A highly controversial drama about the Holocaust, trauma, and sadomasochism, among other things. It’s probably better than that combination makes it sound.
Author Archives: Daniel Joslyn
GERTRUD (1964)
A story about one woman’s refusal to compromise, by a director who spent his career refusing to compromise. It is also entirely long shots of people talking in rooms.
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
A well-produced musical extravaganza starring Gene Kelly, with the music of George Gershwin, it still left me surprisingly cold.
THE THIRD MAN (1949)
A movie of black and white paranoia that to me is one of the all-time classics, perfectly capturing a very specific time and place.
EXCALIBUR (1981)
With King Arthur back in theaters, we revisit this tonally wild epic 1980s masterpiece (??) for the Arthurian completist.
GREED (1924)
A movie that has gone down in cinema legend as a partially lost masterpiece, which I today found more interesting than entertaining.
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966)
A very realistic movie about guerrilla warfare that basically invented a new style of movie-making.
SUPER FLY (1972)
A well-pitched exercise in peak blaxploitation style more than an actual movie, with an all-timer of a soundtrack.
GIANT (1956)
This sweeping story of a huge Texas cattle ranch over several decades lives up to its name, but I think falls short of its clear ambition to be “Gone With the Wind, but as a Western.”
NAUSICAӒ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984)
For those who enjoy a good post-apocalyptic diesel-punk environmental fable, with the usual stunning animation from Hayao Miyazaki.
Movie Valhalla 