There are two very different ways to enter Brewster McCloud for the first time, and I’d say they’re probably of roughly equal preference. One is totally blind, or at least almost so. Those who wish to go that route can safely know that the film was Robert Altman’s follow-up to M*A*S*H, that the director could [...]

I was mostly a casual viewer of the Siskel & Ebert review show, and even at the time it seemed like too brief of a way to give any sort of meaningful opinion, but a segment that stuck with me was one about the ’70s crime drama The Friends of Eddie Coyle not being released [...]

Something I’m fascinated by, as it manages to enter my thoughts at least daily, is what constitutes masculinity right now. In the DVD extras for The Ice Harvest, an underrated attempt at neonoir from a couple of years back, screenwriters Robert Benton and Richard Russo, both of whom are quite accomplished in their own right, [...]

My enthusiastic suspicions have now been confirmed. Elliott Gould is, forever and always, one cool cat. I caught the Gouldness sometime after seeing California Split and The Long Goodbye in fairly close succession - amazed, humbled, and envious at every turn. Gould may not necessarily have been the best actor or movie star of the [...]

I wasn’t sufficiently acquainted with Kon Ichikawa’s work (and, truthfully, I’m still not), but the entire tone of his relatively obscure I Am a Cat caught me somewhat by surprise. I’d loved Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain, a deeply and darkly humorous look at the ridiculousness of war played against that looming seriousness that’s always [...]

In all its glory, here are my choices for the top 50 elite films of the 1970s. This is the fourth such list I’ve made now, and it just doesn’t get any easier. As with the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the list has been submitted for the Criterion forum’s Lists Project. I made an intentional [...]

Justifications, recommendations, and considerations. This is an alphabetical list of 25 films not included in my forthcoming Top 50 of 1970’s. Some things you’ve seen, some you may not have. I’ll repeat this when the main list is posted, but I made an intentional effort to be entirely subjective this time, leaving several of the [...]

It’s not very popular to assert the opinion that The Getaway is your favorite Sam Peckinpah film. As just a casual Peckinpah admirer, I might be able to get away with it, but I know I’m skating on thin ice among the faithful. I can only imagine the dismissive reaction I’d have if someone called [...]

When looking at Billy Wilder’s films as director, there are four that especially stick out in terms of incompatibility with the rest. The Emperor Waltz is a Bing Crosby musical and generally regarded as unsuccessful on most every level. The Spirit of St. Louis, despite being a fine film, puts Wilder in studio-constricted biopic land. [...]

A one-sentence synopsis of the John Cassavetes film Husbands might read something like: “Three married assholes combat mid-life crises and their own mortality with a booze-filled jaunt to London.” Such a simple dismissal could be appropriate if you’re not familiar with the wrenching, even crippling, films Cassavetes directed, like Faces and A Woman Under [...]