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NEW DOUBLING
THE CANON 2012 Update |
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Link for this year's process-:
IMDB Classic Film Board |
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Recent Viewings |
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° The Navigator (Buster
Keaton & Donald Crisp/1924/USA)
"Buster
Keaton's 1924 film is about a rich young couple, who have never
needed to look out for themselves, cast adrift on a deserted ocean
liner... The situation is perfectly suited to Keaton's natural sense
of surrealism—everything is too big, too full, and too much. Keaton
and his girlfriend (Kathryn McGuire) become two innocents lost in a
threatening, mechanistic Eden, alone in their oversized world. A
masterpiece, and very, very funny."
-
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
→ TSPDT:
Recommended |
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° Take Shelter (Jeff
Nichols/2011/USA)
"A
hallucinatory thriller anchored by a deeply resonant sense of
unease, Take Shelter finds writer-director Jeff Nichols
honing, polishing and amply confirming the raw filmmaking talent he
displayed in Shotgun Stories. Like that auspicious 2007
debut, this deliberately paced psychological drama builds an
ever-tightening knot of tension around an excellent Michael Shannon,
here playing a family man slowly driven mad by apocalyptic visions
that could be paranoid, prophetic or both." -
Justin Chang, Variety
→ TSPDT: Worth a
Look |
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° Sátántangó (Béla
Tarr/1994/Hungary-Germany-Switzerland)
"One of the great, largely unseeable movies of the last dozen years,
Hungarian director
Béla Tarr's
seven-and-a-half-hour Sátántangó... Most simply described,
Tarr's masterpiece—adapted from a much esteemed, if still
untranslated, novel by László Krasznahorkai—is a bleakly comic
allegory of social disintegration on the muddy puszta. Set on
an entropic collective farm during the last years of Hungarian
Communism, it's a mordant, characteristically Eastern European tale
of hapless peasants and charismatic swindlers."
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J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
→ TSPDT:
Recommended |
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° The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre
Dardenne & Luc Dardenne/2011/Belgium-France-Italy)
"If The Kid with a Bike is a fairy tale,
it's the unsentimental kind that locates the dark enchantment in
characters discovering themselves during their most despairing
moments. Still, it's certainly the Dardennes' fleetest, warmest film
to date: Working with their customary cinematographer Alain Marcoen,
they use Seraing during summertime as a sharp contrast to the dumpy,
industrial patches of Liege which had previously set the stage for
their ferocious allegories of morality and redemption."
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Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine
→ TSPDT:
Highly Recommended |
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°
Another Man's Poison (Irving
Rapper/1951/UK) "Bette
Davis is feisty, man-hungry novelist on isolated Yorkshire
farm who won't let her criminal husband, or his crony
Merrill, get in her way. Well-paced melodrama can't hide its
stage origins, but Davis wrings every drop out of a showy
role."
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Leonard Maltin
→ TSPDT:
Worth a Look |
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° The Trip (Roger
Corman/1967/USA)
"The Trip is a full-blown psychedelic odyssey that many
accused of being a "user's manual" for LSD, in spite of the
hilarious tacked-on bookends of an anti-drug disclaimer at the
beginning and a broken-mirror effect at the end... Based on a
Jack Nicholson
script, The Trip may be the longest high in film history, but
its kaleidoscope eyes take a remarkably ambiguous journey through
sensual wonderment and abstract horrors."
-
Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club
→ TSPDT: Approach with
Caution |
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° Moneyball (Bennett
Miller/2011/USA)
"Who knew statistical analysis could make you choke up with emotion?
Surprisingly poignant for a movie that turns America’s pastime into
a card-counting experiment—and filled with crackling dialogue from
Oscar winners Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian—Moneyball
focuses on the essential issue of baseball and of life: How do you
measure human value?"
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Stephen Garrett, Time Out New York
→
TSPDT:
Recommended |
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° Red Light
(Roy
Del Ruth/1949/USA)
"Red Light is one of George Raft’s most unusual and
intriguing films, combining as it does themes of religion and
revenge. Presented starkly in true noir fashion, these conflicting
elements elevate the film from just an ordinary crime drama. Another
reason Red Light succeeds as a more effective entry than most
of Raft’s post-Warner Brothers films is due to the efficiency of the
director, Roy Del Ruth."
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Stone Wallace, Noir of the Week
→ TSPDT: Worth a Look |
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° Hugo (Martin
Scorsese/2011/USA)
"In attempting to make his first film for all ages, Martin Scorsese
has fashioned one for the ages. Simultaneously classical and modern,
populist but also unapologetically personal, Hugo flagrantly
defies the mind-numbing quality of most contemporary kidpics and
instead rewards patience, intellectual curiosity and a budding
interest in cinema itself." -
Peter Debruge, Variety
→ TSPDT:
Recommended |
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° Norwegian Wood (Tran
Anh Hung/2010/Japan)
"A movie like Norwegian Wood is a peculiar case – its
intentions are sterling, and it's hard to pinpoint any technical
flaws. The problem, maybe, is that it's trying too hard; Tran has
such firm control over the storytelling that the resulting picture
has no room to breathe."
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Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline
→ TSPDT: Approach with
Caution |
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° The Descendants (Alexander
Payne/2011/USA)
"Payne is too acerbic - maybe too much of an asshole - to settle for
easy humanism. But he's too smart a dramatist to settle for easy
derision. Mockery and empathy seesaw, the balance precarious - and
thrillingly so. It's the noblest kind of satire: cruel and yet, in
the end, lacking the killing blow."
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David Edelstein, New York Magazine
→
TSPDT:
Recommended |
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° 50/50 (Jonathan
Levine/2011/USA)
"Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen play to their strengths in the
comedic story of a twentysomething stricken with cancer that rings
true despite the odds... As a comedy about a young man with cancer,
it needs to be serious enough to be real as well as light enough to
be funny. Though it falls off the wagon at times, it maintains its
balance remarkably well."
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Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times
→ TSPDT: Worth a Look |
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° It
(Clarence
G. Badger/1927/USA) "A department
store clerk (Clara Bow) tries to live according to the tenets of
Elinor Glyn's book about sex appeal (also titled It) and
winds up marrying her boss. This fast and funny silent comedy of
1927 has one of the great intertitle lines of the period—“Hot socks!
Here comes the boss!”"
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Jonathan Rosenbaum,
Chicago Reader
→ TSPDT:
Recommended |
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° That Uncertain Feeling (Ernst
Lubitsch/1941/USA)
"A minor but effective late Ernst Lubitsch comedy, with Merle Oberon
and Melvyn Douglas as a couple whose perfect marriage is disrupted
by a deranged concert pianist, played full-tilt by Burgess Meredith.
The title might refer equally to Lubitsch's direction, but the film
is more than worth a look."
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Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
→ TSPDT: Worth a Look |
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° Le Quattro volte (The Four Times)
(Michelangelo Frammartino/2010/Italy-Germany-Switzerland)
"Le Quattro Volte is the freshest and the deepest film I've
encountered in a while. It's one of those rare films that anyone
could enjoy, whether or not they normally care for slow Italian art
cinema. I suspect that children would enjoy it, the more patient
kind at least – although they should be prepared for a Bambi-style
sob or two. This is an extraordinary film in every way – not to
mention the best goat film ever."
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Jonathan Romney, The Independent
→ TSPDT: Worth a Look |
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