Category: Film Appreciation
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Dino Risi’s Masterpiece ‘Una Vita Difficile’ Finally Gets Its Closeup
The best film of 2023 (so far) was made in 1961. Let me explain. Dino Risi’s Una Vita Difficile (A Difficult Life) was a critical and popular success in its native Italy, but for some unknown reason was never released in the United States until February 2023—despite the strong track record of contemporaneous Italian imports like La Dolce…
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Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’ Is My Kind of Christmas Movie
I was pleased to see Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning The Apartment prominently featured in CNN’s 2022 special “Tis the Season: The Holidays on Screen.” A Christmas Story is great, but this is a film I’d happily watch in a Dec. 25th marathon. To celebrate the wonders of The Apartment, here is my chapter on that masterpiece…
