Clik here to view.
The Red Balloon (1956)
To view The Red Balloon click here. I like to think of silent cinema as our very own Tower of Babel as built by our great grandfathers in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. Most pre-talkies required...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ida Lupino Gets Her Due
To view the work of Ida Lupino available on FilmStruck, click here. Ida Lupino was groomed for stardom by Paramount during the 1930s and achieved it at Warner Bros. in the 1940s. Yet, she loathed the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shore Leave: Querelle (1982)
To view Querelle click here. Rainer Werner Fassbinder passed away on the morning of June 10, 1982, three weeks into the editing of his final feature Querelle. The New York Times reported that, “a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
All Hail Queen Margot (1994)
To view Queen Margot click here. Anyone who read my appraisal of The Brontë Sisters (1979) a little while ago shouldn’t be surprised that one of my favorite actresses of all time is Isabelle Adjani,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015)
To view the work of Toshirô Mifune on FIlmStruck, click here. A quick search of Filmstruck brought up an impressive 24 films featuring the late great Toshirô Mifune including Drunken Angel (1948),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Mad King: The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)
To view The Private Life of Henry VIII click here. Henry VIII rose to the throne in 1509 after his father, Henry VII died. His father was the last man to ascend the throne through battle, Richard III...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gunga Din (1939): An Original Blockbuster
To view Gunga Din click here. It’s summertime, which means we’re eyeball deep in the season of the blockbuster. These popcorn flicks widely vary in quality and entertainment value, but they all have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Message or Muddle? Story of Women (1988)
To view Story of Women click here. The first thing we see is Marie Latour (Isabelle Huppert) playing with her children. She’s an attentive mother and, we soon find out, is surviving during wartime as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Forgotten Film to Remember: All Night Long (1963)
To view All Night Long click here. Basil Dearden is not generally a name that stirs excitement in the hearts of movie fans, or even classic movie lovers. I knew him as a British director who had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vengeance is Hers: Lady Snowblood (1973)
To view Lady Snowblood click here. Lady Snowblood (1973) is an aria of arterial spray, gushing in myriad patterns against a variety of white fabrics. It takes Jean-Luc Godard’s tossed off comment that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Set Your Clock for Hour of the Wolf (1968)
To view Hour of the Wolf click here. It’s still a bit of a kept secret that almost every great world director from the 1960s and 1970s made a horror film at some point. Fellini and Malle did it. So...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Uneasy Friendship: David and Lisa (1962)
To view David and Lisa click here. David and Lisa (1962) introduces viewers to two young, attractive and deeply troubled patients living at a private mental health clinic. David (Keir Dullea) suffers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reviving the Dead: Insomnia (1997)
To view Insomnia click here. There’s a moment in the 1997 thriller, Insomnia, where Detective Jonas Engstrom (Stellan Skarsgård) walks out of an autopsy and sighs, “I’m fed up with reviving the dead.”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Brutal Film Noir: Cavalcanti’s They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
To view The Made Me a Fugitiveclick here. Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti had quite an interesting career. After several years directing films in France, the director signed a contract with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pasolini’s Audacious Debut
To view Accattone click here. Pimps, thugs, prostitutes, thieves and other miscreants, these are the denizens of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone (1961). “Accattone,” a slang term for beggars and bums,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“My Hawks Picture”: What’s Up Doc? (1972)
To view What’s Up Doc? click here. Next year, I plan to teach a course on romantic comedy covering the Golden Age through the contemporary era. Not surprisingly, the choices to represent the Film...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Song Remains the Same: Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)
To view Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance click here. Last week we left our intrepid Lady Snowblood wounded and desperate, crawling towards an uncertain future. In Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sifting through Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
To view Ashes and Diamonds click here. Is it possible for a film to be revered as a world classic and influence an entire generation of its country’s filmmakers yet still be underrated? In the case of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Daring Directorial Debut: Madonna of the Seven Moons (1944)
To view Madonna of the Seven Moons click here. Arthur Crabtree is chiefly remembered for helming two imaginative science fiction and horror thrillers in the late 1950s, Fiend Without a Face (1958) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Movie as Manifesto: The Fountainhead (1949)
Forget for a moment the philosophies of Ayn Rand. Forget the unrelenting stoicism of every character involved. Forget, if you can, that the dialogue, from beginning to end, plays like an ever flowing...
View Article