Somebody Up There Likes Me is a biopic of the dramatic life of boxing great Rocky Graziano. It even bears Rocky’s signature before the opening credits (which has the great Perry Como crooning over them with the title song). Parts of it were shot in New York and that is a key choice from Robert Wise. When Paul Newman’s Rocky is walking down the street (there is a longer take early with Sal MIneo) it is clear that this is no studio lot. The film is best known now as the coming out role (or rather part of his

The Hidden Room is a delightful England-set (Dmytryk abroad for the HUAC fall out- he was part of The Hollywood Ten) noir with an ingeniously little sinister premise and an early score from Nino Rota. Robert Newton plays Dr. Clive Riordan who catches his wife Storm (an amazing name for a British woman in 1949) (played by Sally Gray) stepping out with Bill Kronin (Phil Brown). Riordan is plotting his revenge as the film opens and there is this small talk going on in the background at his gentleman’s club (the uppity kind country club kind of gentleman’s club—not

School Daze does feel like a half step back from She’s Gotta Have It (Spike Lee’s debut in 1986). Spike’s second film has no shortage of ideas though, it is an ambitious work, and undoubtedly auteur cinema. It is set on a HBCU (Historically Black College) campus. Lee, who often starts or ends his films with documentary footage (Malcolm X, BlacKkKlansman) starts with a montage of black heroes immortalized in black and white photographs. It opens on Friday- the story of the homecoming weekend at the college. Lee’s film takes more swings than it lands. It is full of

1954 is post-Lady in the Lake (1946) and Dark Passage (1947) but the first-person point of view sequence to open Executive Suite is still stirring. The hand of Avery Bullard (never shown on screen) reaches out from behind the camera to shake hands. He pushes the button on the elevator in one smooth take after gliding across the room. Robert Wise hides a cut (editor of Citizen Kane) going in the elevator as the camera pushes through the door reaching for his wallet at the telegraph office. On the street (still in this same cinematic sequence) he yells for

Brian De Palma taps into both Rear Window and Vertigo for his 1984 film Body Double Body Double is one De Palma wrote as well as directed- unlike Scarface, Carrie, The Untouchables. Like Blow Out, it opens on the making a movie- a B-movie- a horror movie. Jake (Craig Wasson) is playing a vampire and his claustrophobia (akin to Vertigo) acts up. Jake struggles to find work, needs a place to stay, and ends up getting a temporary job/home housesitting at the “Chemosphere”- a crazy modern spaceship-looking house off Mulholland built by John Lautner in 1960. Like Rear Window,

Arlington Road is an impressive little terrorism thriller featuring Jeff Bridges (one year off Big Lebowski) pitted against an eerie Tim Robbins. Mark Pellington is the director. Pellington is best known for music videos by Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and others. Pellington opens the film with great energy. Before the opening credits, Bridges (playing Michael Faraday) discovers the son of Robbins’ character (Oliver Lang) in the middle of the street in immense pain from a fireworks accident. Pellington uses a washed-out dissolve heavy soft focus for this sequence (above). The Faradays and Langs are neighbors. The sons and fathers

Can you imagine how this must have sounded in 1980? Brian De Palma is remaking/updating Antonioni’s Blow-Up? but calling it “Blow Out” about a tire blow out- hahaha. Blow Out may not only be worthy to Antonioni’s film- but surpass it. And it is by all accounts the De Palma film where just about everything work out swimmingly—technical prowess, a riveting story-- sonic boom-level cinematic virtuoso flourishes aplenty. The film opens with a point of view Steadicam tracking shot (run by Garret Brown- the Steadicam inventor who worked on Bound for Glory, Rocky, Marathon Man and… yes.. The Shining).

It is not the first (probably musicals), second (science fiction), third (noir) or even fourth (war films) genre most often associated with Robert Wise- but Blood on the Moon is a rock solid western. It kind of makes you wish he had done more (as far as I can tell- it is his only one). He made it at RKO in 1948. It stars Robert Mitchum (his first western in the archives), Robert Preston (a stout figure, charismatic- and good enough an actor to go toe to toe with Mitchum) and a nice supporting role for the always reliable

Citizen Ruth (1996) is a solid debut- but Election marks the announcement of a promising talent in American cinema in Alexander Payne. Like Citizen Ruth, About Schmidt, Nebraska and Downsizing- it is set in Payne’s native Nebraska. The high school genre and teen film was still fertile ground in 1999 (Reese Witherspoon is in a few of these herself including the wickedly fun Cruel Intentions from the same year) but Election is a teen film going for more. The casting of ex-teen film god Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller himself from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off- 1986) feels like an acknowledgement

After editing Citizen Kane in 1941 this was already Robert Wise’s sixth film as director (or co-director) and the genre master had already worked in horror and a courtroom crime drama—so it was time to add noir to the resume with Born to Kill- and this is a memorable one. This is an RKO film with some opening sequences shot (mostly establishing shots) in Reno. This is a great early turn for Lawrence Tierney. Tierney (best known probably as Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs) plays Sam—a man with an uncontrollable rage stemming from jealousy that turns him into a

The Devil All the Time is a three decade generation spanning story of evil from Antonio Campos and Donald Ray Pollack (his novel, and he provides the omniscient narration). It is an ensemble film set on the border of Ohio and West Virginia (though shot in Alabama) following chance meetings and one family (the main family is played by Bill Skarsgård (father), Haley Bennett (mother) and Tom Holland (son)- Holland plays the adult version of the son in the 1960s) at its center. Holland probably gets the most screen time, but he is not introduced at all until the

The Paul Schrader renaissance (or should I say “resurrection”) is real. With 2017’s First Reformed and now 2021’s The Card Counter, Schrader is riding a career peak in his 70s. Oscar Isaac plays William Tell. Isaac is magnificent in The Card Counter and after this, when you take into account Ethan Hawke’s achievement in First Reformed, I would have to imagine actors are lining up to play the protagonist in Schrader’s next work---whatever that may be. Isaac is in nearly every scene and never makes a false move. He is exacting--intense. The diner scene with Tye Sheridan’s Cirk where