Humanizing The Vacuum

Gore Vidal in “Christopher Isherwood’s Kind,” discussing two of Isherwood’s memoirs: “The style is much the same throughout. The shift from first to third person does not much alter the way he has of looking at things and it is, of course, the precise way in which Isherwood perceives the…

21. Kings and Queen (2005). A dinner party in which the guests talk too fast, shout past each other, and force poor Catherine Deneuve to smoke coolly in the corner. 22. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). Rio Bravo on a ship, in the eighteenth century, with…

11. The Flight of the Red Balloon (2008). This take on one of the most beloved children’s films of the last fifty years has none of said film’s preciousness. In her second great performance of the last two years (see my #2 film), Juliette Binoche generates enough force to make…

1. Mulholland Drive (2001). Uneven pacing and incongruous prefatory thirty minutes aside, this is a master’s class in the analysis of performance. Everything about Naomi Watts — from her pink sweater to the sensible shoes her relatives in Canada no doubt thought were the best sort of thing to wear…