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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
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- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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Tag Archives: Robert De Niro
“It’s important not to indicate. People don’t try to show their feelings, they try to hide them.” — Robert De Niro
I haven’t written about the majority of his roles – not for lack of admiration (and in some cases, awestruck wonder) – but here is what I have written: I included his “you talkin’ to me” scene in my gigantic … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Martin Scorsese, mirrors, Raging Bull, Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver
6 Comments
October 2024 Viewing Diary
Downfall (2005; d. Oliver Hirschbiegel) I’ve watched a couple of times. Always good to have a reminder of the madness of those final months, where even the most hardened monstrous men were like, “… uhm, yeah, he’s a lunatic, I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged animation, Australia, biopic, documentary, drama, England, France, Germany, Ginger Rogers, historical drama, Iranian film, Japan, Michelle Pfeiffer, Natalie Portman, Palestine, Poland, Pre-Code, Robert De Niro, romantic comedy, war movies, women directors
31 Comments
May 2024 Viewing Diary
Forward Fast (2024; d. Lorraine Sovern) I met Lorraine at the Florida Film Festival. Someone I was talking to at a party told me about her work and about this short film. He then pulled her over to our group … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged action movies, Boris Karloff, comedy, documentary, drama, Germany, horror, Iran, Iranian film, Ireland, Italy, Mary Shelley, Mohammad Rasoulof, Pre-Code, Robert De Niro, Russia, Ryan Gosling, short films, Stalin, Tuesday Weld, women directors
7 Comments
Review: Ezra (2024)
I reviewed Ezra, directed by Tony Goldwyn, with a killer cast: Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne, Robert DeNiro and newcomer, William Fitzgerald. The movie wants to do two things and it does one of them very well. Review on Ebert.
2023 films I loved, in no particular order
On my Substack, open to all: my Top whatever Films of 2023. Unranked. An eccentric sampling, featuring some of the usual suspects but, more importantly, pointing towards some lesser-known films which – for whatever reason – got lost in the … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged biopic, Christian Petzold, David Fincher, documentary, drama, Emily Bronte, England, France, Germany, historical drama, Little Richard, Martin Scorsese, newsletter, Robert De Niro, Romania, romantic drama, short films, Spain, thrillers, Ukraine, Wes Anderson, women directors
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September/October 2023 Viewing Diary
I moved in late September. Again. I found a little cozy apartment, the second floor of a little house, with slanted ceilings, little cubbyhole-eaves everywhere, and a big yard. It’s a 10 minute walk to the beach. I found it … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies
Tagged Bette Davis, biopic, comedy, Costa-Gavras, Dana Andrews, documentary, drama, Eli Wallach, England, Ewan McGregor, film noir, France, Fritz Lang, George Cukor, George Sanders, Germany, Gloria Grahame, Hal Wallis, historical drama, Ireland, Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Judy Blume, Kate Lyn Sheil, Lana Turner, Lee Marvin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Miriam Hopkins, Norma Shearer, Otto Preminger, Paul Schrader, River Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Roman Polanski, Rosalind Russell, Sidney Lumet, Spain, Supernatural, Vincente Minnelli, women directors, WWII
29 Comments
2022 Books Read
Some re-reads this year, but a lot of new-to-me authors as well. New novels written by faves. Been a year of upheaval and transitions. I’ve managed to keep up my regular reading schedule. I just don’t feel right if I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alfred Hitchcock, Anne Fadiman, art, Australia, Biography, books read, Canada, Christopher Hitchens, Edmund Burke, Elinor Lipman, England, entertainment biography, essays, Eve Babitz, friends, Germany, Greece, Hitler, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Joseph Cornell, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Master and Margarita, Memoirs, Michael Curtiz, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mitford sisters, nonfiction, Paul Zindel, politics, Quentin Tarantino, Robert De Niro, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Beatles, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Victor Klemperer, Victor Serge, war, William Hazlitt, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, WWII, YA fiction
10 Comments
“So give me a stage where this bull here can rage”: Two essays on Raging Bull
Yesterday was the release-day of Criterion’s 4K edition of Raging Bull, for which I contributed a video-essay. There are two essays included in the booklet (also online), and I just read them both and must share them: First: Raging Bull: … Continue reading
Criterion’s Raging Bull: available now!
Raging Bull has entered the Criterion Collection and is available for purchase, at Criterion or elsewhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble whatever. (Also, by the way, David Lean’s Summertime also entered the collection, simultaneously, with an essay by my friend Stephanie … Continue reading