Best Years of Our Lives: Coming Home
Myrna Loy and Fredric March. Photo: RKO The premiere of The Best Years of Our Lives seemed to hit America like a ton of bricks. Coming the year after the…
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…
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 English Patient: Memories of Love
Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas. Photo: Miramax Some people will always think of this film as the one that stole the Best Picture Oscar from Fargo. Fair enough, the…
Parasite: Movin’ On Up
Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin and Park So-dam. Photo: CJ Entertainment As fall descended on us this year, it became increasingly clear that class warfare was going to be…
Kramer vs. Kramer: Learning on the Job
Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Justin Henry. Photo: Columbia ”Wall-to-wall sentiment”, Time Out wrote in a disdainful review. Sure, if that’s what you choose to hate. Kramer vs. Kramer became…
Gigi: A Belle Époque Girl
Leslie Caron. Photo: MGM There’s a moment in The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) where Peter Sellers impersonates Maurice Chevalier singing ”Thank Heaven for Little Girls” with an extreme French…
You Can’t Take It With You: Enjoy It Now
Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur and Edward Arnold. Photo: Columbia With It Happened One Night (1934), Frank Capra had already won an Oscar for Best Director. The same honor…
Green Book
In the early 1960s, New York City bouncer Tony ”Lip” (Viggo Mortensen) is hired by an African-American concert pianist (Mahershala Ali) for a tour through the Deep South; he’ll serve…
An American in Paris: Art, Dance & Romance
Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Photo: MGM ”An American in Paris” first saw the light of day in 1928. A jazzy orchestral piece, it was written by George Gershwin and…