The Last Emperor: The Chosen One

Richard Vuu. Photo: Columbia In the late 1980s, the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci was decidedly an international filmmaker, having made movies in France and the United States. That year he…

Hillbilly Elegy

When future Vice President J.D. Vance’s memoir was published, it was hotly debated; many believed he generalized too much about the white working class, using his personal experiences of one…

Seven Samurai: Another Battle, Another Loss

Photo: Toho I saw this, the most famous of Akira Kurosawa’s movies, for the first time twenty years ago while studying journalism. More than three hours long, Seven Samurai is…

Rebecca: A Haunted House

Joan Fontaine and Judith Anderson. Photo: United Artists As Alfred Hitchcock was making his first Hollywood movie, producer David O. Selznick tried his best to influence the British director. Selznick…

The 400 Blows: This Boy’s Life

Jean-Pierre Léaud. Photo: Cocinor I do recall watching this movie in film class, but it didn’t have that much of an impact on me at the time. I find that…

Bridget Jones’s Baby 

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger), 43, suddenly finds herself pregnant, but who’s the father – her ex Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) or Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey), an American billionaire and inventor?…

Days of Wine and Roses: When the Party’s Over

Lee Remick. Photo: Warner When making this film, director Blake Edwards and actors Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick were still drinking. Edwards has described himself and Lemmon as ”heavy drinkers”…

Stagecoach: Introducing John Wayne

Andy Devine, John Wayne and Louise Platt. Photo: United Artists Today, we remember John Ford as a great director of Westerns. In 1939, that wasn’t really the case. Ford hadn’t…

The New Mutants 

When 16-year-old Danielle (Blu Hunt) wakes up in a hospital chained to her bed, she learns that she’s now a patient there together with other teenagers who have one thing…

The Old Guard 

When a Marine (KiKi Layne) survives having her throat slit by an enemy fighter in Afghanistan, she’s extracted by a group of warriors led by Andy (Charlize Theron) who tell…