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Showing posts from July, 2017

B-A-B-Y Baby: Baby Driver (2017)

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Even as I delve deeper and deeper into classic cinema, my love of modern films has not waned; what has changed is that I'm increasingly partial to films that are, as I call it, cinematic . What does that mean? To me, it means films that are conscious of film history, that know they're building off of a long-standing tradition of film-making, and not only pay homage to that but also actively try to improve on what came before rather than just stick to the status quo. 2017 is a great year for film because it's full of pictures that do exactly this, but none does it better than Baby Driver .

Best Of: Movie Theater Experiences

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At the beginning of this month, I announced that I had quit my job and was looking for another one. Well, the turnaround ended up being much faster than I ever would have expected: just a few days later I was called in for an interview, and this week I'm working my first shifts at--can you guess?--a movie theater! I've always thought that working in a theater was a rite of passage for any young cinephile just getting into the job world, and now I have the chance to try it out for myself. In celebration of my new position, this is a list of my best experiences seeing movies on the big screen.

Classic Film of the Week #12: A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

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What makes a movie magic ? I'm sure everyone has a different answer to this question, but my personal definition can be summed up by a viewing of A Matter of Life and Death . It's a flawed film with a convoluted mess of a plot, yet it manages to capture images and ideas about love and the afterlife that are absolutely breathtaking, and more than that, true movie magic.

Classic Film of the Week #11: The Heiress (1949)

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Once you've seen a lot of films, it becomes difficult for them to surprise you. Romantic films especially get so bogged down in cliches and tired tropes, making it a noteworthy occasion when one does break the mold. The Heiress is just such a film, the rare romance that abandons convention and does justice by its characters, even if it makes its audience unhappy or uncomfortable.

Musings on Mortality: The Misfits (1961)

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"It shouts and sings with life!" proclaims a tagline for 1961's The Misfits . While I wouldn't say this was an accurate description of the film at any point in its existence, it's especially ironic now, with a contemporary viewer's knowledge of the tragic fates that befell Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift. It now plays as a haunting swan song for the trio: each actor plays a character whose struggles are reminiscent of the star's own, making the film a study in the often hazy line that exists between real life and cinema.

Classic Film of the Week #10: Funny Face (1957)

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It's Audrey Hepburn week! At least in my house. I've spent the last few days watching through the majority of her 1950s filmography, and in the midst of it I discovered a magical little masterpiece, the perfect film to serve as the first technicolor picture I highlight in this series: Funny Face , the most fun and stylish musical this side of Golden Age Hollywood.

June 2017 Recap

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This month has truly been an emotional roller coaster. I had my high school graduation ceremony,; my apartment building had a fire, luckily with no damage to any suites but still a pretty harrowing experience; and, most importantly of all, I finally quit the truly terrible job I've been working since January. I was planning to stay until the end of the summer, but I finally had enough and I've now officially completed my final shift there. I'll be on the lookout for another job very soon, but in the meantime I'm taking a little vacation, which means lots of time to relax, and more importantly, watch and write about movies. I'm pretty exited! Despite all the busyness, I managed to see a lot of movies, including more catch-ups from 2016, a few Gable stragglers, and lots of TCM's Noir Alley series. It was a rough month in real life, but overall a pretty great one for movies--see a breakdown of what I watched and some highlights after the cut.

Classic Film of the Week #9: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

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The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the rare cases where I made myself read the book before seeing the film. I finished the novel several months ago, and finally just got around to seeing this classic Hollywood adaptation of it--and to my delight, it turned out to be a pitch-perfect film version, capturing all of the qualities I appreciated in the original novel.