As just a film, it’s a fine effort, certainly in the archives, handsomely mounted with some nice photography and soft elliptical editing that matches material. However, as a Scorsese film—it’s a disappointment. It seems aggressively mediocre in comparison with the majority of his body of work. To add to that- when you also throw in that this is the only pairing between Scorsese and the great DP Roger Deakins, it features a genius score from Philip Glass, production designer Dante Ferretti and editor Thelma Schoonmaker—it can’t be seen as anything but an artistic disappointment I mentioned it above- but

A confirmation of Eggers’ prodigious gifts and his auteur standing after the 2015 debut- The WitchHypnotically beautiful to look at (and listen to) but more than that really: distinctive, meticulous – I called The Witch curated and said that you could almost smell and feel the film—characterized it as method acting but from the director’s chair—and that praise and description certainly fits here for Eggers sophomore effort.Eggers has a background in production design—rum, flatulence, the cutlery, the beards—every object in the frame, the choice of aspect ratio, the colloquial Herman Melville-like specific time/place vernacular—the jargon-- these are all specific

Part film noir, part political allegory buried in a crime genre movie --- Abraham Polonsky’s debut film (background as a screenwriter- Body and Soul with Garfield in 1947) has strong performances, visuals and writing 79 perfectly panicked minutes Richard Day does the set decoration- he won a total of 7 Oscars and worked on films with great decoration that include Dodsworth, On the Waterfront and How Green Was My Valley. It’s a major achievement for John Garfield- think you can make a strong case for it as his best work in his tragically short (died at age 39) career

It’s a rough sketch, Joanna Hogg’s first feature film, and just a faint indicator of her future brilliance (notably in her follow-up sophomore effort the 2010 film Archipelago)Being transparent—I saw this before Archipelago and didn’t archive it, but then after seeing the brilliant 2010 sophomore effort film—I went back, watched it again and decided to call it a “Recommend”. There is just too much in common with Archipelago. It’s worthy of study Awkward fighting in other rooms, one-sided phone calls- just like Archipelago. Ditto with how it is on vacation (this is in Tuscany). A meditation on isolation. Or

An announcement of a burgeoning auteur- Joanna Hogg- it is her second film after 2007’s Unrelated Archipelago is much prettier than the crassly shot debut—much more attractive in its photography and decidedly more poised in its compositions It opens with an artist (Christopher Baker) and a painting recreating life- a landscape and a discussion on abstraction and understatement in art. It’s both Hogg speaking to us directly about her work and setting the ground formally for what is about to unfold. Hogg would bounce us off the artist here in the film -- discussions on art as brilliant formal

Is there an auteur that makes a better first 15 minutes of his/her films? Il Divo, The Great Beauty-- both explode out of the gates. Loro is no exception, the spectacle (both in gaudy content and energetic filmmaking style) in the opening here is awe-inspiring- cinema. Unfortunately Sorrentino’s films are getting longer and longer and not the other way around. Astounding imagery and a meditation on decadence and corruption— in other words- a Sorrentino film. This is auteur cinema. It’s a nice return to form going back with his native Italian tongue and working with the talented Toni Servillo-

A debut brimming with self-assurance and specificityThe specificity is two-fold-- the detail in the production design (Eggers background) and the vernacular. The corn stalks are real. The dialect is clearly authentic- the “thee’s” and “thou’s”. You can almost smell and taste the film – it’s curated—it is as studied as a method actor not breaking character but in the form of an entire film. You can almost smell and taste the film – it’s curated Ominous vocalizing in the score- like the opening of Kubrick’s 2001. Powerful (and horrifying) imagery in the witch montage with the hand on the

Scorsese’s The Aviator is stunning to look at, it moves with an incredible speed (it’s an easy a 170-minute watch as there is), and it features DiCaprio giving us a tour-de-force lead performance (debatably his best). Scorsese sets the frame marvelously with that opening- it’s a jaw-dropping mise-en-scene and then he and Robert Richardson (DP here) cue the lighting to roll up. This is just before the “Quarantine” bath scene Scorsese sets the frame marvelously with that opening- it’s a jaw-dropping mise-en-scene and then he and Robert Richardson (DP here) cue the lighting to roll up. This is just

A handsomely-mounted, classically told biopic/drama epic with political backdrop the opening- magnificently beautiful use of lighting from Kaige Chen Apparently Miramax mangled it a bit and there’s a shorter cut out there but I was able to catch the 171 minute restored original versionStarts in 1924 with a b/w flashback, and then Kaige Chen turns the dial up to color in-scenethe Cannes Festival Palme d'OrBig, many extras—the background of the abuse and tough upbringing for the child actors in the biopic genre (runs about 43 minutes before the adult actors). The War with japan, the cultural revolution later— serve