House of Bamboo – 1955 Fuller
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Sam Fuller’s eighth film, and often noted as the first Hollywood film set in Japan after the WWIIIt is a pretty far cry from the brilliance of Park Row and Pickup on South Street in
Seven Samurai – 1954 Kurosawa
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Kurosawa’s epic masterpiece further cements Kurosawa’s genius status first marked by Rashomon in 1950 and confirmed in Ikiru in 1952. A set-piece used three times I believe is the cemetery on the hill- another breathtaking
Lady in the Lake – 1946 Montgomery
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00A wild film, filled with some very high highs and very low lowsRobert Montgomery was an actor with over 60 acting credits who even received top billing over John Wayne in They Were Expendable in
The 200th Best Director of All-Time: Andrew Dominik
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Dominik. The New Zealand born director Andrew Dominik is a tough one. There’s his 2007 epic masterpiece that hits artistic heights that many, many directors on this list ahead of him never reach. But the
The 199th Best Director of All-Time: Sergio Corbucci
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Corbucci. I see both the case for and the case against Corbucci. You could describe him fairly accurately as simply as a Leone imitator, the details are below but the ways in which he borrows
Capernaum – 2018 Labaki
Drake2020-06-19T13:25:23+00:00Capernaum is a social realist drama shot on location in the slums of Lebanon Follows the realist, or neorealist linage from Rossellini on down to Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, to the work of the Dardenne brothers
Jurassic Park – 1993 Spielberg
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Reading the RT reviews--- the reaction to the film from critics in 1993 is demonstrably different than 2013 (re-release). Critics in 2013 adore the film. It’s not quite on the level of like Big Lebowski
Pickup on South Street – 1953 Fuller
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Pickup on South Street is one of the greatest of film noirs and one of Sam Fuller’s greatest works as well (Park Row giving me pause right now). It may not be mentioned as often
Along the Great Divide – 1951 Walsh
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00He’d go on to make another 20 features (he directed about 120 overall) but as of right now this is the latest dated archiveable film for Raul Walsh10 years after he’d head to the desert
BlacKkKlansman – 2018 Spike Lee
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Spike, 61 years old at the time of release, gives us his strongest effort since 2002’s The 25th Hour Adore the shot reverse double-dolly close-up (very near the end after John David Washington and Laura
The Poseidon Adventure – 1972 Neame
Drake2020-06-17T19:35:00+00:00One of the most famous and accomplished disaster films of the 1970’s- a popular subgenre of drama/thriller that included The Towering Inferno, Airport, Earthquake The talented and star-studded ensemble – Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest
Ikiru – 1952 Kurosawa
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:00+00:00Both visually masterful and staggeringly profound and poignant One of cinema’s greatest character studies- Kane, Raging Bull- the examination of a man’s life. A bit of It’s A Wonderful Life and Dickens’ A Christmas Carol