William Powell is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance.
—Roger Ebert
Made on a tight budget and filmed in only two weeks, The Thin Man is a wonderfully comedic murder mystery. The whodunnit portion of the film is as convoluted and nonsensical as any noir plot, but the film's purpose is not to try to follow along. Instead, it is to showcase William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a married couple who enjoy being…
Some people take, some people get took. And they know they're getting took and there's nothing they can do about it.
One of my absolute favorite movies, The Apartment has a perfect script, perfect acting, and perfect direction. The film expertly balances both comedy and drama, and while humorous, the story tackles tough issues like suicide and adultery.
Jack Lemmon is terrific as C.C. Baxter, a hapless, lonely bachelor and corporate worker drone. Because of Lemmon's acting and the strength…
Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura gives a career-defining performance as the lead in Ikiru. The film, whose title means "To Live" in English, shows how an old man works through news that he is dying. Shimura's superb acting beautifully portrays a man who is at first despondent, then desperate to enjoy himself, and then finally determined to accomplish something before he passes away. Shimura expertly portrays outward frailty combined with profound grief and eventually inner resolve.
Kurosawa splits the film into…
Strike is director Sergei Eisenstein's first feature film, and it doesn't hold back. The film is full of visual detail, especially in its radical use of montage — images late in the film comparing the violent end of the strike to the slaughter of a bull are striking. The characters are at times rather exaggerated and simplistic, but the film is highly successful in building the viewer's sympathy for the strikers.
Perhaps the most convincingly anti-war film made in Hollywood, Paths of Glory is a masterwork from Stanley Kubrick. Kirk Douglas stars as the French Colonel Dax who is ordered to lead a hopeless attack on an enemy fortification in 1916. Douglas gives a masterful performance as a heroic and dutiful officer whose righteous anger is simmering just below the surface. Dax's superiors are a pair of generals, one who is more outwardly villainous and conniving, played with fury by George…
After making the classics You Can't Take It with You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Director Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart teamed up again for It's a Wonderful Life, which would be their last collaboration. In the intervening years, Capra and Stewart had both served in World War II, and they and America had changed since the making of the upbeat, now somewhat naive classics of the 1930s. While It's a Wonderful Life has great comedic, even screwball-like moments,…
