53/100

Amazingly rebellious, astoundingly dangerous… but narratively and dramatically inert, which threatens to kill it altogether until the final act adds some substance. That Jafar Panahi was able to make Taxi is deserving of much more praise than Taxi itself. Maybe it’s the language barrier, but the actors Panahi finds and their conversations aren’t especially interesting or entertaining, with only some bits (fishbowl) adding some genuine fun into the story. Once the niece comes in, there’s more of a solid…

10/100

“Hahaha, what a story, Mark!”

I’ve just recently reviewed Pulp Fiction. Like usual for QT, I found it enormously flawed, but I conceded one thing. There are not many films which are as truly personal as Pulp Fiction. All of aspects I didn’t like came not from lack of technical filmmaking skill but because I disagree with Tarantino’s filmmaking choices. He knew what he was doing and I said then that I will always respect when someone puts themself…

32/100

Watching an old Best Picture winner is like playing Russian Roulette with five bullets. This is past the point where a film of this quality should have been accepted as the best of its year; the year prior had Casablanca(!!!) accept the title, and the next year the crown would go to The Lost Weekend(!!! as well), so this bullshit stands awkwardly betwixt two of the greatest films of the 1940s. Not to mention that Double Indemnity(!!!!!) was its competition…

53/100

Looks pretty amazing, and I guess that’s where 90% of the reputation comes from, because otherwise this is a pretty rote mystery-noir. Still, nowadays I’m usually more interested in the filmmaking itself than the script, so this kept me rapt throughout. As a technical exercise, this is excellent, but I’m left a little cold by the mystery itself, which I found pretty standard and obvious. Worse for me, its extremely intriguing logline is totally underutilized, almost reduced to only…

52/100

Sort of redeems itself in its second half, but for a long time all I wanted from Mrs. Miniver was for it to end. I could not believe that what I was watching was from the same man who made The Children’s Hour and (especially) Dodsworth. The latter, which is basically entirely domestic drama, would seem to suggest that Wyler could pull off endearing middle-class tranquility easily, but it is shockingly dull, and only the cinematography makes it watchable. For…

83/100

Up from 78, but after having ashamedly looked at multiple plot summaries for help (thanks, watchedonlaptop) I feel like I’m seeing it clearly for the first time. Of course, there are deliberately confusing plot mechanics in the final stretch, but I couldn’t totally even get the concept itself, or at least I had a warped view of it. Unintentional convolution is not something I’ll let slide in anything… but that (and some misogyny) is why this isn’t a front-runner…

55/100

Not sure whether I prefer this or Shanghai, but both are shaky pics for Welles and my least favorites of his by far. Really the only thing that works about it is its visuals. It’s only his first color film, but I swear to God you’d be thinking Welles had been using it his whole life; every frame is a painting, and it appears as such without Welles having to sacrifice one bit of his unconventional style. (The noir…

61/100

By far the best thing about How Green Was My Valley is its directing. John Ford’s name looms larger the more I learn about the art and there is a reason why. I was so resistant to him in the past because I associated him with other Great American Artists like D.W. Griffith — significant only historically, a man of the past whose works were dated and bettered. But the fact is that the man was a filmmaking genius.…

58/100

I dunno. To me this seems like Capra on autopilot, hitting all the necessary beats (witty banter, screwball romance, anti-capitalism, Jimmy Stewart) but in the most rote of ways. It’s not particularly well-directed and nothing in the story is new or very thoughtful. It’s hard for these talents to screw up, though — Jimmy Stewart makes me happy, and he and Jean Arthur have fantastic chemistry. Frank Capra was a happy guy, and the optimism he brings alongside his…

49/100

An oddity — surprisingly watchable for over three hours, with an especially entertaining midsection, but manages to get almost nothing done in that time, failing completely as a story or cinematic experience. At least at this point in the Best Picture binge there’s a standard of quality to the winners, and with the Depression totally over there’s an extravagance that I love in a grotesque way. The musical scenes are the highlight of the movie, and maybe the only…

39/100

I’m not by any means the world’s biggest Who fan, though I enjoy their music. I think contemporary critics got it pretty much spot-on when they said that the Who were extraordinarily talented and ambitious but consistently unable to transfer the energy of their live shows onto an album format. I’ve only heard five of their albums all the way through, and if I had to rank them, I’d heretically go Live at Leeds > Quadrophenia > Who’s Next > My Generation > Tommy.…

69/100

Knock me over with a feather — the first totally watchable entry in the Best Pic binge, and the first that feels up to par with Golden Age pictures. (Both only because I’d already seen It Happened One Night before the binge started. All Quiet’s too different a beast to compare.) I’m gonna be honest, I was totally dreading this one, since seeing this director credit after Cavalcade crushed all hope within me. But this is an outstanding improvement. You’d…