CINEMANIA:

Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki, USA, 2003)

I watched Capturing the Friedmans (2003) immediately after 5 Broken Cameras (2011) and was angry with myself for not shutting the thing off.  The latter is such a powerful, sincere piece of film-making, about a political struggle with serious significance in the world today.  The former is such a manipulative, disingenuous exposé, about a dysfunctional family convicted of crimes that is only worthy of attention for the sake of slummy voyeurism.

Let's deal with the facile neutrality of CTF.   It is facile because the film actually has a pretty obvious prejudice with respect to the ethical-theoretical and even the legal-practical and perhaps even the basic empirical-factual innocence of certain people involved.

5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, Palestine/Israel/France, 2011)

What makes this fundamentally cinema verite film great - for I do feel that it is truly great - is the artistic mediation or conceptual aspect of unification between the partisan yet professional journalism and the personal yet objective diary out of which it is composed.

Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Valle, USA, 2013)

Ben Livant:

Dallas Buyers Club (2013) is a movie you have to be grateful to Hollywood for making, but you still wish was a film made not by Hollywood.  Point being, it is based on a true story that morally and politically needs to be told, but morally and politically it needs to be told in a way Hollywood can/will not do.  I am not in a position to question the biographic fidelity of the protagonist.

La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995)

"Cool" from West Side Story (Stephen Sondheim)

These lyrics go the heart of the interpersonal drama in La Haine.  But unlike in the 1957 musical, in this 1995 film, the boy really does have a rocket in his pocket.  He literally has a gun - the service revolver of a policeman, no less - and the dreadful tension about if and when it will go off is merciless. 

The individual carrying the weapon is adamant that the trigger must be pulled.

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, UK, 2013)

Ben Livant:

Since I will dare in this review to state that I have a problem with this film, let me first pay tribute to it. 

I begin by noting the effort it took for me to endure it emotionally.  12 Years A Slave really ripped me up.  Obviously, it is not easy viewing.  The graphic brutality is not just frequent.  It is constantly there in waiting, always threatening to erupt.  This menace would have been disturbing enough.

The Diary of Anne Frank (USA, 1959, George Stevens)

Although it appeared almost fifteen years after the end of World War II, The Diary of Anne Frank was one of the first post-war films to confront the Holocaust on such human terms. 

The Frank family is an "every family," made to bear testimony for all the victims of the Nazi genocide. It is a weight that the film bears with dignity, although the filmmaker's self-consciousness occasionally causes the pace to drag.

Red Badge of Courage (USA, 1951, John Huston)

Dan Jardine:

The Red Badge of Courage is a powerful retelling of the classic Stephen Crane Civil War novel. 

A potent combination of epic battle scenes and intimate personal story, the movie's awesome and bloody combat sequences highlight the hero's (WWII veteran Audie Murphy) internal struggle with issues of courage, loyalty, cowardice, and betrayal.

The Hustler (USA, 1961, Robert Rossen)

The Hustler combines elements of film noir, Westerns, sports films, and a heavy dose of existentialism. 

Some have suggested that the film has a Biblical aspect: the ever-darkened pool halls are each man's Hell, with the parasitic Bert Gordon (George C. Scott) as the Satanic figure who lures Eddie with his own brand of apple. Others point to the film as a parable for the conflict between art and commerce, utilitarianism and metaphysics.

Mary Poppins (UK, 1964, Robert Stevenson)

Dan Jardine:

Mary Poppins was one of the most successful of a long line of Disney musicals, enjoying enduring and widespread popular acclaim. 

The film introduced Julie Andrews to the silver screen and offered Dick Van Dyke an opportunity to stretch his television-honed talents in a more demanding medium.

12 Angry Men (USA, 1957, Sidney Lumet)

Dan Jardine:

Twelve Angry Men is a tightly wound top of a movie. 

Each scene ratchets up the tension another notch as Henry Fonda's character tries desperately to open the minds of his fellow jurors. The setting -- a claustrophobic jury room in the dog days of summer -- superbly augments the suspense.