Composed almost entirely of stock footage from 1966-‘71, “When You’re Strange” is a rock documentary narrated by Johnny Depp on the career of seminal blues-psychedelic band The Doors. On a stylistic level, the film succeeds admirably. The grainy footage gives the audience a sense of what the band must have really looked and sounded like, both […]
Streaming Pick: “When You’re Strange” (2009) Read More »
“Moonrise Kingdom” begins with a narrator informing the viewer—among other geographical details about a small New England island—that a cataclysmic storm once hit this idyllic coastline in the summer of 1965, around the time the story takes place. This coming storm creates a sense of impending doom that permeates Wes Anderson’s latest film, as if
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Although film noir is a genre that traditionally refers to certain crime films made by Hollywood during the 1940s and ‘50s, the French, who originally coined the term and defended its artistic merits, made several examples of their own, following the German occupation. The French New Wave, in particular—that loose collective of critics-turned-filmmakers who so
Streaming Pick: “Elevator to the Gallows” (1958) Read More »
1991’s “Slacker” captures roughly 24 hours in the lives of dozens of hipsters in the city of Austin, Texas. As one of the first movies of the so-called American independent film renaissance, Richard Linklater’s first feature remains his best — an intelligent film whose unorthodox narrative structure remains as innovative today as it was 20
Streaming Pick: “Slacker” (1991) Read More »
