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Hollywood Magic Is Real
In the supernatural comedy I Married a Witch (1942), director René Clair serves up an irresistible potion consisting of revenge, sex, politics and romance. Based on the novel The Passionate Witch by...
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Pina (2011): Recreating the Stage Onscreen
If you have ever been to the theater, you know the exhilaration of watching actors perform live onstage. There’s something about it that’s completely unique. There is no equivalent in the cinema. By...
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Eight Men Out (1988): Of Greedy Players, Wicked Gamblers and Stingy Owners
Long before there was a recognizable indie-film scene, IndieWire magazine, or the Independent Spirit Awards, there was John Sayles—the independent’s independent. FilmStruck is offering five of...
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Workin’ Man’s Blues: Man is Not a Bird (1965)
Dušan Makavejev made his directorial debut with Man is Not a Bird (1965), a raucous portrait of a Yugoslav mining city currently streaming on FilmStruck as part of the Directed by Dušan Makavejev...
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Every Day Is Like Black Sunday (1960)
Okay, it may technically be Wednesday, but there’s never a bad day of the week to pay a visit to Black Sunday (1960), the grandmother of Italian horror films. Sure, the country produced a few movies...
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Creative Collaboration: Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)
When Jane Birkin (Blow-Up [1966], Wonderwall [1968], La Piscine [1968], Don Juan (or If Don Juan Were a Woman) [1973], Je t’aime moi non plus [1976], Death on the Nile [1978], Evil Under the Sun...
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Is It Ever Really Easy? Blood Simple (1984)
It seems hard to believe, but the Coen Brothers made their debut film well over thirty years ago now. In 1984 they put together their own trailer, a trailer for a movie they hadn’t even made, and went...
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Listen to The Boy with Green Hair (1948)
In 1948, director Joseph Losey made his first feature-length film, the beautiful technicolor comedy-drama, The Boy With Green Hair for RKO Pictures. Based on the 1946 short story written by Betsy...
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Treasures Left Behind
As of late a lot of my friends are purging themselves of records, books, movies and more. I’ve been the happy recipient of these spoils and, as best I can, I have been trying to give these items a...
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From Flappers to Feminists: The Movie Versions of Chicago
When I lived in Chicago, I enjoyed learning the city’s history—not the events you find in text books but the city’s pop culture history. Chicago was that toddlin’ town where notorious gangsters opened...
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Best Friends Forever: Girlfriends (1978)
Claudia Weill described her companionable film Girlfriends (1978) with a quote from the Eleanor Bergstein novel Advancing Paul Newman: “This is a story of two girls, each of whom suspected the other...
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All You Need To Know About The Crying Game
If you didn’t see it when it first opened, there’s really no way to describe the visceral charge that went through audiences when The Crying Game first started to roll out in select American theaters...
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Devil’s Advocate: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968), which is streaming on The Criterion Channel at FilmStruck throughout the month of March, is rightly hailed as one of the best American horror films of the 1960s. It begins and...
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The Curse of Eternal Life: Cronos (1993)
Guillermo del Toro was still in his twenties when he wrote and directed Cronos (1993), a horror movie, yes, but also a movie about time and age and what it means to live forever. One might think 29...
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Remembering Robert Osborne
This week we bid farewell to the patron saint of classic film, the venerable Robert Osborne. News of his death hit hard amongst the classic film community and beyond. Although he had been dealing with...
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What’s it all about, Monte? The Shooting (1966)
His horse rears up his head and looks around, as if something is amiss. The horse’s rider, Willet Gashade, looks around too and as the first notes of a flute make their way into the viewer’s ears, a...
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Walking The Thin Blue Line (1988) with Errol Morris
The Thin Blue Line (1988), which is available for streaming via FilmStruck as part of the series Documentaries by Errol Morris, is more than a documentary. It is an investigation into the case of...
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The Killer is Loose: He Walked By Night (1948)
To view He Walked By Night click here. He Walked By Night (1948) strips the police procedural to the bone. There are no backstories or love interests, just the case at hand, rigorously filmed by...
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Going Out with a Bang: That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)
To view That Obscure Object of Desire click here. Somehow it seems utterly appropriate that Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Buñuel released their cinematic swan songs only a year apart. That might sound...
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Losey Let Loose: The Criminal (1960)
To view The Criminal click here. Joseph Losey is one of my favorite directors so I was thrilled to discover that his work is currently being spotlighted at FilmStruck. While looking through the...
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