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.

A Movie As Well-Made As The Passionate Friends Has Got A Friend In Me

To quote Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (which itself was quoting a passage from the book The Natural History of Nonsense): "We might be through with the past but the past ain't through with us." That's true under any circumstances but it's especially true in regards to the lead characters of The Passionate Friends, who are all entangled in how Mary (Ann Todd) is becoming heavily infatuated with a figure from her past much to the detriment of her present circumstances. Even when seemingly important people and events fade into the best, they can still manage to be impactful well into the present.

Bicycle Thieves Ponders How Far You'll Go To Protect What Little You Have

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #12
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #33

Right from its opening scene, Bicycle Thieves has a remarkable talent for plunging the viewer into the desperation soaked world its lead character lives in. Dozens of human beings crowd around one man whose handing out job assignments, with all of these people eagerly hoping they can get an assignment that'll ensure they and their families will be able to eat in the coming days. Their entire lives hinge on one human being, this guy assigning people to certain tasks. It's insane to imagine one's fate being solely determined by a singular person, but that's very much the reality for all of these people.

A Father And Child Reunion Is More Than A Motion Away In Late Spring

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #10
Placement On Sight & Sound 50 Best Movies List: #15

Both Late Spring and Tokyo Story are the first Yasujiro Ozu movies I've ever seen, and if they're any indication, the concepts of family and mortality loom large in his productions. Ozu seems quite fascinated at contemplating how the finite time we have on this Earth impacts the way we interact with our loved ones, especially since the realization of us all having only so much time to live is likely to be more prevalent on the minds of older individuals compared to their younger relatives. Whereas Tokyo Story was about coming to terms with death as it occurs, the story of Late Spring is more concerned with preparing for that kind of possibility.

Rudolph's Quality Endures To This Day

Welcome to 25 Days Of Christmas Pop Culture! From now until Christmas Eve, I'll be tackling one piece of Christmas pop culture! It could be a book, movie, TV special, song....so long as it's festive for this time of the year, it'll be checked out in this daily column!

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer had existed since 1939 as a book, and then became a Christmas Carol in 1949, but it wasn't until 1964 arrived that this holiday critter achieved true fame. Ya see, that was the year the Rankin-Bass Christmas special Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer arrived. The special started a tradition of massively successful specials for Rankin-Bass, as well as cementing a monumental part of any holiday season.