Stray Dog Meditates On Morality With Great Performances and Exceptional Blocking

Akira Kurosawa is handily one of my favorite filmmakers of all-time. Not exactly the most original sentiment, I agree, but gosh, I just love his movies to pieces. In particular, I love the blocking in his films, the arrangement of characters in a given shot, not to mention their body language, can be immediate visual indicators of who these characters are as people. Take a shot (pictured below) from Stray Dog, for instance, that films three characters in an interrogation room head-on. The woman being interrogated is closest to the camera and clearly evokes a sense of assured confidence that she can get out of this situation, while in the far back is the films protagonist, Detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), all buttoned up, nervous and kept at a distance from someone he wants answers from.

Ikiru Review (Classic Write-Up)

There are plenty of amazing moments to be found in Hamilton, many of which show a sense of wisdom that can only be accurately described as "remarkable". One such moment arrives in one of the final songs of the musical, as Alexander Hamilton is about to finally succumb to death, something he imagines so much it feels more like a memory. As the darkness envelops him, he comes to a shocking realization over what the word legacy truly means. I'll let Lin-Manuel Miranda's lyrics take it from here: