Wow. There must be something in the air. Here at Mid Century Cinema we’re been compiling our “best of” lists, and just by coincidence – we assume – those invaluable folks at the Criterion Collection have put up a link to this French website which has posted a slew of “top 50s” from notable directors….
Forging ahead with the “best of” lists . . . and this is getting harder. Last week we went with twenty-five favorites from the 1940s and 1950s. The 1960s featured what Phillip Lopate dubbed “the heroic age of movie going” (especially for foreign films), the ambitious American films that pressed hard against the weakening resistance…
Making lists is like watching movies by Ozu—once you start, it’s hard to stop. So after last week’s “top twenty-five” of all time, here at Mid Century Cinema we’ve decided to drum up a few more lists, for your consideration. But remember The Rules of the Game, including, especially: (1) no complaining, only debating. If…
What is your favorite movie? We are often asked that question here at Mid Century Cinema, and our stock response is to reject the question with a dismissive, even haughty wave of the hand. “Favorite”? “Best”? “The Greatest”? Just what are those words supposed to mean when talking about the movies? And to compare one…
Bunny Lake is Missing, the last eminently masterful film from producer-director Otto Preminger (though six more would follow over the next fifteen years) was released on October 3, 1965. It is very nearly a great movie: the gripping tale, with a smart, witty screenplay was gloriously shot on location in London in striking black and…
Mickey One, produced and directed by Arthur Penn, opened on September 27, 1965. A harbinger of the New Hollywood, it had the misfortune of arriving ahead of its time; had it been released two or three years later, it surely would have met with greater success and acclaim. But in 1965, a moody, expressionistic film…
Get Smart made its television debut on September 18, 1965, with the episode “Mr. Big,” written by the show’s co-creators, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The series, which can be watched with enormous pleasure today, arrived at a transitional moment in American politics and culture. An odd hybrid of rat-pack sensibilities and New Hollywood anti-establishment…
Worth seeking out is Francois Truffaut’s 1973 masterpiece Day for Night (La Nuit Americaine), just released in yet another characteristically marvelous special edition from the Criterion Collection. Day for Night is a movie that is in love with the movies—Roger Ebert called it “not only the best movie ever made about movies,” but also “a…
On August 3, 1965 Darling hit the big screen. It was a huge commercial success and took home Academy Awards for actress and screenplay—but it is one of those “you had to be there” movies; no need to track it down if you haven’t seen it. (Borderline scandalous at the time, both MGM and Columbia…
A visit to the Harvard Film Archive afforded an opportunity to see Robert Altman’s HealtH. The film, shot in 1979, was screened in 1980 but shelved by a hostile studio-in-transition, and not properly released until 1982. One of Altman’s most obscure films, it remains largely unavailable and so despite its modest reputation the chance to catch…