Dan Conley

I’ve written about Diane Keaton before in the context of “Annie Hall,” and perhaps “Reds” as well, but I can’t say enough about just how great an actress she was. I think I just have to show clips. This first from “Love and Death.” No one could take

This is a good time in the story to introduce my theory of “Three Colours: White” — actually, two different theories. The first is that, while Kieslowski officially calls Blue, White, Red a trilogy, there is a single moral universe that binds The Dekalog, The Double Life of Veronique and the

As I understand the Yiddish terms, a Schlemiel is a bumbler, someone who creates his own bad luck, while a Schlimazel is someone who has bad luck dumped upon him regularly (perhaps by the Schlemiel.) In this scene, Karol reveals himself as a Schlemiel. Instead of taking the visual evidence

My favorite works of narrative art always include elements of mystery and doubt. But in the end, the story always has to conclude or run out of pages (or film stock.) They never drift on into eternity, there is always some kind of resolution. My new operating theory is that

We get a brief respite from the brutality inflicted on Karol Karol in an unlikely location — the Paris Metro underground. Karol has taken the comb, symbol of his profession, and turned it into a crude musical instrument akin to a kazoo. He’s trying to busk for some quick cash

At 1 a.m. Chicago time, this blog received a ping from Sao Paolo, Brazil from an iPhone that hasn’t yet updated to iOS 26. The ping was 0 seconds, so it was not someone interested in reading, just signaling. Or perhaps accidentally visiting, who knows? The ping was