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A Cat in Paris
French animation boasts a long history, harkening back to Emile Cohl who produced the hand-drawn Fantasmagorie in 1908. What I like about the history of French animation is that it includes bold...
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The Name of the Rose: Françoise
Friday night’s installment of Underground marks the TCM debut of French filmmaker Jean Rollin, known among horror movie cultists as a master of the lyrical, erotic, supernatural film. Yet he remains a...
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Netflixing: Showtime’s Rebel Highway (1994)
In one of the stranger experiments in cable television history, Showtime’s 1994 Rebel Highway series commissioned ten filmmakers to remake a 1950s exploitation movie. It was the brainchild of Lou...
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And Then, Pretty Much, I Just Stopped Caring
It’s a strange phenomenon, but when you’re younger you tell yourself that you’ll never be one of those old people that doesn’t know the latest movies, music and television. You’ll always keep up and...
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All Aboard the HORROR EXPRESS!
It’s hard to imagine that there are any seasoned horror film fans that haven’t seen or at least heard of Eugenio Martin’s HORROR EXPRESS (1972). It often gets a mention in widely read books about...
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Is there in death no beauty?
The other day, in a fit of geek pique, I made some tart comments on my Facebook page about the state of zombie entertainment in 2011. Having scanned certain remarks posted online about the AMC series...
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The Importance of Being Godzilla (Part 2)
My professional association with Godzilla began in 1995, when I wrote an essay called The Importance of Being Godzilla for an obscure arts journal I had a grudge against. That essay won me a literary...
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Nuns, Stepin Fetchit and Philip Glass
What is the connection between the three? The answer lies in a 1968 documentary that was produced by Kartemquin Films, the non-profit documentary collective that was founded in 1966 in Chicago by...
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Lessons from Citizen Kane (or, Cain?)
Recently, I showed Citizen Kane to the young college students in my Intro to Film class. I estimate that in my 20+ years of teaching, I have seen Citizen Kane at least 100 times. I am sure other film...
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Dieterle Watch
The previously hazy career of William Dieterle is slowly being brought into focus, as the Warner Archive and repertory screenings grant incrementally wider access to this neglected German-American...
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If Memory Serves… The Stunt Man
Back in 1980, Richard Rush, fresh off of… well, actually, he wasn’t fresh off of anything. He directed Freebie and Bean six years earlier and before that a Jack Nicholson biker movie (Hell’s Angels...
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“Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down!”
Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton in SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (1961) On Saturday, Nov. 19th (and Jan. 17th) TCM will be airing Karel Reisz’ SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (1961). This bleak...
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Mamuwalde, PI … and why the Hell not?
By sheer happenstance the other day I happened to catch the trailer for SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973) and when William Marshall’s title card came on the screen I was flooded with consecutive waves of...
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The Importance of Being Godzilla (Part 3)
For those of you who missed last week’s post, a quick recap: I recorded audio commentaries to both the Japanese and American cuts of Ishiro Honda’s GODZILLA for Criterion, but some of the material was...
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A New Film Roster
Today marks the last day of my Fall calendar film program. Now it’s time to roll up my sleeves and get working on the next one. My goal is to find 50 titles that provide repertory programming,...
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On Al Pacino, John Cazale, and Dog Day Afternoon
Each semester in my film studies class, I look forward to presenting the work of the Film School Generation of the 1960s and 1970s. Not only do the students respond well to the era of film history that...
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Going Back to the Wellman
William A. Wellman was an attractive guy who happened to make a lot of movies, one of those directors who led an entire life before entering the cinema (as salesman, hockey player, soldier). For...
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Thanks for the History Lesson but I’m Just Here for the Movie
I’ve spent a large portion of my life in love with history. From early on, I read about movies and history, usually in that order. My father had a complete encyclopedia set of American history as...
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Politics, Protest & Progress in THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT
Stuart Hagmann’s THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT (1970) is often dismissed today as a dated relic of the early ‘70s. During its initial release it was singled out for being exploitive and failing to be a...
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Everyone must go! The uncut return of INTRUDER (1988)!
Any horror fan worth his or her salt (blood salt!) will be asked from time to time to recommend to genre outsiders a spookshow they haven’t already seen… something off-canon, something that isn’t, you...
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