Archive for March, 2010
Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
Towards the end of Manhattan, Woody Allen’s Isaac lies on his own couch, reminiscent of so many movie psychiatry scenes, and unknowingly performs a self-analysis with one passing comment that sums up his existence perfectly: New Yorkers, we are told, live their entire lives creating petty little problems for eachother, with the sole aim of […]
Filed under: america, comedy, philosophy of life, romance | 1 Comment
Tags: art, black and white, central park, cezanne, chaplin, city lights, diane keaton, fireworks, flaubert, george gershwin, hannah and her sisters, husbands and wives, ingmar bergman, life, louis armstrong, manhattan, mariel hemingway, marlon brando, meryl streep, philosophy, potato head blues, queensboro bridge, relationships, sentimental education, sinatra, woody allen
When Michael Berg, a shy, reserved adolescent, comes down with fever and must stop in the rain on his way home to vomit on the pavement, a woman walks by and comforts him and ensures he is okay. After three months in bed recovering, Michael returns to where he had met her to deliver flowers […]
Filed under: drama, erotica | Leave a Comment
Tags: adolescence, auschwitz, chekhov, der vorleser, holocaust, homer, illiteracy, kate winslet, law and morality, ralph fiennes, stephen daldry, suicide, war crimes, world war 2
We live in a frightening world. In The Bourne Ultimatum, when a Guardian journalist meets a CIA operative and is given information on a secret project being managed under the name of ‘blackbriar,’ the reporter’s use of the word on his cell phone triggers a rapid response from the men working in Langley, Virginia and […]
Filed under: action, crime, thriller | Leave a Comment
Tags: blackbriar, bourne, bourne ultimatum, cctv, CIA, glass shards, guardian, jason bourne, london, madrid, martial arts, matt damon, morocco, moscow, paul greengrass, tangiers, turin, washington, waterloo station
Pulp Fiction‘s status in cinema history is rather overwhelming. It was almost unanimously hailed as the fulfillment of the potential this quirky new auteur, Quentin Tarantino, had shown in his first feature, Reservoir Dogs, and also, quite flatteringly, it was seen as the saviour of modern cinema. By liberating script writers from newly ingrained plot […]
Filed under: comedy, crime | Leave a Comment
Tags: bruce willis, butch, chuck berry, dusty springfield, foot massage, harvey keitel, hemp, hitchcock, john travolta, jules, los angeles, macguffin, mia wallace, pulp fiction, quarter pounder, quentin tarantino, reservoir dogs, roger ebert, royal with cheese, samuel l jackson, son of a preacher man, the gimp, the wolf, uma thurman, vincent vega, you never can tell, zed
When presidential candidate Senator Palantine steps into the yellow cab of Travis Bickle in New York, he asks him what the one issue is that he would want to be solved. Travis’ reply is that the streets of his city are like an open sewer; they have an awful stench to them, and someone should […]
Filed under: america, crime, noir, vulgarity | Leave a Comment
Tags: catcher in the rye, cybil shepherd, dostoevsky, existential angst, god's lonely man, harvey keitel, hitchcock, isolation, james stewart, jimmy stewart, jodie foster, loneliness, martin scorsese, mohawk, mohican, new york, notes from underground, paul schrader, pimps, prostitution, rear window, robert de niro, sewers, springsteen, taxi driver, thomas wolfe, vietnam, vigilantism, you talking to me?
