This “comedy of murders” starring Charlie Chaplin as a serial killer was a scandalous flop in the US but has since been re-evaluated.
Author Archives: Daniel Joslyn
CLUELESS (1995)
The most mid-90s of mid-90s movies is somehow based on a Jane Austen novel, and also somehow really good.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
It is the original full-length animated movie, and helped to launch a media empire. For me it holds up today, um, intermittently?
L’AVVENTURA (1960)
A landmark of “modernist” cinema, but don’t expect it to, y’know, have a story or make any attempt to explain anything.
ENTER THE DRAGON (1973)
This mega-hit made Bruce Lee a household name and became maybe the most successful and influential martial arts movie ever made.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
It’s the very first blockbuster, but unfortunately I can’t emphasize enough how racist it is. However racist you think it is, it is way more racist than that.
THE GOONIES (1985)
After the passing of the great blockbuster director Richard Donner, we revisit one of his most beloved hits.
CROOKLYN (1994)
Spike Lee’s semiautobiographical depiction of his own childhood feels “true,” but really rubs me the wrong way.
1776 (1972)
Before Hamilton took Broadway by storm, there was another musical about the Founding Fathers, one that I love too much to be objective about.
CONTACT (1997)
An underrated sleeper of a science fiction classic, about things most movies have no interest in.
Movie Valhalla 