Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Contempt 1963

  Watched 01 Feb 1964

  Open and closed

  ('Ouvert et fermé' by Jean Narboni, Cahiers du Cinema 152, February 1964)

  Filmmakers have learned to take pride in their craft. Once, they relied on the intricate game of grids to cloak the secrets within their films; subsequently, they abandoned these misleading paths that obscured the entrance and instead revealed the film's essence. Contempt, like The Birds, now reveals this secret in the obviousness of its irreducibility, the first milestones of a cinema that would not content…

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  Point Blank 1967

  Watched 01 Apr 1968

  Point Blank

  ('Le Point de non-retour' by Jean-André Fieschi, Cahiers du Cinema 200-201, April-May 1968)

  Point Blank emerges as a delightful revelation in the realm of crime films in recent months — and notably, it's an American one (even though the creator, Boorman, in his second film, is English). Paradoxically, the movie showcases an exceptionally refined craftsmanship that might pose a challenge to its critical reception. Some critics express reservations about succumbing once again to a flashy and futile stylistic…

Popular reviews

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  Vertigo 1958

  Watched 01 Mar 1959

  L'hélice et l'idée by Eric Rohmer (Cahiers du Cinema, March 1959, N° 93)

  Itself, by itself, solely ONE everlastingly, and single. – Plato

  We would have gladly pardoned Alfred Hitchcock for following the austere The Wrong Man with a lighter work, more of a crowd pleaser. Such was perhaps his intention when he decided to bring the novel by Boileau and Narcejac, D’entre les morts, to the screen. Now, the esoteric nature of Vertigo, so they say, repelled Americans. French…

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  Johnny Guitar 1954

  Watched 01 Apr 1955 1

  Francois Truffaut: 'A Wonderful Certainty'

  ('L'Admirable Certitude', Cahiers du Cinema 46, April 1955, written under the pseudonym Robert Lachenay)

  We made our discovery of Nicholas Ray seven or eight years ago with Knock on Any Door. Then at the 'Biarritz Rendez-vous' we had a dazzling confirmation in They Live By Night, which is still unmistakably his best film. Later In a Lonely Place, On Dangerous Ground and The Lusty Men were released in Paris at one time or another -…