Amazing Grace

My Life to Live (1961) opens with a series of closeups of Nana (Anna Karina)—her left profile, her face straight on, her right profile, and then, in the first dramatic scene of the film, a two-minute shot of the back of her head, as she breaks up with a boyfriend in a busy Parisian cafe. The…

Review coming.  Directed by: Ming-liang Tsai Produced by: Laurence Picollec Chinlin Hsieh Bruno Pesery Written by: Ming-liang Tsai Pi-ying Yang Music by: Cinematography by: Benoît Delhomme Editing by: Sheng-Chang Chen Release Date: 2001 Running Time: 116 Language: Mandarin, French, Min Nan, English Arts & Faith Lists: 2020 Top 100 — #98

Agnès Varda tells as much about her own experiences and feelings growing older as she does about the history and practice of gleaning, an occupation that has itself grown old. By placing herself as the documentary’s ultimate gleaner, she collects wisdom about her subjects, her environment and herself and then shares it with her audience….

The most famous line in The Red Shoes is probably an early exchange between Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer). The director of a prestigious ballet company asks the aspiring ballerina why she wants to dance. Her reply: “Why do you want to live?” The answer impresses Lermontov enough to earn her a small…

This Israeli-made film, the first collaborative effort between Israel’s religious and secular communities, is a small gem of a film. This film takes us into a world we haven’t seen before on film, inside an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.  Here a married couple, Moshe and Mali, are preparing for the Jewish harvest holiday of…

There is little, if any, historical accuracy in Amadeus. The portrayal of Mozart (Tom Hulce) as vulgar libertine is certainly based in much historical fact, but as seen through the eyes of Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), the film’s antihero protagonist and unreliable narrator, even the extent of the genius’ crassness can be called into question….