Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) | Directed by Richard Attenborough

 4.5/5

Richard Attenborough’s directorial debut, Oh! What a Lovely War, is right in my cinematic sweet spot. Highly theatrical, with a touch of the absurd and Brechtian distancing techniques, the film sets major events of World War I within a boardwalk-style amusement park. The carnivalesque atmosphere highlights the grotesqueries of nationalism and wartime propaganda, and the ways in which world leaders causally throw away the lives of their people like they’re playing a game is horrifying. The film is filled with musical numbers, actual songs sung by soldiers during the war that parody patriotic numbers, hymns, or barroom melody. The ghastly lyrics provide a sharp counterpoint to the jaunty melodies and heightens the sense of the soldiers’ mortality. As intellectual and heady as the film may seem, the final sequence is overwhelmingly sad as we’re forced to reckon with all of the lives lost in this and every war.

Stalag 17 (1953) | Directed by Billy Wilder

 3.5/5

Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 is filled with tonal dissonances that never quite gel in the way his best films (The Apartment, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard) do. As high as the stakes may be at the outset, the broad comedy throughout the remainder of the film keeps those stakes from feeling real. Unlike some of the great WWII POW films, most of the characters are either too bland to tell apart from the others, or such over-the-top caricatures that they (and their hijinks) feel out-of-place in this life-and-death situation. Still, Wilder is a master filmmaker, and his direction elevates the middling narrative with light, fluid camerawork and a fast-paced banter that clips along in spite of the dissonances. The film’s exploration of the ways in which disillusionment can fuel selfish entitlement is compelling, but the film is too jumbled to do much with it or give our nominal protagonist any kind of an arc.

The Band Wagon (1953) | Directed by Vincente Minnelli

 3.5/5

Vincente Minnelli’s The Band Wagon is a perfectly charming musical that indulges in one of my least favorite tropes – that of the artist’s attempt to make great and meaningful art being pushed aside in favor of creating frivolous entertainment. Fred Astaire gives a fine performance, but without a stronger personality like Ginger Rogers to play off, it quickly becomes the “Fred Show” and doesn’t have enough momentum to sustain it’s nearly two-hour running time. That said, it’s refreshing to see a central romance in a classic Hollywood musical that isn’t started by stalking, and it’s surprisingly honest to have the initial antagonism sparked by their mutual artistic insecurities. The musical numbers are a lot of fun, and the noir-tinged dream ballet is an absolute treat.

Marwencol (2010) | Directed by Jeffrey Malmberg

 4.5/5

Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol is a poignant, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting documentary profile of outsider artist Mark Hogencamp who has created a scale model of a World War II town with highly detailed miniatures in order to heal – physically and emotionally – from terrible trauma. While the film’s focus is primarily on one individual’s journey toward wholeness, it does touch on issues of personal identity and the brokenness of our health care system in some profoundly moving ways. The film is structured around the stories Hogencamp tells about the town, a story that mirrors his real-life recovery, and Malmberg captures Hogencamp’s vulnerability in ways that are beautiful and surprising.

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) | Directed by John Schlesinger

 4/5

John Schlesinger’s The Falcon and the Snowman is a solid, thoroughly engaging espionage drama. Even though the thriller elements are subsumed by the true-life drama, Schlesinger still manages to use the visual language of spy thrillers (deep shadows, unexpected reveals, long zoom shoots) to place the film firmly in the lineage of past genre classic. The spy-craft depicted here is grounded, simple and rudimentary, and the storytelling is similarly simple and matter-of-fact. This combination of techniques helps what on the surface seems like fabricated fantasy to feel plausible. Both Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn give great performances, and the ways in which their youthful ideals, cynicism with those in power, and a little touch of that good-ol’ American greed combine to lead them into treason makes for a compelling and tragic film.

The Harvey Girls (1946) | Directed by George Sidney

 3.5/5

I didn’t expect to like George Sidney’s The Harvey Girls half as much as I did – though I’m sure much of that has to do with Judy Garland’s luminous performance as a jilted mail-order bride who goes to work as a waitress in a frontier restaurant in direct competition with the local saloon. It’s all overly sanitized and the rivalry between the restaurant and saloon is mostly good natured – though it is an absolute delight to see Garland barge into the saloon with two six-shooters and demand that the local ruffians give her back steaks that had been pilfered to put the restaurant out of business. Much about the film is pretty pedestrian, but Garland has such brilliant comic timing and an easy rapport with all of her co-stars that she manages to elevate this otherwise middling effort.

Marathon Man (1976) | Directed by John Schlesinger

 4.5/5

John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man is exactly what I want from my ’70s paranoia thrillers. Corrupt government officials keep us from being able to trust anyone onscreen, and every character our protagonist meets is immediately suspect. Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier both give really compelling and completely surprising performances. Olivier plays a vicious and malevolent villain motivated entirely by self-interest and petty greed, and yet there are some incredibly powerful moments in which he is haunted by his brutal legacy – the consequences of his past transforming him into a furtive and pathetic shell of a person. The script is tight – executing plot twists with deft precision – and the pacing is flawless. I can’t believe I’m just getting around to this now – it’s really fantastic.

Silent Light (2007) | Directed by Carlos Reygadas

 5/5

Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light was an absolute revelation, and one of the most moving and mysterious films I’ve seen recently. Set in a conservative Mennonite community on the Mexican border, Reygadas turns an almost ethnographic, documentary eye on this story of marriage and adultery. The narrative is simple, the story beats exceedingly familiar, but the long shots, quiet rhythms, and performances from nonprofessional actors all ground the film and make the final moments into something breathtaking and transcendent. While the film starts from the point of view of an adulterous husband, the perspective slowly shifts and is handed off to the dutiful wife and pragmatic mistress. It’s a subtle, but powerful shift for this story set within a repressive religious community. The final moments convey an unspeakable grace and wordless bond between women who survive within these patriarchial societies.

Jojo Rabbit (2019) | Directed by Taika Waititi

 5/5

I think all the terrible reviews for Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit helped me go into the film with tempered expectations and come out absolutely loving this tonally challenging exploration of war, indoctrination, and loss – all told from a child’s perspective. Like all of his films, Waititi uses tonal shifts here to disarm us – one moment we’re laughing at the film’s charming absurdity, the next we wince as we realize the deeper implications of a seemingly innocent and offhand remark. Nazi Germany at the end of World War II is a problematic place and time in which to set a comedy, but Waititi gradually breaks out of the child’s perspective and forces his young protagonist (and an audience looking for a good time at the movies) to begin seeing the horrors of war and totalitarianism. From the opening archival footage of Hitler being cheered by the German youth (set to music from The Beatles), we see the ways in which indoctrination and propaganda get internalized by the young. And as heartbreaking and sad as the film ends up being, Waititi manages to end the film on a joyful note that never feels cloying or sentimental.

Where to Watch

An American in Paris (1951) | Directed by Vincente Minnelli

 3/5

Perhaps I went in with unreasonable expectations, but I expected to be dazzled by Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris – especially considering how much I loved Meet Me in St. Louis. But there’s a clumsy and ham-fisted awkwardness to the entire endeavor. The music isn’t particularly memorable – the best songs were all given better renditions in other films – and key plot points are either hurriedly rushed or laboriously rehashed. Of greater concern is the film’s underlying sexism – from Gene Kelly’s stalking and pushiness with Leslie Caron to the film’s disdain towards independent women who know what they want. The dream ballet is certainly a spectacular feat of filmmaking that would make an extraordinary short film of its own, but its placement here blunts the film’s emotional trajectory, leaving the resolution completely unsatisfying for any of our characters. There are a handful of really charming and delightful moments, but they can’t overcome the film’s significant weaknesses.