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The Marquise of O (1976, Eric Rohmer)
A strangely excellent movie – beautifully shot and performed. It’s very straightforward, plot-wise. The central mystery is set up in the first scene (taking place at Cafe Exposition, populated by...
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Class Relations (1984, Straub/Huillet)
“I am French and now demand quiet.” In the beginning, our young hero meets a ship’s stoker and I’m already excited, because this is my third stoker this month! First Emil in The Last Command (as...
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The Blue Angel (1930, Josef von Sternberg)
A much weirder movie than I’d expected. Emil Jannings seems drawn to humiliating roles. In The Last Laugh he was fired from his respectable job, laughed at by his neighbors. In The Last Command he has...
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People On Sunday (1930, Siodmak & Ulmer & Zinnemann & Wilder)
“Filmstudio 1929 presents its first experiment: People On Sunday, a film without actors.” Like Natalie Portman in Garden State, I like to do things nobody else has ever done before, hence I watched the...
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The Haunted Castle (1921, FW Murnau)
A silly-ass mystery film with little of the grand style of Murnau’s later films. Also: the castle isn’t haunted, and it’s not a scary movie, and Kino knew that when they gave it that goth-expressionist...
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Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
A weird sort of (anti-)war film in that the opposing sides (mostly French vs. German) are extremely nice to each other. The great Jean Gabin (between The Lower Depths and La Bete Humaine) is pilot...
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Deserter (1933, Vsevolod Pudovkin)
Another Russian movie full of visual and sound innovation that wears out its welcome after an hour and forty-five minutes of tedious state propaganda. I’m lost from the beginning – when the workers...
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World on a Wire (1973, Rainer Fassbinder)
Stiller manages a perfectly realistic virtual-reality simulator set in the future so government (and increasingly, industry) can make predictive policies. And about ten minutes into the three and a...
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The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960, Fritz Lang)
Lang’s final film finds him back in Germany, making a cheap-looking b-movie callback to one of his largest silent features and his pioneering second sound film. Immediately following his Indian Epic,...
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Forest for the Trees (2003, Maren Ade)
Not all mumblecore comedies of young-adult awkwardness come from the States, apparently. This one is from German filmmaker Ade, one of Cinema Scope’s 50 Under 50. Melanie moves to a new town where she...
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Dreileben trilogy (2011)
A different kind of trilogy, three filmmakers born in different decades each makes his own feature film set in the same town at the same time, rotating around a central event: a convicted murderer...
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Everyone Else (2009, Maren Ade)
Watched because Ade is one of Cinema Scope’s 50 Under 50, and this movie in their top ten of 2009. I didn’t love her previous feature The Forest for the Trees, but CS insisted that it gets better – and...
View ArticleA Foreign Affair (1948, Billy Wilder)
Silly setup becomes more serious as it goes along. Jean Arthur (post-semi-retirement, in her second-to-last film role) is a buttoned-up U.S. Representative (from Iowa) visiting wrecked post-war Berlin...
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Possession (1981, Andrzej Zulawski)
Funny that I’d watch this a couple days after The Tenant, not knowing of their connections. Both are made by Polish directors who started by working under Andrzej Wajda, both star Isabelle Adjani,...
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The Strange Little Cat (2013, Ramon Zurcher)
Kinda impossible to describe this movie or why it’s so great. Because of the title the viewer pays close attention to the often-seen family cat, which isn’t all that strange. The family isn’t strange...
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Phoenix (2014, Christian Petzold)
Had to see this since I also just watched Obsession, another semi-remake of Vertigo. Nina Hoss (star of Petzold’s Barbara and Jerichow), of a rich family, escaped the holocaust but is presumed dead....
View ArticleCabaret (1972, Bob Fosse)
Oscar for best actress, obviously, and also seven more (director, cinematography, supporting for Joel Grey) but picture went to The Godfather. I don’t know Liza Minnelli from much – just this and...
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Bridge of Spies (2015, Steven Spielberg)
Interesting and (obviously) expertly made and acted drama following U.S. lawyer Donovan hired to defend captured Russian spy Abel in American courts. He gets behind the job more than his bosses...
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Western (2017, Valeska Grisebach)
Right before True/False I watched a few knotty films that I’m having trouble writing about. This was the most alluring of the bunch, and though The Challenge played last year’s fest, and The Disaster...
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On the Beach at Night Alone (2017, Hong Sang-soo)
“What I want is to live in a way that suits me.” A philosophical movie starring Kim Min-hee, who has become my favorite actress at playing drunk. Part one is a half hour long and set in Germany,...
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