"Of all the iconic images in Carol Reed's The Third Man, none is as recognizable as the sight of Harry Lime (Orson Welles) standing in a Vienna doorway, bathed in shadow. Accompanied by Anton Karas's unforgettable zither score, it's one of the most iconic entrances in film history, which is befitting one of film's most iconic characters. Although he's only on screen for a fraction of the film's running time, Lime stands out as one of the screen's most chilling embodiments of the banality of evil, and a perfect stand-in for The Third Man's vision of moral breakdown in post-WWII Europe."Read more of my review of the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray DVD of The Third Man at Slant Magazine.
"It only took two years for Wes Anderson to go from a promising young up-and-comer with 1996's Bottle Rocket to, with 1998's Rushmore, one of the most unique and important voices in independent American cinema. What's even more remarkable, perhaps, than the length of time is the sizable leap in quality between the two films. Rushmore is a true American original, a masterpiece of humanist comedy that introduced Anderson's visual sense as one unlike any to have come before (or to have been satisfyingly aped since, no matter how hard assholes like Jared Hess may try). Bottle Rocket is, well, not. But no matter how tempting it may be to dismiss Anderson's debut, to do so is to ignore the film's pleasures (minor, yes, but pleasures all the same) and to overlook how the film marks the foundations of the auteurial voice that would arrive fully formed just two years later." Read more of my review of the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray DVD of Bottle Rocket at Slant Magazine.
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