Ashes and Diamonds (1958, Andrzej Wajda)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 17, 2015
Ashes and Diamonds is unexpectedly on the nose. There’s even a scene where protagonist Zbigniew Cybulski taps his nose; I had no idea it meant director Wajda was going to go for not just narrative obviousness in the third act, but also visual obviousness. In just a few minutes, Wajda and co-s read more
Son of Godzilla (1967, Fukuda Jun)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 17, 2015
Strangely enough, Son of Godzilla ends well. It’s a surprise because the film loses a lot of steam throughout. Whether it’s the human plot or the Godzilla plot, the scene inevitably fails because of director Fukuda. Unless it’s one of the multiple times writers Sekizawa Shin’ read more
Eye of the Cat (1969, David Lowell Rich)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 14, 2015
Eye of the Cat is what happens when you have a screenplay entirely concerned with being a thriller (by Joseph Stefano) and a director, Rich, who is completely incapable of directing thrills. There’s nothing else to the script, so the actors don’t have anything to do, and pretty San Fran read more
Maniac Cop (1988, William Lustig)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 11, 2015
There are good things about Maniac Cop. Not many and director Lustig doesn’t know what to do with them, but there are good things about it. James Lemmo and Vincent J. Rabe’s photography is excellent. Lustig never asks them to do anything interesting, but they’re clearly capable of read more
A Free Soul (1931, Clarence Brown)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 3, 2015
The first hour of A Free Soul is this extremely engaging, if occasionally melodramatic, story about Norma Shearer and Lionel Barrymore. They’re rebellious blue bloods–Barrymore’s Shearer’s father and he’s raised her to be an independent woman. He’s a defense atto read more
The Naked Jungle (1954, Byron Haskin)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 25, 2015
If there are faults with The Naked Jungle, ones not the result of having to follow the Hays Code–which the film skirts thanks to Ben Maddow and Ranald MacDougall’s excellent dialogue, Eleanor Parker’s fantastic, intelligent performance and Charlton Heston’s brute force appro read more
The American Dreamer (1971, Lawrence Schiller and L.M. Kit Carson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 23, 2015
The best part of The American Dreamer is some of Warner E. Leighton and co-director Schiller’s editing, which only works thanks to Schiller and Carson’s filmmaking. They have this wonderful device where they film their subjects listening to recordings of their previous filming and then read more
An Actor’s Revenge (1963, Ichikawa Kon)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 21, 2015
I’m not sure what’s strangest about An Actor’s Revenge, but my leading two candidates are Ichikawa’s direction, which intentionally tries to make it feel stagy, or Mochizuki Tamekichi and Yagi Masao’s score, which alternates between jazzy and melodramatic. Both make Re read more
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985, Jack Sholder)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 19, 2015
Why is Freddy’s Revenge so bad? It shouldn’t be so bad. No mistake–it’s terrible and it’s terrible mostly because of director Sholder and lead Mark Patton. While Patton’s awful, it’d be wrong to blame it entirely on him. He doesn’t get any help whatso read more
Key Largo (1948, John Huston)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 14, 2015
Key Largo is a grand affair. Humphrey Bogart versus Edward G. Robinson with Lauren Bacall and Claire Trevor in the wings. Not to mention Lionel Barrymore. The film plays beautifully. Director Huston and co-screenwriter Richard Brooks give Bogart and Bacall some lovely, ever so gentle; Bogart’ read more
Re-Animator (1985, Stuart Gordon)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 11, 2015
Re-Animator. A romantic comedy about wacky med students who contend with vindictive deans, lecherous professors and student loans. With some good, old-fashioned decapitation thrown in. No. That description is way too reductive. Even though it’s technically correct. Director Gordon recognizes read more
The Elephant Man (1980, David Lynch)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 30, 2015
I am not being hyperbolic when I describe David Lynch’s narrative handling of The Elephant Man to be peerless. If I described it a splendid, there would be other films and narrative handling to compare with it. But this film is so singular–John Hurt as an exceptionally disfigured man in read more
Anastasia (1956, Anatole Litvak)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 29, 2015
Anastasia manages that fine line between being dramatic and a constant delight. Ingrid Bergman’s performance is magnificent, with Arthur Laurents’s screenplay–and Litvak’s direction of her–never quite letting the viewer in. It’s a mystery after all–is Bergm read more
Rio Grande (1950, John Ford)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 17, 2015
Rio Grande doesn’t have much going for it. The best performance is probably Ben Johnson, who isn’t even very good, he’s just not as bad as everyone else. Harry Carey Jr. and Victor McLaglen aren’t good, but they’re likable. Carey’s performance is just weak, while read more
Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 14, 2015
Bonnie and Clyde opens with two immediate introductions. First, in the opening titles, photographs from the 1930s set the scene. Second, in the first scene, with Faye Dunaway (as Bonnie) and Warren Beatty (as Clyde) meet one another and flirt their way into armed robbery. Okay, maybe in the latter, read more
The Indian Spirit Guide (1968, Roy Ward Baker)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 12, 2015
The Indian Spirit Guide is an odd amalgam of two plot lines; at least by the end of the episode. Until the end, Robert Bloch’s teleplay juxtaposes them perfectly with just the right amount of interweaving. Julie Harris plays a wealthy widow romanced by her “paranormal investigator,̶ read more
Serpico (1973, Sidney Lumey)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 10, 2015
There’s a strange disconnect between director Lumet and actor Al Pacino on Serpico. The film, at least in how Pacino plays it, is a character study. Yes, it’s a character study of someone in a great deal of transition–Pacino’s cop, over twelve rather poorly paced years, goes read more
Weekend (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 7, 2015
The best part of Weekend is Jean-Pierre Léaud singing his dialogue while in a phone booth. He then gets into a fight with leads Jean Yanne and Mireille Darc as they try to get a ride from him. Weekend is about the unreality of bourgeois life when it gets into the wild–in this case, the French read more
The Haunted House (1921, Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 5, 2015
The Haunted House has some excellent gags. There’s a lot of set gags in the finale, when bank clerk Keaton ends up in the–well, the haunted house. His coworker–a delightfully evil Joe Roberts–is actually a counterfeiter who uses the haunted house to print money; the haunted read more
An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Ozu Yasujirô)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 3, 2015
In An Autumn Afternoon, director Ozu has a peculiar approach to how he presents his cast delivering dialogue. They stare just off camera and speak calmly, gently, no matter what. Ozu and photographer Atsuta Yûharu are incredibly precise with the composition; while Hamamura Yoshiyasu’s editing read more