What gives it its power are the images that precede it: Buñuel sharpening a razor and gazing up at the moon, and the actress Simone Mareuil having her own eye opened up and the razor brought near.
While John Carpenter's 1982 remake was initially dismissed as an empty, nihilistic gorefest, The Thing (née Another World) has since been reevaluated as one of the greatest science-fiction films of the '80s, and certainly one of the most influential.
Fargo feels like Blood Simple, the Coens' neo-noir debut, got fed through the genre, well, woodchipper, producing a pitch-black comedy about the emptiness of greed. It's messing with you from the moment it opens with a blatant lie about being a true story, with Joel Coen later saying, 'If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they may otherwise not accept.'
Few films manage that without emotional whiplash, but this one does it with warmth. You might feel your throat tighten one minute, only to find yourself laughing out loud the next. I adored Mrs Doubtfire for the obvious reasons: all of Robin Williams's voices, the slapstick and the sheer range of comedic force that the late actor unleashes.
"In cinema, three elements can move: objects, the camera itself and the audience's point of attention," Drew McClellan says to the crowd before showing an example on the projector screen. The clip is a memorable scene from Jordan's Peele's 2017 film, "Get Out," when the protagonist (Daniel Kaluuya) goes out for a late-night smoke and sees the groundskeeper sprinting toward him - in the direction of the camera and the viewer - before abruptly changing direction at the last second.
Have you seen this man lope around, as he does in Jay Kelly through Italian forests and expansive villas? He's awful at it. And it's so endearing! The film blurs the line between fact and fiction by featuring clips from Clooney's real movies and crediting them to the titular actor, insisting Kelly is one of the last A-listers in an industry shedding Hollywood's old guard.
As children, we are taught, by parents and supportive adults which behaviors are expected to navigate our society successfully. One aspect of this learning includes adopting societal norms and a moral code that determines when interactions and situations are deemed "right" and "wrong."
It was refreshing to watch this film after now having sat through 30 years' worth of biopics of various musical figures. This movie removes pretty much all the baloney that most biopics think they need to include.
