Mini-Review: My favorite film. It never gets old and always leaves me wanting more. Kieslowski's poetic sensibility adds a palpable sense of mystery to simple tales of sins committed, punishments rendered, grace offered, and redemption found. More than that, these tales reflect and comment upon social, political, familial, and theological problems in a way that invites engagement, highlights beauty, and offers hope. This is simply a masterful series of films that remain enriching long after seeing them.

Mini-Review: The Third Man brilliantly displays the catastrophic impact and destruction wrought by war and conflict. The aftermath of WWII in Vienna is devastating, seen not just in the beautifully shot rubble, dark corners, and sewers of the once glamorous city, but also more acutely in the lives of the people trying to make their way in such a sad and beaten down locale. No character embodies this tragedy more than Welles' Harry Lime, who offers one of the great cinematic performances of all time.

Mini-Review: A beautiful piece of naturalistic filmmaking, this gets more complex and interesting each time I see it. Linklater's use of the camera is inventive without being flashy, the narrative has structure without losing a sense of a free-flowing conversation. Linklater's slow and thorough development of the film's central moral dilemma confronts us with both excitement and fear, joy and sadness. That these are all truly present in the film enhances its realism, and its beauty.

Mini-Review: Amazing use of the camera and of spacing. The significance of each cut is highlighted in this film because there are so few of them. And the way Tarr's camera allows us into the world of these people seems to both repel and bring some strange sense of empathy.