At the end of We Won’t Grow Old Together, Maurice Pialat’s second feature film, all the leading players have said a kind of goodbye to one another. Not the kind of farewell that marks the beginning of a long absence, but rather the kind we’ve become used to during the film: lead actor Jean Yanne as Jean, a filmmaker, doesn’t let those around …
Separating Kill Bill into two parts was probably the hardest decision to make for writer/director Quentin Tarantino yet the easiest to execute. While the film works brilliantly together (watching vols. 1 and 2 back to back), they also work as two separate films. Each part has a different tone and pace that while they don’t differ to distraction while being …
Quentin Tarantino’s widely accepted masterpiece is, of course, Pulp Fiction but consider, if you will, adding to the list of his masterpieces (which will also include Inglorious Basterds in years to come, and possibly Django Unchained) Kill Bill, his two-part martial arts/spaghetti western hybrid epic (I always consider this one film, making time to watch …
Eighteen years ago, Quentin Tarantino followed up his smash break-out hit Pulp Fiction with a cooler-received adaptation (his only to date) of Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch retitled Jackie Brown. For some reason, many critics and fans didn’t take to this film…
Without a sense of spirituality or religious/moral undertones, Leo McCarey’s Bells of St. Mary’s (1945) feigns notions of faith in lieu of a more secular, accessible film. To some extent, the characters don’t really fit the roles of priest and nuns, and the setting of St. Mary’s…
Adapted from Agatha Christie’s famous novel, Murder on the Orient Express (Lumet, 1974) brings to the cinema a highlight of 20th century English literature. Separate mediums, one the art of words and one the art of moving images, it is difficult sometimes to show creativity or abstraction from the origin …
Alfred Hitchcock is known for many things, most notably being the Master of Suspense and for creating hit after hit time and time again. What he’s not known for is a dud, but he did make them occasionally, like The Manxman in 1929, The Skin Game in 1931, Jamaica Inn in 1939 (a huge mistake …
Directed by Anatole Litvak and set in the romantic streets of Paris, Goodbye, Again (1961) illustrates the deeply complex nature of love and courtship in the lives of uncertain, constantly changing people—flawed humans with multiple dimensions and qualities. Quite easily the strongest aspect of the film is character depth…
After years of being one of the most popular and sought-after actresses in the world, Ingrid Bergman was in a difficult place when she was approached to star in Anatole Litvak’s film Anastasia (1956). A series of personal and professional setbacks had, for all intents and purposes, driven her to exile…
Ernest Hemingway, it’s been told, hated the Hollywood game, once noting that the best way to negotiate with studios was to set up a meeting at the California border: “You throw them your book, they throw you the money, then you jump into your car and drive like hell back the way you came”…