Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
#3 in my ranking of Masaki Kobayashi's films. This is one of the big reasons why I decided to do a Masaki Kobayashi survey. I'd seen the film many moons ago and bought it a couple of years ago, but it's hard to find time for a ten-hour film. Getting knee deep in director filmographies… Continue reading The Human Condition Part I: No Greater Love
#9 in my ranking of Masaki Kobayashi's films. It's easy to see why Japanese authorities would have wanted cuts from Masaki Kobayashi's first attempt at his hard-hitting style of story about the individual against an oppressive system. Not only did it highlight some smaller forms of the war crimes of the Japanese army during World… Continue reading The Thick-Walled Room
#1 in my ranking of Jean-Pierre Melville's filmography. This is the most perfect combination of Melville's cool, dispassionate style and subject matter. He works well in the gangster/crime genres, but taking this sort of subdued, quiet approach to telling a story works extremely well when combined with the complete and total sense of danger felt… Continue reading Army of Shadows
#69 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. A Civil War film where the history of the Civil War is all just jumbled together into a pastiche of life in the South while an unconvincing love affair bubbles up between a Union officer and Confederate woman, an oddly built feud between two Union officers breaks… Continue reading The Horse Soldiers
#30 in my ranking of John Ford's filmography. This almost feels like an admission that John Ford was getting old. This cinematic ode to a man Ford knew and obviously admired approaches the movement of a history that intersects with his own with the expected warmth and humanity that Ford often brought to his films.… Continue reading The Wings of Eagles
David Vining, Author 