My Favorite Otto Preminger Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

2.   Anger Face (1953)

3.   Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

4.   Laura (1944)

5.   Daisy Kenyon (1947)

6.   Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

7.   Such Good Friends (1971)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   Fallen Angel (1945)

2.   The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

3.   Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

4.   Advise and Consent (1962)

5.   The 13th Letter (1951)

6.   The Cardinal (1963)

7.   Whirlpool (1949)

 

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My Favorite Pier Paolo Pasolini Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   Mamma Roma (1962)

2.   The Canterbury Tales (1972)

3.   Accattone (1961)

4.   A Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) (1974)

5.   The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966)

6.   The Decameron (1971)

7.   Teorema (1968)

8.   Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

9.   The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

10. Medea (1969)

11. Pigsty (1969)

12. Oedipus Rex (1967)

13. The Anger (1963) (co-directed with Giovannino Guareschi)
(Documentary)

14. Love and Anger (1969)
(Segment: “The sequence of the paper flower”)

15. Love Meetings (1964) (Documentary)

16. Notes Towards an African Orestes (1970) (Documentary)

My Favorite G.W. Pabst Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   Pandora’s Box (1929)

2.   Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)

3.   The Loves of Jeanne Ney (1927)

4.   The Threepenny Opera (1931)

5.   Joyless Street (1925)

6.   Westfront 1918 (1930)
(I saw it on an old VHS Tape)

7.   Kameradschaft (1930)
(I saw it on an old VHS Tape)

8.   Secrets of a Soul (1926)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929) (co-directed with Arnold Fanck)

My Favorite Joseph L. Mankiewicz Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   All About Eve (1950)

2.   Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

3.   Julius Caesar (1953)

4.   No Way Out (1950)
(No relation to the 1987 film)

5.   The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

6.   People Will Talk (1951)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

2.   House of Strangers (1949)

3.   The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

4.   Guys and Dolls (1955)

5.   Sleuth (1972)
(Not the 2007 version)

My Favorite Joseph H. Lewis Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   Gun Crazy (1949)

2.   Cry of the Hunted (1953)

3.   The Halliday Brand (1957)

4.   The Big Combo (1955)

5.   Terror in a Texas Town (1958)

6.   So Dark the Night (1946)

7.   My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)

8.   The Undercover Man (1949)
(I saw it a long time ago on TCM)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   A Lady Without Passport (1950)

2.   Retreat, Hell! (1952)

3.   A Lawless Street (1955)

4.   Desperate Search (1952)

5.   7th Cavalry (1956)
(I saw it on an old VHS Tape)

My Favorite Jerry Lewis Directed Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   The Nutty Professor (1963)
(not the 1996 version)

2.   The Ladies Man (1961)
(No relation to the 2000 film)

3.   The Bellboy (1960)

4.   The Patsy (1964)

5.   The Errand Boy (1961)

6.   The Family Jewels (1965)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   Cracking Up (1983)

2.   Hardly Working (1980)
(I saw it on an old VHS Tape)

My Favorite Arthur Penn Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   Alice’s Restaurant (1969)

2.   Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

3.   Night Moves (1975)

4.   Mickey One (1965)

5.   Four Friends (1981)

6.   The Left Handed Gun (1958)

7.   The Missouri Breaks (1976)

8.   Little Big Man (1970)

9.   Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   Target (1985)

Sully: A Guest Review by Guest Reviewer Yaseen Fawzi

This review was not written by me, it was written by my good friend Yaseen Fawzi. I wanted to share some of his reviews by posting them on my website. All credit goes to him, not me. He writes a lot of great reviews and this is yet another one 🙂 I am aware that Sully came out in early September (this is now October) and even though I would have given Sully * * * * out of * * * * stars, I still feel that Yaseen has wrote a great review. Here is Yaseen’s review of Sully below:

Sully
A Review
by
Guest
Reviewer
Yaseen Fawzi
September 17, 2016

Clint Eastwood’s new film Sully centers on Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot of the US Airways Flight 1549 that landed safely in the Hudson River with all 155 people on board surviving in early 2009. Sully is now declared a national hero, but as soon as he experiences the aftermath of this incident and tries to rationalize what has just happened, he faces intense questioning from both the NTSB and the media. The NTSB believes that it would have been possible for the plane to land at the LaGuardia airport, since one of the engines was still working sufficiently. As Sully nears the inevitable hearings, he soon realizes he has to face his own inner struggles in order to realize the truth.    

The film focuses heavily on Sully as he tries to make sense about the ensuing chaos surrounding him, his fellow pilots, and his career. Just as he says in one sequence, he doesn’t actually feel like a hero, and in many sequences throughout, Sully feels like he has been a witness to a crime scene, and so does the audience. The direction, cinematography, and editing all have the naturalistic feel of a documentary, in the sense that it feels more and more like you are witnessing Sully as he undergoes his NTSB hearings and when he is in self-doubt. It is also well-executed in cutting back and forth between the flight and the events thereafter, as well as being cleverly made to subvert the overall perspective being experienced by the viewer. This being Eastwood’s first movie filmed on IMAX cameras, it really adds to the overall atmosphere and intense sense of panic and high anxiety that occurs during the fateful flight. In just 96 minutes, Eastwood is able to cover the most important aspects from before and after the day of Flight 1549. However, he is also able to pull back and focus heavily on a character, real or fictional, and their thought process, like many of the Golden Age directors. He and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki spend just as much time on the passengers, co-pilots, and other civilians as they do on Sully himself, which makes for an effective storytelling balance.        

Tom Hanks’ performance as Sully is elevated to the point that you are not watching Hanks acting, but rather, that he is Sully. Capturing every little nuance and mannerism of Sully, Hanks portrays him as somebody mostly unsure about what is happening around him, which is part of his ability to follow his everyman persona. Aaron Eckhart brings a subtle dose of humor as Sully’s co-pilot Mike Ellis, while Laura Linney is given a more subdued but equally as important role as Sully’s wife Lorraine. On the other hand, the actors portraying the passengers range from average to bland in their performances.

Sully is another clear candidate for the shelf of Clint Eastwood’s best films, in addition to featuring one of Tom Hanks’ best performances as an uncompromising modern-day hero.

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *) “Ya-stars”

My Favorite Elia Kazan Films (New)

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

1.   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

2.   Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

3.   Pinky (1949)

4.   On the Waterfront (1954)

5.   Splendor in the Grass (1961)

6.   The Last Tycoon (1976)

7.   A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

8.   East of Eden (1955)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

1.   Wild River (1960)

2.   Baby Doll (1956)

3.   Boomerang (1947)
(No relation to the 1992 Eddie Murphy comedy of the same name)

4.   A Face in the Crowd (1957)

5.   Panic in the Streets (1950)

6.   Viva Zapata! (1952)