“It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946)

This is not a review. This is a unique and wonderful film, but we all know that. I came to appreciate it late because I have a long-standing aversion to “angel” stories, especially when heavenly forces help good to triumph over evil. But IAWL is not sentimental in the sugary sense. It’s hard-nosed and often […]

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Film: Inside Llewyn Davis

Let me say right off that I  enjoyed this film, with one strong reservation. The Coen brothers know how to present their quirky charmers, and how to make us care what happens to them. Oscar Isaac plays a young folk singer in Greenwich Village, 1961, and the milieu is so perfectly rendered that I felt I could walk through […]

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