Drama
A slew of outstanding and gritty crime films have been set in South Boston (and the rest of the city) in recent years. Here are five to add to your queue.
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Today’s topic is the body of work I’d like to call: “Clint Eastwood’s second act.” The films that came after the roles we grew up with—the TV show cowboy, the Spaghetti Western star, the Dirty Harry years. But calling the films that Eastwood has made in this century his “second act” may be inaccurate. It’s probably best to call them the product of his fifth or sixth act. And who knows how many more he has in him.
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In technology investing, there is a relentless quest for what venture capitalists like to call “disruptive technology.” This is the kind of innovation that disrupts the existing order in a given marketplace. It destroys existing models for business and creates new ones. The movies I have on my list of the canonical movies from this decade all share a similar disruptive quality. Each of these films either created new visions of how film could understand our times or took tired forms and gave them utterly new interpretations. Here are my watch-again recommendations from the '00s.
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Rick Byrne is graphic designer who loves to watch movies and shows while he works. It allows him to be more creative and more productive while enjoying one of his great passions in life: movies.
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From its inception, it was clear that the movies people loved in theaters were not necessarily going to be the movies people rented at home from Netflix. This difference was noticeable in its very first year of existence, and continues to be evident in the 20th year of Netflix.
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War pictures have been a staple of cinema since the 1920s, so the violence of war is not unfamiliar to film audiences. But the opening war sequence in Saving Private Ryan was something entirely new. Spielberg put the audience in the middle of the melee, made us feel the horror of war, and thereby changed how war is depicted in film.
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So, as with any cult movie like The Big Lebowski, the question has to be asked: is the movie really any good? The obvious answer is yes. Of course it’s good. To paraphrase the old saying about Elvis, 50 million Lebowski fans can’t be wrong.
The deeper question is: does the film have any real artistic merit?
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Jarin Blaschke is an award-winning cinematographer and alumni of the Sundance Director's Lab. He is best known for his work on The Witch (2015), which grossed $40 million worldwide on a budget of $3.5M, winning Best First Feature at The Independent Spirit Awards and Best Director at the Sundance Film Festival. Known for his distinctive, formal, low-light work in the film, Jarin was subsequently chosen as one of Variety’s “10 Cinematographers to Watch for 2015,” and one of “13 Breakthroughs of the Sundance Film Festival” by MovieMaker Magazine. Here we interview him about his work.
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If you’re an actor and you’re looking for a career to emulate, you could do a lot worse than Viola Davis. In fact, if you’re a person and looking for a life to admire, you could do a lot worse than Viola Davis. Her film career started in the late ‘90s, and she has turned in some outstanding performances. These are my favorites.
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In 1977, I watched the Academy Awards with my classmate Dorothy. I had gone over to her apartment ostensibly to study for our 19th century Philosophy midterm. And to drink scotch. Dorothy loved scotch, which I found to be an admirable trait in a woman back in those days. After about eleven minutes of reviewing Kant’s Categorical Imperative together, Dorothy finally said: “Oh, screw it, let’s watch the Oscars.”
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