Hope and Glory

It's kind of funny how you can read the description of a film, think it sounds completely out of step for a filmmaker's work, and then actually watch it to discover that it ends up fitting perfectly. A slice of life tale of a small boy in the London suburbs during World War II felt…

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Hell in the Pacific

I love these sorts of tiny little films from accomplished filmmakers. This is two actors (literally no more than two at any point in the film) in a battle of wills and wits on a beach. It's the sort of thing that, just at the sound of it without any mention of names, comes off…

The Bridge on the River Kwai: A Second Look

I'm still in amazement at how well The Bridge on the River Kwai comes together in the end. David Lean had been working up his way through the British film industry through a series of smaller films, and he entered the epic game with a serious bang. Taking Pierre Boulle's novel and pushing it into…

Gone with the Wind

Now...this is a MOVIE. Huge, sentimental, melodramatic, earnest, detailed, ambitious, impressive, and eager to entertain across four brisk hours, David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind has dominated the popular cinematic consciousness over the past few decades for a reason. A few reasons, really. Made at the height of Selznick's professional and creative powers, after…

All Quiet on the Western Front

A film that simply will not let you miss its message, All Quiet on the Western Front was the flip side of Carl Laemmle Jr's effort to transform the movie studio his father gifted him, the other being the early monster movies Dracula and Frankenstein. Those were handsome, expensive literary adaptations designed to bring prestige…