The Apartment: A Second Look

I'm going to pay Billy Wilder the highest compliment I think he would accept: The Apartment could fit in with Ernst Lubitsch's mature period. Watching this alongside The Shop Around the Corner would be a fascinating look at how essentially the same sense of comedy, drama, and romance developed over about twenty years. It's still…

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Where the Heart Is

#8 in my ranking of John Boorman's films. Part of that weird 80s and 90s subgenre of rich people having to interact with the homeless, John Boorman's Where the Heart Is is actually one of the more successful efforts, in the lines of Mel Brooks' Life Stinks. It's more clear-eyed and realistic in its portrayal…

Leo the Last

#15 in my ranking of John Boorman's films. Yeah...no. Leo the Last is part of this subgenre of films that heavily uses metaphor and symbolism to try and explain, well, everything. Darren Aronofsky's mother! is a more modern example, and Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hotel is another. Considering the presence of Marcello Mastroianni, regular star of…

Catch Us if You Can

#9 in my ranking of John Boorman's films. I've got to admit that I resisted John Boorman's first film, an effort to replicate the success of The Beatles' A Hard Days Night by fellow British Invasion band the Dave Clark Five. It was hard to figure out what was even going on with five, young…

The Lady in Ermine

#30 in my ranking of Ernst Lubitsch's filmography. Well, at least I learned what ermine is, that's neat. That being said, I was actually somewhat enchanted with That Lady in Ermine, Ernst Lubitsch's final feature film that he was unable to complete due to his untimely death, a task that Otto Preminger, who had completed…