The Woman in the Window is so indebted to the work of director Alfred Hitchcock that a scene from one of the Master of Suspense’s movies is incorporated into the film itself. It’s the most avant-garde sequence Hitchcock ever directed, the dream sequence from Spellbound in which he collaborated with surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. The other two central touchstones in Joe Wright’s adaptation of the bestselling novel by pseudonymous author A. J. Finn are Rear Window and Psycho. Those movies never make an appearance in Woman in the Window, but you can feel their presence hanging very heavy over every element of the new thriller.
As talented a director as Joe Wright is – I remember quite liking his adaptation of the novel Atonement and his thriller Hanna, less so his Oscar bait-y Darkest Hour – he’s no Alfred Hitchcock. Woman in the Window is cheap Hitchcock pastiche. By the gory final reel, it becomes rather distasteful Hitchcock pastiche. Its twisty nature is derivative and it presents a troubling, retrograde vision of mental illness.
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“You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours. All you can hope is to leave the impression.”
So says Herman J. Mankiewicz early in the biopic about his greatest professional achievement, writing the screenplay for Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. In Mank, that’s precisely what director David Fincher does with Mankiewicz. Here was a man of principle, Fincher shows us. Here was a man of character. Here was a drunk, an inveterate gambler, but above all, here was a man with an absolute conviction in what he believed.
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Darkest Hour is the movie that most fits the bill in 2017 for the title of Important Film; it’s tailor made for awards season, in particular for that most coveted prize, Oscar Best Picture nominee. It satisfies many of the requirements that we often think of when we think about an Important Film. Is the movie about a major historical event or a biopic of an important historical figure? Check. Does the movie feature a powerhouse performance by an actor who undergoes a complete physical transformation for the role? Check. Is the movie a crowd-pleaser, ending on a rousing note that sends the viewer out on an emotional high? Check. Darkest Hour is, to its detriment, a box-checker of a movie. It’s so focused on these elements that it never does much else to set itself apart.
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The North Texas Film Critics Association (NTFCA), of which I am a member, voted this month to honor the best films of 2017. As an organization, the NTFCA is proud to call attention to outstanding achievements in the craft of filmmaking. I consider movies to be not only entertainment, but in the best examples, they are also art. They teach us about the human condition. Here are the winners for each category in which we voted:
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