's trade are fascinating, and would have remained …
John Cassavetes's first attempt as improvisational maestro. It plays a little like a basketball without air in it. But the players themselves (and their coach) are undaunted. The very low budget (vicinity of $40,000), the scratchiness of the surface, the absence on screen of either Cassavetes himself or any of …
A splendid villainess named Maleficent, with yellow eyes and black horns, and a splendid final fifteen minutes when the Three Good Fairies attempt to rescue Prince Phillip from Maleficent's stronghold on Forbidden Mountain. A tiny bit draggy to that point. Produced in 70mm by the Disney animation team.
In the later stage of Billy Wilder’s career, there is an evident pull toward the romantic and euphoric (Love in the Afternoon, Irma La Douce, Avanti), and there is an opposing pull toward the caustic and raucous (One Two Three, The Fortune Cookie, the Ray Walston-Cliff Osmond bits, particularly, in …
The conclusion of Satyajit Ray's Apu serial is the only installment that fits the requirements of tight, well-proportioned storytelling, as it follows the protagonist from bachelorhood in Calcutta to wedlock, widowerhood, and reluctant fatherhood. The chronicling of a sexual relationship is a new step for Ray, and it is invested …