Posts tagged James Gray
MOVIE REVIEW: The Lost City of Z

The most crucial dramatic trait for films about exploration is a drawing a strong reaction to the unknown from the audience.  Whether it’s a historical story or a fantastical one of fiction, the film has to evoke awe, be that stirring swells of inspiration or jarring feelings of danger.  It has to move you, not bore you.  If a film can’t achieve that quickened pulse or heavy heart, it’s little better than a travelogue on cable television or a curriculum video they show soon-to-be-bored high school students in Social Studies class.

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DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Hitchcock/Truffaut

Picture your personal influences, either worshiped or admired, and imagine being granted the opportunity to have a conversation with them.  What would you talk about?  What would you ask them?  How would it change you?  In the world of cinema, such a conversation happened between a then-neophyte auteur Francois Truffaut and the aging master Alfred Hitchock in 1962.  Their documented meeting has gone on to inspire generations of future filmmakers and cinephiles.

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