100 Words on Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960)

By Thomas M. Puhr

Kirk Douglas leads an army of freed slaves against Roman forces in Stanley Kubrick’s sword-and-sandal exercise. Despite the occasional brilliant touch—be it a campy exchange (Laurence Olivier explaining his preference for “both snails and oysters” to an alarmed Tony Curtis), an awe-inspiring tableau (the Roman army assuming geometrically flawless formations), or a shock of violence (a severed limb erupting with fire hydrant⁠–red blood)—Kubrick’s epic is interminably self-serious. Dalton Trumbo’s screenplay, in associating the ancients with a morally bankrupt America, anticipates Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: a spectacle that will similarly exhaust audiences once it’s as old as Spartacus.

100 Words on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026)

 

By Thomas M. Puhr

Regarding Roman translations of Greek literature, Nietzsche writes that “they saw it as an incentive for a Roman conquest. … Not only did one omit what was historical; one also added allusions to the present and, above all, struck out the name of the poet.” In terms of the latter point, consider The Odyssey’s poster. “A Film by Christopher Nolan,” it proclaims, with Homer’s name barely legible in the billing block. In terms of the former, consider how Nolan conquers The Odyssey by making it an American story. Case in point: Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland ditch their British accents. 

100 Words on Danny and Michael Philippou's Bring Her Back (2025)

By Thomas M. Puhr

Stepsiblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (standout Sora Wong) discover that their foster mother, Laura (Sally Hawkins), is using them to resurrect her dead daughter in Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me follow-up. The Australian brothers’ sophomore feature mines similar terrain (e.g., teenagers traumatized by a parent’s death) but with diminishing returns; although the film boasts some elegant narrative echoes (Andy and Piper’s father died in the shower, Laura’s daughter in a pool) and an intriguing commentary on the rituals that can unite a family (“grapefruit,” the siblings’ safe word, packs an unexpected emotional punch), it’s simply not scary.  

100 Words on Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957)

 

By Thomas M. Puhr

Stanley Kubrick’s near-flawless WWI drama concerns three French soldiers sentenced to death after a botched, suicidal assault against the German forces embarrasses their superiors. As Colonel Dax—who defends the men during their absurdly unjust trial—Kirk Douglas sometimes undercuts Kubrick’s scathing irony with self-righteous theatrics (at one point, he pounds a table mid impassioned speech). The final scene—in which a terrified German woman sings to a group of French soldiers—would have been perfect if it ended with her performance silencing the drunken, rowdy men; instead, we’re subjected to single-tear-running-down-the-cheek closeups of the troops as they hum along.

100 Words on Francis Lawrence's The Long Walk (2025)

By Thomas M. Puhr

A thought-provoking, morally ambiguous conclusion elevates this otherwise middling genre effort from director Francis Lawrence. Are The Long Walk’s final moments optimistic (because the titular game’s lone survivor—Peter McVries, played by a gravel-voiced David Jonsson—isn’t immediately gunned down after killing the villain, one hopes he has initiated a revolution) or pessimistic (because he indulges in coldblooded revenge, our hero betrays the goodhearted optimism that led to his survival in the first place)? The film’s last image—of Peter marching into a rain-soaked darkness—may hold the answer: If the “winner” is still walking, then has anything really changed?

100 Words on David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (2001)

©Aleks Phoenix

By Thomas M. Puhr

Mulholland Dr. (2001) asks us to reconsider the nature of character via dream logic. In a dream, someone you glimpsed at a diner can become a main character, a loved one a peripheral figure: a valuable lesson in perspective. As is the fact that a real person can assume an entirely new identity in a dream: a process, Lynch suggests, that is analogous to a performer who becomes their role or an audience member who, confronted with the film actor’s impossibly large face—their penetrating eyes, their lush red lips—enters not just another time or place, but another person.

100 Words on Alexandre Koberidze's What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021)

 

By Thomas M. Puhr

A man and woman fall in love after bumping into each other twice on the same day. Their fate is jeopardized, however, when each awakens inside a different body the morning of their first date. Thus begins Georgian writer-director Alexandre Koberidze’s What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021), which struggles – not unlike its star-crossed lovers – to maintain the near-overwhelming romantic spell it establishes in these opening scenes. Still, Koberidze’s paean to cinema’s magical powers (to unite people, to capture reality in a way that lived experience somehow can’t) will reward those attuned to its unhurried wavelength.   

100 Words on Andrey Zvyagintsev's Loveless (2017)

By Thomas Puhr

One of the first stills released from Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (2017) was an overhead shot of young Alyosha (Matvey Novikov) squinting up at the sun. At first glance, the angle could easily be mistaken for an upward tilt, as if a flashlight or camera has caught him hiding in the tree of a dark forest. This image – almost surreal in nature – is among Zvyagintsev’s most arresting compositions. I often think about it, and of Alyosha – who will soon wander off and never be seen again – sobbing alone in his room while his oblivious parents (Maryana Spivak and Aleksey Rozin) argue.

100 Words on Ben Wheatley's In the Earth (2021)

By Thomas Puhr

How do we get out of this mess? In his strongest (and strangest) film since A Field in England (2013) – with which In the Earth (2021) enters thematic and stylistic dialogue – Ben Wheatley follows a group of scientists attempting to reconnect with nature (via a kaleidoscopic forest) in the face of a global catastrophe. The parallels to an unnamed COVID-19 are obvious (characters reference quarantine, lockdown, social distancing, etc.), but Wheatley’s concerns extend to a dying planet with which we’ve lost touch. Spiritual and scientific dogmatism must be relinquished in favor of a heady brew of both. Therein lies salvation.

100 Words on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Poster by Tom Miatke

By Thomas Puhr 

Whereas contemporary adaptations of literary epics tend to sag in their first installments – becoming feature-length expositions – The Fellowship of the Ring confidently immerses viewers into Tolkien’s Middle Earth via painterly compositions, gracefully choreographed set pieces, and committed performances. The latter quality proves crucial; none of the actors – especially Wood, Astin, and Mortensen – are allowed the safety net of self-aware winks to the camera. The risk of such an approach is sentimentality (to which Jackson often succumbs), but I’ll take that over ironic posturing any day. Revisiting the film some twenty years later, I’m most struck – and charmed – by this earnestness.

100 Words on George A. Romero's The Amusement Park (1973)

By Thomas Puhr

George A. Romero delivers The Amusement Park’s message – namely, that the socioeconomic marginalization of America’s elderly must be addressed – with his trademark blunt force severity. Nested within the surreal visuals and kaleidoscopic editing, however, is a far subtler (and despairing) suggestion: that the film’s lesson will likely be ignored. Consider how a teenaged couple reacts to glimpsing their impoverished future – courtesy of a fortuneteller – with anger rather than compassion (the boyfriend assaults the nameless protagonist, played by a sympathetic Lincoln Maazel, soon after). Or how the narrator (Maazel) – after urging volunteers to take action – walks alone as the credits roll.

100 Words on Aneesh Chaganty's Run (2020)

By Thomas Puhr

Run (2020) works best when director Aneesh Chaganty focuses on his heroine, Chloe (a revelatory Kiera Allen), a disabled young woman who suspects something is not quite right with mother. Consider a beautifully-composed set piece in which Chloe escapes her locked bedroom, shimmies across the roof of her house, and reenters through another window, only to end up breaking back into the same bedroom to retrieve her inhaler. Chaganty’s ironic, Hitchcockian sense of space aside, Run fails to escape one of the genre’s most infuriating tropes: nearly all of its secondary characters (a pharmacist, a postal worker) are cartoonishly stupid.

100 Words on Béla Tarr's Sátántangó (1994)

By Thomas Puhr

Despite its formidable runtime, Sátántangó (1994) is the antithesis of an epic. Tarr's patient, precise camera circles - like the spider web to which the narrator often refers - around the same handful of characters and events, revealing the complex network of perspectives behind even the simplest of moments. 

The villagers’ stories are reduced to a few pages, crammed in a locked bureau among countless forgotten records. The government workers file their report. The drunken doctor boards up his rainswept windows. 

Do the bells ring again or for the first time? What did Irimiás (Mihály Vig) see in that fog?