Category: Classics & Hitchcock

To borrow a phrase: “So very Ozu.”

There are precious few films that you can easily access upon first viewing, yet spend a lifetime trying in vain to truly understand. These speak to a universal human experience that changes with the individual. You are not the same person necessarily with each viewing, and as experience changes your perspective, so the film shifts…

A perfect examination of human nature, and Isabelle Huppert’s ass.

All men are guilty.

When Lee Marvin asks if you want two lumps with your coffee, he’s not talking about sugar.

Hobson chooses to surrender his genitalia.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s immaculate game of chess.

A powerful historical film, as well as an allegory for any nation that grappled with a totalitarian past. Or flirts with one at present.

Luis Bunuel was obsessed with ritual and fetish, but he managed to harness them for his art; perhaps selecting embrace rather than denial is what saved him from self-destruction. Social conventions are part of the learned behaviors that members of a society use to relate to one another, but they can also become a languid…

Jean Gabin made a career out of playing damaged characters with good intentions, making him a natural for noir.