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Mom, Me and Death Race 2000 (1975)
To view Death Race 2000 click here. When I was a kid, probably thirteen or fourteen, my mom and I would often spend Friday nights staying up late watching television. We would watch Letterman and...
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Whatever Lola (1961) Wants, She Has To Wait For
To view Lola click here. Jacques Demy came up right along with the rest of the French New Wave but his reputation didn’t have the same edge. While Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol and Resnais acquired a rep...
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On A Short Film About Killing (1988)
To view A Short Film About Killing click here. I used to work in the DVD division of Facets Multi-Media, a Chicago arts organization devoted to showing, distributing and preserving foreign,...
View ArticleThe Man Ray Movie Challenge: Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
In 1951, surrealist artist Man Ray, who was a fan of the cinema, quipped, “The worst films I have ever seen, the ones that put me to sleep, contain ten or fifteen marvelous minutes. The best films I...
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The French Revolution: La Marseillaise (1938)
To view La Marseillaise, click here. “It took me some time to understand that, for him, ideas had little meaning in themselves, and that all that mattered in his eyes was the personality of the...
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The Sad, Soulful Shivers of The Others (2001)
To view The Others click here. A couple of weeks ago, British newspaper The Guardian provoked some vocal reactions from more than a few film fans with an article called “How post-horror movies are...
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The Living and the Dead: L’Eclisse (1962)
To view L’Eclisse click here. FilmStruck is currently streaming 11 films featuring Alain Delon as part of their “Icons: Alain Delon” theme and for the next 4 weeks I’ll be spotlighting a few of my...
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Werner Herzog and the Burden of Dreams (1982)
To view Burden of Dreams click here. “If I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams and I don’t want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project.” That’s how...
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A Far From Perfect Understanding (1933)
To view Perfect Understanding click here. In 1929, after a successful career in silent film and at the height of her popularity, Gloria Swanson was preparing for her transition to “talkies,” the...
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Shoot First, Die Later (1974)
To view Shoot First, Die Later click here. Here’s how I’d pitch Fernando Di Leo’s Shoot First, Die Later (1974) to any of my friends: If you’d like to see a gritty Italian crime movie that evokes The...
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The Man Ray Movie Challenge: Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
To view Caesar and Cleopatra click here. In 1951, surrealist artist Man Ray, who was a fan of the cinema, quipped, “The worst films I have ever seen, the ones that put me to sleep, contain ten or...
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This Land is Your Land: The Southerner (1945)
To view The Southerner click here. Jean Renoir considered The Southerner (1945) to be his “only work of a personal nature carried out in Hollywood.” Adapted from the National Book Award winning novel...
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Let’s Go Crazy with Betty Blue (1986)
To view Betty Blue click here. We might have a few NSFW films lurking around here at FilmStruck (1974′s Sweet Movie springs to mind right off the bat), but for my money, nothing you could watch here...
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Dueling Delons: Spirits of the Dead (1968)
To view Spirits of the Deadclick here. FilmStruck is currently streaming 11 films featuring Alain Delon as part of their “Icons: Alain Delon” theme and for the next 4 weeks I’ll be spotlighting a few...
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Hannah Arendt (2012)
There’s a rather clunky scene early on in Hannah Arendt (2012), one whose purpose seems clearly to be a quick bio of Hannah for the novice viewer. It takes place inside the office of William Shawn...
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Targets (1968): Proof There Are Still Good Movies to Be Made
To view Targets click here. A few years ago, a friend convinced me to buy, sight unseen, Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut, 1968′s Targets starring Boris Karloff. Because of the newly released...
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The Tragedy of Lineage: Tess (1979)
To view Tess click here. A haggard, beaten down farmer walks home down a quiet country road in Wessex and greets, and is greeted by, another man on a horse. The man on the horse is Parson Tringham...
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Ingrid Bergman: From Luminous to Scandalous to Illustrious
To see the Ingrid Bergman films available on FilmStruck, click here. Ingrid Bergman stepped in front of a camera for the first time 85 years ago. Bergman fans will be delighted to discover that...
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India Song: The River (1951)
To view The River click here. “In The River the screen no longer exists; there is nothing but reality.” - André Bazin I have long been tantalized by this Bazin quote, which Dave Kehr included in his...
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Heaven Can Wait (1978): Here Comes Mr. Grusin
To view Heaven Can Wait click here. It’s funny how film scores go through stylistic transformations every decade, and how you can almost always pinpoint the year a film was made (within a year or two)...
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