It's a tragedy that Ang Lee became so obsessed with frame rates and de-ageing, because it meant we lost one of the finest makers of character dramas there was. It's so easy to imagine the version of this that's been filmed entirely in handheld medium shots and lacks any discernible interest in its performances; in Lee's hands, though, it's an exemplar of a rare, precious kind of filmmaking, palpably and unmistakably crafted without once being showy. It's honestly kind of…
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Private Life 2018
Tamara Jenkins and Maren Ade: two absolutely first-rate writer-directors of warts-and-all character studies who also both happen to make films way too infrequently. Of all the voices that make up the modern cinematic landscape, why do theirs have to be so little heard?
Anyway, this is a near-masterpiece, but of course it would be, wouldn't it? As with The Savages, Jenkins gives us a pair of impossibly well-formed protagonists and somehow manages to make them at once desperately flawed and…
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The Charge of the Light Brigade 1968
Whatever you want to say about this, one thing's for sure: it's not your average British historical drama. Like John Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (made the year earlier), it puts a distinctly modern slant on the Victorian era, but Tony Richardson goes further than Schlesinger in seeing just how far the genre's customary stateliness and prestige can be bent before breaking. Richard Williams's animations never stop being arrestingly weird, and the live-action segments have a vigour and energy…
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The Stranger 1991
What seems initially like an ominous mystery (a woman and her family are visited by a man claiming to be her long-lost uncle) becomes something far richer and more emotionally layered, a philosophical story of supposedly educated people being challenged to expand their worldview and experiences. Only Satyajit Ray, with his acute sensitivity and wisdom, could have told this story this way.
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Allen v. Farrow 2021
Why don't we all just forget about when Mia Farrow's legal team, which included one Alan Dershowitz, offered to make the molestation charges go away if Woody Allen would agree to a $5 million settlement? I don't know about you, but to me that doesn't exactly look like something a woman who feared "for years" that her boyfriend was a paedophile would do (see also: allowing him to co-adopt their children in 1991).
Oh, and another thing: if it doesn't…
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Chariots of Fire 1981
In winning the Best Picture Oscar, Chariots of Fire was condemned to an image of mediocrity, its most common context for discussion being that it stole the award from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's true that two films nominated that year - Raiders and Reds - were better than Chariots, but since the Academy isn't exactly known for its perceptiveness it's best to judge it on its own terms, and in that respect, it's an assured success.
I wasn't…
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