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What’s your logo?
My favorite moment in Charlie Kaufman’s ADAPTATION (2002) was when Nicolas Cage’s annoying alter ego, a dim-witted rival screenwriter, asks him “What’s your genre? Mine’s Thriller.” It tickled me to...
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Viy for Victory
I’ve been in a state of sleep-deprivation-induced delirium for a couple of weeks now, an unending surrealist haze, and so I decided to pay a visit to one of the nutty dream-like movies that most...
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Quatermass and the X
Quatermass creator and screenwriter Nigel Kneale (1922 – 2006) has his roots in the Isle of Man, a small patch of over 200 square miles in size that is located between Great Britain and Ireland....
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Robin Hood: Robbing the Rich to Help the Poor Never Goes Out of Date
The Hollywood studios continue to mine the comic-book and graphic novel genres in search of the next big franchise, even re-booting some series, such as Spiderman and Superman, with new actors and new...
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DTV Action Items (Part 2): Intro to Stone Cold Steve Austin Studies
This is Part 2 of 3 in my series on direct-to-video action movies. In last week’s post, direct-to-video action expert Outlaw Vern modestly proclaimed that, “for the time being I think Stone Cold Steve...
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Imagining The Career That Never Was
This past weekend on Facebook, I put up a picture of James Dean from Giant. A brief conversation ensued between myself, Matt Zoller Sietz, fellow Morlock Richard Harland Smith and Pax Romano (sorry,...
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On Location with Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock’s name seems to be everywhere these days. The British Film Institute is currently celebrating the iconic director’s career with The Genius of Hitchcock, summer-long festival of...
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Ten Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Film Geeks
I love film geeks. I love their obsessive affection for cinema, their need to see more, feel more, know more, understand more about their favorite films than anyone else, their gnawing compulsion to...
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The Love Song of Capt. McGloo
Hollywood’s fascination with itself has generally meant that movies about movies–or, more precisely, movies that celebrate movies–tend to be overvalued by the film establishment relative to their...
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The Alternative Mickey Rooney Filmography
This is Part Two of a tribute to that irrepressible force of nature known as Ninian Joseph Yule Jr. (aka Mickey Rooney) and some of the more offbeat, underrated and over-the-top movies he made in the...
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Over the Falls with Marilyn Monroe
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Marilyn Monroe, which has motivated me to re-view many of her movies and reread some of the bios about her. Additionally, the anniversary has...
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DTV Action Items (Part 3): Inmate at The Asylum, an interview with director...
This is the third and final post in DTV ACTION ITEMS, a three-part series on direct-to-video action movies. Click here for Part 1, an interview with Outlaw Vern, and here for Part 2, a profile of...
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The Cave Paintings of Film History
Every ten years, the Sight and Sound poll is released (now run by the BFI) and a list of the greatest films of all time is compiled from separate lists submitted by critics and directors. There are a...
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65 Years of the Cannes Film Festival: An Early Photographic History
The 65th Cannes Film Festival is currently underway and I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and share some early photos of the classic film stars and directors who have attended...
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Remembering Woodrow Parfrey
I noted the death of Hollywood character actor Woodrow Parfrey with great sadness back in1984. Truth be told, I believe I learned of his passing the following year, with the publication of John Willis’...
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Sturges’ Travels
Last week we took a look at Preston Sturges’ Palm Beach Story, and in so doing I took a swipe at Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels. Well, this week I cycle back to give Sullivan’s Travels a second look. I...
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Meta Movies: The Complicit Audience
Easy ground rules: name the first 10 films that come to mind that give you the feeling of being in a hall-of-mirrors because they are jarringly self-reflexive. That was the question posed to me by a...
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Searching for Old Hollywood, Part 1
I am still “reeling” from attending last month’s TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. As a film historian, I have been reflecting on the relationship between the past and present—not only the...
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Hate Binges: The Big Heat and The Lawless
The post-WWII economic expansion exploded in 1950, as the GI Bill’s low mortgage rates stoked a housing boom and pent-up consumer demand propped up retail. Success was there for the taking, but not for...
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But What If It Really Happened?
*As it is necessary to this piece, MAJOR SPOILERS for the titles discussed within. You’ve been warned. I have always loved The Cat and The Canary in every version I have seen, even the 1979 version...
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