Sylvia Scarlett is notable for the talent involved (Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and George Cukor) and for touching the aspects of gender identity in 1935. Hepburn (name above the title - she is a big star even before the age of 30) is Sylvia who is often called Sylvester in the film as she quickly cuts her hair short and disguises herself. Hepburn plays Edmund Gwenn’s daughter. This is more than a decade before Gwenn plays Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and it is fun to see him as a fallen gambler and swindler here. Wipe

There are many ways to attempt to tackle Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It is one of the boldest films of the 21st century. Nolan pushes the conceptual and visual boundaries—he disorients, then reracks and compiles often through his greatest weapon: parallel editing. Hans Zimmer’s hammering score helps open the film—throwing down the gauntlet early (along with the breathtaking visuals of Saito’s (Ken Watanabe) place) for this elaborate work of cinema. Zimmer will mirror Nolan’s intricate narrative by marrying this score to Edith Piaf ‘s “Non, Je ne regrette rien” - pure genius https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB-wuKo9rW0 . Inception is undoubtedly auteur cinema.

Nic Cage looking like bloody Santa (a Zen bloody Santa) and the simple premise of a stolen, beloved pet (the titular pig) may make you think this is a low budget revenge tale version of John Wick. However, Michael Sarnoski’s Pig (writer/director- his debut) has as much in common with the bizarro world gangster films Brick (2005) and Blow the Man Down (2019). This world here is the cutthroat world of fine foods and eateries in Portland. Cage is a former chef, his pig is a prized truffle hunter. They are shown to be in some sort of idyllic

The dialogue-free opening prison break at Michigan City is both a hell of a set piece to start the film, and an effective way to introduce Johnny Depp’s John Dillinger character. Public Enemies is a crime saga that starts in medias res, pitting cop (Christian Bale’s Melvin Purvis) against thief just like Michael Mann’s magnum opus Heat. Mann’s first time with long-time collaborator Dante Spinotti since The Insider (1999). Talented production designer Nathan Crowley (The Dark Knight, Inception, Dunkirk) does his best work outside of his collaborations with Christopher Nolan. I am sure Nolan made Crowley study Mann when

The Hot Rock is a lighter fare- an affable caper film with a sense of humor. It does not live up to some of the works before (Bullitt 1968) and after (The Friends of Eddie Coyle 1973) from Peter Yates. One of the numerous pairings of screenwriter William Goldman and Robert Redford (as much a shrewd seeker of good material as a talented actor) that includes Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Great Waldo Pepper, A Bridge Too Far. Some of Yates biggest cinematic flourishes are early in the film. He has a very

David Fincher’s films do not have stylistic highlights or stand out compositions so much as they are wholly dipped in his trademark lighting design and coloring pattern. It starts with the green tint of the buildings during the opening credits. There is the green Mayflower truck (not a coincidence) and the details do not let up for the entire running time - the dedication to the visual consistency of Fincher’s world pervades throughout. close-ups with lingering shadows behind in Fincher's Panic Room do not even try to watch a Fincher film during the day or with

Michael Mann updates the 1980s TV series but without the showy colors. This is a crime story- a film focused really on one case (outside of the in medias res opening to show you how this team works). Opens on Jay-Z’s collaboration with Linkin Park (this needle drop 100% works)—but Mann seems destined to struggle here with music in his work post-Heat. It is not that all of the music he uses is terrible in the vacuum—it is just inconsistent. In one eight-minute stretch he goes from like jazz to Cuban to rock music (lots of Audioslave here). Mann

After licking his wounds a bit from Ali – Michael Mann returns to the crime genre, returns to duality on both sides of the law (Tom Cruise’s Vincent vs. Jamie Foxx’s everyman Max) and returns to Los Angeles (where he made Heat). Mann also forgoes the sprawling biopic for one lean, well-oiled machine of a gun-splattered night here as the backdrop. One of the first big films shot on digital—Mann made a point of this at the time of release talking about how most of the other digital efforts up to that point were trying to simulate the film

Michael Mann’s Ali was one of the most anticipated releases of 2001, and sadly, it mostly does go gentle into that good night. It is perplexing that the end results were not better. Mann is on a marvelous run at this point in his career- five of his last six films have ended up as must-see top five of the year quality films or masterpieces. Emmanuel Lubezki is the director of photography here. The subject matter is ripe- Ali is one of the seminal figures of the second half of the 20th century in the United States. Also, the

He probably cannot quite touch the work of Scorsese, Kieslowski, or The Coen Brothers- but Michael Mann stakes a strong claim to being the greatest auteur of the 1990s rounded out by 1999’s The Insider. There is real fear in The Insider and a scene with a gun, but really for the first time, Mann’s work does not include physical violence. This is the story of 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino teaming up with Mann again after Heat) and one of his stories (Mann effectively actually weaves in and out of a few) surrounding former tobacco scientist

A Ghost Story is a strange bird - it is a somber film where maybe 75 minutes of the 90-minute running time are spent watching a grown man wear a bedsheet over him like a ghost. It can also be described as an art-house version of 1990 film, Ghost, a story of the afterlife told from the deceased perspective. This is David Lowery’s fourth film and his greatest to date in 2017. Here he is dedicated to the long take, and it is one of a slew of films to feature the rise of the boxy 1.33:1 frame (from