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- “Those evils that inflame the imagination and make the heart sick, ought not to leave the head cool.” — William Hazlitt
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- “I never wanted to be this famous. I never imagined this life for myself.” — Kristen Stewart
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Henry IV, Part 2
- “I never was good at sightseeing yet it must be done.” — William Wordsworth
- “It sounds like something from a Woody Guthrie song, but it’s true; I was raised in a freight car.” — Merle Haggard
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Henry IV, Part 1
- “There won’t be another Bette Davis. There can’t be.” Mitchell and I discuss Bette Davis
- “I’d marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me and guarantee that he’d be dead within a year.” — Bette Davis
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Tag Archives: Nina Hoss
November 2022 Viewing Diary
Something in the Dirt (2022; d. Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson) I really liked this. If you like losing yourself in conspiracy theories – without being, like, a QAnon-type ready to shoot up a pizza parlor – then this is super … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Alan Ladd, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Cate Blanchett, Claude Rains, crime movies, D.H. Lawrence, documentary, drama, England, film noir, France, historical drama, horror, Iran, Iranian film, Isabelle Huppert, Jafar Panahi, Joanna Hogg, Joe Berlinger, John Garfield, Nina Hoss, Poland, Ralph Macchio, Russia, sci-fi, South Korea, Steven Spielberg, Tilda Swinton, true crime, women directors
3 Comments
Keep your eye on the star
When Tommy Lee Jones came and talked at my grad school, he was asked how he prepared for his role in The Fugitive. He said he talked to a US Marshal and basically got the expected answer … “I don’t … Continue reading
June 2016 Viewing Diary
Homeland Season 3, Episode 4 “Game On” (2013; d. David Nutter) Hey, Nutter, what’s up? Thanks for the Supernatural pilot. Going on 12 seasons now, you set it up real good. I have now watched up until Season 5 of … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Alain Delon, Alfred Hitchcock, Dennis Hopper, documentary, England, F. Scott Fitzgerald, family, France, Frank Capra, friends, Germany, Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Jack Nicholson, Jimmy Stewart, July and Half of August, Nicholas Ray, Nina Hoss, Olivia de Havilland, Patricia Highsmith, Raoul Walsh, Robert Redford, Stanley Kubrick, Supernatural, Wim Wenders
96 Comments
Fandor’s Best Feature Films, 2015
I was invited to participate in Fandor’s end-of-year poll about the best feature films of 2015. Here are the results. Whether or not your favorite is or is not there is irrelevant (at least in my view). I’m not a … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Angelina Jolie, Asghar Farhadi, Christian Petzold, Jafar Panahi, Nina Hoss, Rocky
32 Comments
Review: Phoenix (2015); dir. Christian Petzold
The collaboration of director Christian Petzold and Nina Hoss is one of the pleasurable partnerships of our day and age. It’s exciting that these two have “found” one another, and that they continue to make films together, the latest being … Continue reading
Review: Barbara (2012); Dir. Christian Petzold
Roger Ebert has asked me to write for him, which is very exciting! Here’s my first piece: on German director Christian Petzold’s suspenseful film Barbara, about a doctor in 1980s, East Germany. It’s a fine film.
Yella (2007); Dir. Christian Petzold
I hesitate to say too much about the plot of Yella, the psychological/corporate-business thriller directed by German director Christian Petzold, because so much of the film’s effectiveness and tension comes from watching events unfold. I didn’t know much about Yella, … Continue reading