PerryStroika
Cinema Addict
Member Since: 20 Sep 2010
Location: USA
Bio: My passions: Golden age Japanese cinema, German expressionism, film noir, the cinema of East Asia, silent comedy, 80's body horror, brainy science fiction
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Pickup on South Street (1953) - Rated 18 Nov 2020
"Tale as old as time: boy meets girl; boy picks girl's pocket; girl tracks boy down through old lady snitch saving up money to buy a funeral plot; boy slaps girl; they kiss; girl hits boy over the head with bottle; boy and girl end up together, because, you know, movies. Also, lots of Commie punching. Paul Schrader claims this flick inspired Robert Bresson's Pickpocket. I can see why: Richard Widmark secretly slipping his hand into a woman's purse is the lewdest non-sex scene I've ever seen."
Sergeant Rutledge (1960) - Rated 17 Apr 2021
"Though Ford's personal politics shifted rightward as he got older (he was a Goldwater supporter in '64) he released one of his most progressive and daring films in 1960 in the form of this courtroom melodrama foregrounding white fears of miscegenation and race mixing. The eponymous Rutledge, the perfect Buffalo soldier, is wrongfully accused of the rape and murder of a white girl. His by the book superior officer arrests him, but also vows to defend him in court."
A Serious Man (2009) - Rated 23 Apr 2016
"A series of wry non-answers to the question 'what the fuck does God want from me?', this Jewish metaphysical comedy in the vein of a Midwestern, suburban Kafka is great fun, but nasty fun. As in the Book of Job, the sublime, incomprehensible voice of God ('speaking out of the whirlwind') appears in the cyclone at the end."
Fifteen Million Merits (2011) - Rated 15 Feb 2015
"Tender and acid, poignant and cruel, this elegant black comedy parable of art and commerce manages to say volumes about consumerism, the commodification of dissent and the emptiness of contemporary existence in one short hour. It doesn't just give us two people; it also skillful and economically sketches an entire society and a way of life around them."
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) - Rated 20 Sep 2010
"Anyone who doubts Fritz Lang's stature as a technical innovator on par with Eisenstein or Hitchcock needs to see this, particularly the way he uses sound to suggest eerie shadowy presences off screen. Mabuse is heard but not seen. Then there is the hidden ticking time bomb. Hasn't aged a day."
Let the Right One In (2008) - Rated 17 Jun 2014
"Hitting that perfect note of creepy and touching that I had thought only Guillermo del Toro had in his back pocket, this exquisitely understated Swedish shocker manages to capture the terror, tenderness and poignancy of childhood and give it the purity and strangeness of a fable."
Nomadland (2020) - Rated 12 May 2021
"A film of absences, of wide empty skies, vast flat landscapes, roads disappearing into the horizon, places that are not places anymore, things that can never quite be said to people who are no longer there."
Labyrinth (1986) - Rated 21 Sep 2010
"Clumsy, awkward and hamfisted in some respects (the script, the misjudged musical numbers, too many characters), Jim Henson's post Dark Crystal effort still boasts some of the most fascinating and imaginative puppetry work and set design ever seen in a feature. Highlights, the Escher relativity scene, the Fire Gang dance. Unique and worth seeing."