Summer of Film #19 of 100
There is a sensibility that made-for-TV movies and the Hardy Boys novels share. There is a sensibility that the best of the Hardy Boys novels share with pulp Hitchcock. And there is a sensibility that Hitchcock shares with The Twilight Zone. If you’ve seen Twin Peaks, you probably have an idea of what I’m talking about- though maybe not entirely. Read More »

Summer of Film #18 of 100
I almost feel like apologizing and explaining myself for adding this film to the list- especially after Monsieur Ibrahim and before Blue Velvet , but I won’t. Read More »

Summer of Film #17 of 100
Paris in the ‘60s. I wasn’t born yet in the ‘60s and so I surely wasn’t in Paris then. Neither do I know anyone who was. And yet, I know exactly how it was. The Patricia Franchini wore a yellow t-shirt as she sold the New York Herald Tribune. In a small apartment, another American, Paul was having his last tango in Paris. In another apartment three teenagers thought their ideas of truth, beauty, sex, love and cinema could change the world and maybe they did. Further down the street a lady named Irma La Douce has an ex-cop in love with her, but that seems to be going nowhere.

Probably on the same street, Rue Bleue, lives a boy named Moses, Momo to his friends. He doesn’t live alone, but he might as well, since his mother left when he was young and his father comes home late in the evening only to complain about the food Momo has cooked. But none of this seems to bother him much; probably because he is sixteen and the prostitutes who line up across the street and the pretty girl next door interest him more. Read More »

Summer of Film #16 of 100
Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius and Boogie Nights is his the only ticket to greatness he needs. That he followed it up with two of my favorite films of the last decade- Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love is only icing on the cake.

Boogie Nights is the Scorsese-movie, the Godfather, the Goodfellas, the Casino- the one epic that defines a time, place and a parallel society forever. Scorsese did it for old Vegas in The Casino; Copolla did it for the mafia for eternity with The Godfather and now PTA has done it for the 70s porn industry in one sweeping gesture. Read More »

Summer of Film #15 of 100
Did somebody at New Line actually watch Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners and say- “I think they’re right. Let’s give him $300 million and let him make his Lord of the Rings“. I think so; it’s that good a movie, though not exactly the way the LOTR are. Read More »

Summer of Film #14 of 100
Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins teaches an important lesson in screenwriting. You can rescue a so-so film with a spectacular climax.

For all practical purposes, this is the first Batman movie. It tells the classical superhero origin story in its own reimagined way. While this may not be the best Batman movie ever, this is by far the best Batman of all time. As a character, Batman as played by Christian Bale, is one of the most well developed and well acted superheroes. The problem with previous incarnations was that you did not know about (or care about) Bruce Wayne. For the first time, with Batman Begins, you actually do. More than you do about Batman. Read More »

Summer of Film #13 of 100
The only way I can talk about Love Liza is to talk about Philip Seymour Hoffman. In his films he seems to operate in one of two modes- there is the Hoffman (of say Owning Mahoney or Magnolia) that shrinks while on screen, that is so subtle, understated that you would not notice him if he wasn’t a character in the film. Then there is the larger than life Hoffman (of Punch-Drunk Love or Almost Famous that demands your attention every frame of every scene). This movie has him operating in the first of these two modes. The movie stars Hoffman as Wilson Joel failing to deal with the suicide of his wife. Read More »

Summer of Film #12 of 100
Before I get into anything else- what is the connection between ‘The Sopranos’ and 1995’s ‘Basketball Diaries’? Three actors from ‘The Sopranos’ are in this film- Lorraine Bracco (Dr. Melfi from ‘The Sopranos’), Michael Imperioli (Christopher Moltisanti on ‘The Sopranos’) and Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy on ‘The Sopranos’). Then I’m reading a bit more about these people and come to the realization that all three of them were in Scorsese’s ‘The Goodfellas’ as well! No explanations yet after a little time researching and googling.

Basketball Diaries is a story of a kid- Leonardo DiCaprio playing real-life writer Jim Carroll- who nearly loses everything he has when drugs threaten to take over his life. This has the potential to be a spectacular story- and it is, since it actually happened. The problem is in execution. The movie doesn’t take it’s subject matter seriously enough. It pulls its punches- keeping most of the violence, suffering and consequences off screen, to the effect that to a youngster the worst effect drugs would have on you was that you felt like you had a bad case of the ‘flu. And you couldn’t play basketball. Read More »

Summer of Film #11 of 100
Robert Altman (MASH, Gosfod Park) is the master of fly-on-the-wall cinema; the brilliant ability to make films about ensembles rather than follow individual characters. The opening scene of The Player has the camera drift on a movie studio lot for 8 minutes without a cut, catching glimpses of inside deals and snippets of only-in-hollywood conversations. This sets the stage for a film that draws us behind the closed doors of doublecrossing Hollywood players. Read More »

Summer of Film #10 of 100
Easy Rider is more about a generation, a time, a place. A lifestyle.

Easy Rider is a film that creates a mood and builds on it for its duration with the sole purpose of giving people everywhere an understanding of a lifestyle that existed for a few years and then vanished to only become part of the American mythology. This was the time when peace, love and music brought people to the town of Woodstock , when riots brokeout at the cinenmatheque in Paris and when a guy named Captain America (Peter Fonda) with his friend Billy (Dennis Hopper, also the director) rode across America’s south in search of a way out of the system. Read More »