Nothing has changed.
But you have.
Six years since I saw this. A lifetime ago. It feels like yesterday. A different film this time. That's part of the point. Its twists less a coup than clues undeciphered. We are beholden to our prejudiced perspectives, in cinema as much as in life. The past behind, the future before. All at a remove, lives glanced in a glass. We want to go back and can't wait to get away. A relationship, a…
Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"
What curious creatures we humans are, with the intelligence to understand our animalistic urges yet not the inhibitions to overcome them. Fatty food, we understand, tastes good to trick us into eating it aplenty. So it is with sex, procreation and pleasure inherently intertwined, evolutionary urges linking lust and love under the auspices of attraction. Stranger by the Lake is a microcosmic masterpiece, its streamlined screenplay and sole setting condensing these…
Restlessly sexy romp that gave me a good spanking—in a business way, of course.
Feels foundational in its stylistic sweep: the modern musical, birthed before your eyes. Rodgers and Hart's songs are just superb, but Mamoulian's staging elevates them to a whole other level of narrative agency. Pre-Code comedy lines are a big help too; I spent most of this *beaming*.
Dear Diary,
Today I showed The Big Shave as part of a presentation on Scorsese, to demonstrate the early emergence of stylistic and visceral tendencies in his direction. A grown man shrieked a bit. Twice. It was the best day ever.
Certain films you love because they touch you personally. Others you love because they tell a story so gripping you feel part of it yourself. Some you love for their part in shaping you as a cinephile, even as a person. Then there are the handful of films you love simply because you must love: because they represent so bold an authorial vision, so striking a view of the world, so wholly unique a perspective on life through cinema, that…
