Rome Open City
Director Roberto Rossellini saw his 1945 masterpiece as an antidote to the escapism that had characterized Italian cinema under the …
Category Archives: Drama
Stagecoach
Forget the Apaches. Geronimo and his gang are just noise in this picture. Okay, noise and a few well-aimed arrows. …
The Maltese Falcon
In appreciation of Roger Ebert (1942-2013) Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre: I love those guys! Bogey playing the kind of …
The Battle of Algiers
Franco Solinas, who wrote the screenplay for “The Battle of Algiers,” set out to demystify colonial war. Honor, glory, maintaining …
Les Enfants du paradis
The screenwriter of “Enfants du paradis,” poet Jacques Prévert, claimed that cinema and poetry were the same thing. After last …
A Touch of Evil
When I heard that today is Zsa Zsa Gabor’s 96th birthday, I was motivated to finish my review of “A …
Love (Szerelem)
“Love” is such a quiet, private film, you’d never guess it was a political statement — and a dangerous one …
Rebecca
You can’t blame Hitchcock for the kinky sexual subtext in “Rebecca” because it was in the novel. Stuff like the …
Jezebel
Bette Davis claimed than an affair between a star and her director produces electricity that the audience feels. She was …
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
We’ve all seen films that failed to capture the essentials of a favorite novel. Maybe the actors weren’t up to …
