Category: The Sure Thing

My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 3 and Conclusion

For Parts 1 and 2 of this series, please see here and here. Just to reiterate, I am not a film critic in the traditional sense, merely an autodidactic lover of film and film history who curated his own, somewhat random, film festival over the first four months of 2025. It began when my wife … Continue reading My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 3 and Conclusion →

Matt Berger 1980s Teen Films, Alan Moore, All About Eve, Almost Famous, Anne Baxter, Anomalisa, Anthony Edwards, Atheism, Before Sunrise, Blank City, Cameron Crowe, Charlie Kaufman, Dashiell Hammett, David Lynch, David Thewlis, Dazed and Confused, Denis Villeneuve, Don't Say a Word, Enemy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Film, Hammett, HistoryBuffs, Hugo Weaving, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Interrogating Memory, Jake Gyllenhall, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jim Jarmusch, John Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Liquid Sky, Martin Scorsese, Miracle Mile, Morgan Richter, My life, Nastassja Kinski, Natalie Portman, Paris Texas, Philadelphia, Prisoners, Punk, Richard Linklater, Slacker, Smithereens, Surrealism, Susan Seidelman, Taxi Driver, The Shadow, The Sixth Sense, The Sure Thing, Toni Collette, V For Vendetta, Wavelength, Wim Wenders, Woody Allen 1 Comment May 22, 2025May 22, 2025 16 Minutes

My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 1

On the evening of January 4, 2025, my wife Nell and I watched Saturday Night. Jason Reitman’s 2024 film chronicles the final 90 minutes before the first episode of what is now called Saturday Night Live aired at 11:30 pm EST on October 11, 1975. We thoroughly enjoyed the film’s you-are-there verisimilitude, strong performances and … Continue reading My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 1 →

Matt Berger Alphaville, Andrei Tarkovsky, Atheism, Back to the Future, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chan, David Fincher, David Lynch, Elevator to the Gallows, Eraserhead, Film, Inland Empire, Ivan's Childhood, Jean Cocteau, L'Age d'Or, Last Year At Marienbad, Le Samourai, Louis Malle, Luis Bunuel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marx Brothers, Miles Davis, Mirror, Mulholland Drive, Murder on the Orient Express, My life, No Country For Old Men, Nosferatu, One Hundred Years of Cinema, Salvador Dali, San Francisco, Saturday Night Live, Sidney Lumet, Solaris, Stalker, The Blood of a Poet, The Cinema Cartograpy, The Color of Pomegranates, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Game, The Hunger Games franchise, The Sure Thing, Wild at Heart, Zodiac 3 Comments May 7, 2025May 14, 2025 14 Minutes

My 100 Favorite Films…Probably

[Ed. note: This essay was updated on April 1, 2025] On December 1, 2022, Sight and Sound Magazine released the results of its decennial Greatest Films of All Time Critics’ Poll (“SS Poll”). The key result is that Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles dethroned Vertigo as the “greatest film of all time.”[1] … Continue reading My 100 Favorite Films…Probably →

Matt Berger A Night at the Opera, Alfred Hitchcock, Back to the Future, Charlie Chan, Data collection, David Lynch, Double Indemnity, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Film, Film Noir, Hammett, L.A. Confidential, Marx Brothers, Measurement, Murder on the Orient Express, My life, Neo Noir, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak, Sidney Lumet, Statistical reasonsing, Thank God Its Friday, The Cotton Club, The Maltese Falcon, The Public Eye, The Sure Thing, Times Square, Woody Allen 8 Comments January 14, 2023April 1, 2025 21 Minutes

HIGH FIDELITY: A misogynistic example of how NOT to interrogate memory

I recently dissected my romantic history in the context of the film Beautiful Girls. Readers are thus aware I had two serious college girlfriends, one of whom I dated freshman year; this was 1984-85. She spent the spring break of what was her sophomore year in either Manhattan or East Hampton – where she saw … Continue reading HIGH FIDELITY: A misogynistic example of how NOT to interrogate memory →