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36. The White Balloon
by Allan Fish (Iran 1995 85m) DVD1 Aka. Badkonake sefid Dancing with their fins p Kurosh Mazkouri d Jafar Panahi w Abbas Kiarostami ph Farzad Jahat ed Jafar Panahi Aida Mohammadkhani (Razieh), Mohsen...
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35. Little Fugitive (1953)
by John Greco “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with his fine movie The Little...
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34. Oliver Twist (1948)
by Allan Fish (UK 1948 116m) DVD1/2 What right have you to butcher me? p Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allen d David Lean w David Lean, Stanley Haynes novel Charles Dickens ph Guy Green ed...
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3,000 post threshold crossed this past week; Site approaches seven year...
Another milestone has been achieved at Wonders in the Dark this past week as the site has published its 3,000th blog post. A remarkable accomplishment to be sure, but even sweeter when one considers...
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Setting up for College; local stage reading; “Age of Kings” other and at-home...
by Sam Juliano Our 19 year-old daughter Melanie’s move into NYC for the opening of the college fall semester at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) was our primary focus over the past week, though the...
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33. American Graffiti (1973)
By Marilyn Ferdinand One thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of moviegoing is that every story is unique, and at the same time, universal. Despite the wide variety of life on earth, in essence, there...
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32. Boyhood (2014)
by Jon Warner When I recall my childhood, there is a remembrance of a certain feeling I used to have as a kid. I used to feel like the years dragged on and on and never seemed to end. Christmas never...
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JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE’S ‘SECOND WIND’ (LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE) “Not everyone’s...
© 2015 by James Clark Jean-Pierre Melville’s reputation has largely had to do with the brilliance of cinematography and overall design of his films as feeding into depictions of an underworld...
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31. How Green Was My Valley (1941)
by Sam Juliano I am leaving behind me fifty years of memory. Memory…..Who shall say what is real and what is not? Can I believe my friends all gone when their voices are a glory in my ears? No....
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30. Lord of the Flies (1963)
by Sam Juliano There are some high school novels that have maintained their popularity for decades. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies rivals Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and J. D. Salinger’s...
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29. The Kid (1921)
by Ed Howard Charlie Chaplin’s first feature film, The Kid, opens with what might well be a statement of purpose for the master silent comic as he embarked on his feature career. The film’s first...
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Monday Morning Diary will be Tuesday Morning Diary this week
As per our regular routine, this week’s Monday Morning Diary will become the Tuesday Morning Diary because of the Labor Day holiday stateside. Next week the normal routine will continue on Monday.
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28. Germany Year Zero
by Stephen Mullen War films often use children as protagonists – we’ve seen several in this countdown already (Come and See, Empire of the Sun, The Tin Drum, among others), with more to come surely....
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Grandma, The Diary of a Teenage Girl and at-home viewings on Tuesday Morning...
Screen cap from uncompromising, superbly made “Diary of a Teenage Girl” by Sam Juliano Yes, September is here and plenty of cherished seasonal openings are upon us, but somebody needs to tell Mother...
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27. Yi Yi
by Aaron West The term “family epic” is not often used to describe a film, not even an art film (at least not post-Ozu). There are plenty of lengthy films about families, but few that are grandiose to...
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26. Rebel without a Cause
by Brian E. Wilson “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART!!!!” I have seen Rebel Without a Cause several times with an audience and this famous line, yelled with great anger and frustration by James Dean’s...
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25. I Was Born, But…… (1932)
by Lee Price Ozu kids. Some are nice, some are bullies; some are natural leaders and others are followers; some are homeless and some appear to be well-provided-for; some come from kind, caring...
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24. Anne of Green Gables/Anne of Avonlea (1985/1987)
by Sam Juliano Note: This review is dedicated to the memory of Jonathan Crombie, who passed away earlier this year in New York City at the age of 48 of an unexpected and tragic brain hemorrhage. The...
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Goodnight Mommy, The Visit, and at-home viewings on Monday Morning Diary...
Capture from taut Austrian horror film “Goodnight Mommy” by Sam Juliano As we approach the mid-way point of September, we are still mired in oppressive heat, though some rain in the metropolitan area...
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23. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Patricia Perry At the age of 12, I first pulled down a copy of Betty Smith’s beloved novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from a school library shelf. Like many a sensitive young reader had done, before...
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