It is not often in the history of cinema that a director under the age of thirty (30) creates a work  on the level of Beanpole. Kantemir Balagov looks to be one of the most exciting young auteurs of his generation—or at least he has one major film here that sets up for that. Beanpole is set in Leningrad—and it is almost unspeakably bleak: the drama takes place in a hospital during the war. There is depression, a ghastly murder, assisted suicide, and lines like “there’s nothing left inside you to make life.” Viktoria Miroshnichenko plays Iya. She’s striking.

Ruth Roman and Steve Cochran star in this modest, but promising little Warner Brothers’ noir that unfortunately falls apart in the last ten minutes. Cochran plays an ex-con who was sentenced for murdering (it sounds like justifiably) his awful father when he was thirteen (13)—and he has been locked up for eighteen (18) years and finally gets out. In true noir tradition, the outside world is pretty much as bad as being in prison. Ruth Roman is introduced from the legs up - she’s a platinum blonde here. There is a great frame at the 26-minute mark- a pivotal

1932 reteams the director/actor duo of Mervyn LeRoy and Paul Muni coming off their wonderful 1932 film- I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. This here isn’t as strong a film- but it is certainly worthy of the archives. Scarface is also 1932 for Muni- so he is white hot at this point. The World Changes has a young Mickey Rooney here early in the film in a small role—this isn’t his debut, but it is his first archiveable film. This is the year before Manhattan Melodrama and of course by 1937 and 1938 with Captains Courageous and

Terrence Malick’s Badlands announced the arrival of one of cinema’s greatest new voices in 1973. It is Malick’s true debut at thirty (30) years old. Badlands opens on an empty alley lined with garage in South Dakota. Malick moved quietly. This has a different, more poetic or lyrical vibe (though not half that of some of Malick’s later works) than Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (just six years before in 1967) or the members of the Movie Brat or New Hollywood movements. This film and Scorsese’s Mean Streets debuted at the New York Film festival in 1973—yamma- what a

Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad is one of the great cinematic events of the young 2020s decade. It is Jenkins’ fourth film, and since his breakthrough with Moonlight in 2016, he is one of cinema's great auteurs during this past six year stretch The Underground Railroad is the largely the story of Cora (played by Thuso Mbedu) and her harrowing exodus from slavery, state by state (with a few asides, the chapters are broken out by state). The entire running time is a whopping 9 hours and 53 minutes- an epic, an opus. Jenkins opens foreshadowing a slow-motion falling

There is a case to be made that Tom Ripley is cinema’s greatest single character. Unlike say Michael or Vito Corleone, connected with one trilogy, one filmmaker, and a few actors – Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley (she also wrote the novel for Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and the source material for 2015’s Carol) has been played several times, in several countries,  from several directors and with actors as wide-ranging as Alain Delon, Dennis Hopper, Matt Damon, and here, in Liliana Cavani’s Ripley’s Game (2002), John Malkovich. Some of the best critics (Ebert, Jeffrey Anderson, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ripleys-game-2002, and https://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/2004/ripleys.shtml) seem to

By and large  the first 60-90 minutes are pretty mediocre but the final hour (whenever Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley finally connected) is superb. Chief amongst the elements I want to praise is the use of the color red. Again, I wish Johnson had just done it throughout the entire film—- Snoke’s throne room, his guards, that long scene where he’s killed, and the salt mine sequences are just saturated in the color and I can’t help but think of Zhang Yimou Hero (2002). Now, the great Chinese auteur did it for the entire running time and Johnson does

J. J. Abrams infuses an unmistakable energy in The Force Awakens that most action/adventure films hope for, but never achieve. The talented ensemble is to be applauded (they succeed in exchanging both poignant moments and  catchy, genre one-liners) but so is the editing. This is a 138-minute running time that soars by. This is Abrams second “Star”- franchise he brought back to life with 2009’s Star Trek Certainly, the arc of the narrative reuses much of the formula from the 1977 classic original. Most of it works like a charm- but in a few areas (Starkiller Base vs. Death

The Woman in the Window should be better than it is. Joe Wright is one of the stronger directors of the last fifteen years or so (from 2005's Pride and Prejudice as the starting point), ditto for Amy Adams as an actor. And the cast and crew (Tracy Letts writing, Danny Elfman score) assembled to support them here are extremely capable; Julianne Moore is here, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Mackie, Brian Tyree Henry, and Wright even quickly calls in the favor from Gary Oldman (Wright directed Oldman to the Best Actor win in 2017 with The Darkest Hour). Oldman

Short stories and novellas (I think technically under 40,000 words this is where Hemingway’s work here falls) often make the best films—less plot for an auteur to try to cover. That does not really work out here in John Sturges’ 1958 film. You cannot call the film a failure (it is in the archives after all)- but it does not sniff the accomplishment of Hemingway’s work (Pulitzer prize winning). Some location shooting (Cuba, Bahamas) in the opening especially but overall, the film suffers from an abundance of rear projection studio shooting when on the boat. Reteams Sturges (this is

A very impressive piece of cinema from Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó After a date “September” title and landscape shot (a New York bridge beginning to be built) the film opens with a long take, Mundruczó’s camera drifting around a construction job site as we’re introduced to Sean, played by Shia LaBeouf, building said bridge The first few scenes after that, Mundruczó and screenwriter Kata Wéber are unveiling the relationship between the young couple (Sean and Martha- played by Vanessa Kirby) and Martha’s mother played by Ellen Burstyn- the fractures in their relationships as they discuss a car purchase. After

Soderbergh’s 17th archiveable film at the time I’m writing this- that’s incredible. And he took several years off with his brief hiatus/retirement/sabbatical. He seems destined to hit 25+ archiveable films which is extremely rare in the more modern era. Of course, Scorsese and Woody (both with debuts in the 1960’s) hit that (or rather Scorsese will with his next one) but Soderbergh is from the Gen X class of auteurs- his debut was in 1989. On top of the prolific output- Soderbergh serves as also his own editor and cinematographer (under aliases) here for Let Them All Talk as