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Tag Archives: France
Best Films of 2019: Film Comment
The results of the Film Comment poll are in: the best films of 2019. For someone who doesn’t like lists – (I still recognizes their value!) – I sure participate in a lot of them. If nothing else, lists points … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Argentina, Bong Joon-Ho, China, Christian Petzold, drama, England, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Jean-Luc Godard, Joanna Hogg, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, South Korea, Spain, women directors
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Top 10 of 2019: Rogerebert.com
A group vote among the Rogerebert.com contributors, each of us contributing our own Top 10, led to our collective Top 10. (It’s always interesting to see the comparison. There are always a couple of celebrated films a year that leave … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Bong Joon-Ho, drama, England, France, historical drama, Joanna Hogg, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, South Korea, Spain, women directors
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NYFCC winners announced!
So yesterday, the members of the NYFCC, yours truly included, sat down in a windowless room and voted. At one point I murmured, “Jesus, this has been a really strong year.” And it really has, but not until I saw … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies
Tagged animation, drama, France, Macedonia, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, South Korea, women directors
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November 2019 Viewing Diary
The Best of Everything (1959; d. Jean Negulesco) I love this movie so much. I read the book this year (for the first time). I highly recommend both. This is the wellspring from which Mad Men sprung. The Devil Next … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged China, comedy, documentary, drama, England, France, hockey, Italy, Jennifer Aniston, Jodie Foster, romantic drama, sci-fi, Spain, Supernatural, women directors, Woody Allen
19 Comments
50 Best Albums, by Brendan O’Malley, #26. Nirvana, Nevermind
My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here.) His most recent gig was story editor/writer on the hit … Continue reading
May 2019 Viewing Diary
Again, just like my April viewing diary, this will be a pretty tough read for anyone not into Supernatural. It may be a tough read for those who DO watch Supernatural (especially if you loved the last 3 seasons. If … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Bette Davis, Bob Dylan, Bob Fosse, Canada, Emma Thompson, France, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Joanna Hogg, Joe Berlinger, John Ford, John Wayne, Juliette Binoche, Martin Scorsese, Sam Rockwell, Supernatural, Sylvia Plath, William Wyler, Zac Efron
97 Comments
R.I.P. Agnès Varda
I woke up to the news that the great pioneering French New Wave filmmaker Agnès Varda, active up until the very end, has just died at the age of 90. In 2017, her documentary Faces Places was on my Top … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, RIP
Tagged Agnes Varda, Belgium, France, Sandrine Bonnaire, women directors
6 Comments
Review: Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2019)
I love Gaspar Noé, warts and all. I look forward to his new films like I look forward to some exciting event where I have no idea what’s going to happen. His latest, Climax, is really great. I reviewed the … Continue reading
Film Comment Countdown and Live Talk
Last night, I participated in a Film Comment live talk at Lincoln Center, hosted/moderated by Film Comment editor-in-chief Nic Rapold, which involved “unveiling” Film Comment‘s Top 10 of 2018. The other critics there were Michael Koresky, Nick Pinkerton and Molly … Continue reading
The Storming of the Bastille: “Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible!”
July 14, 1789 Thomas Carlyle, in his majestic, overwrought and intimidating The French Revolution, describes the Siege of the Bastille in frenzied and apocalyptic-doomsday prose. You can hear Carlyle’s primal fear of the Crowd. The Crowd is simultaneously abstract and … Continue reading

