51. Fargo
by David Schleicher HECK! I first saw Fargo when I was in high school. I loved it, but I could barely describe it. And those accents! In college…we couldn’t get enough of it. Everyone had to get...
View ArticleA Moral and Invigorating Experience: Views from the 50th New York Film...
By Bob Clark Has the New York Film Festival really only been around for 50 years? It’s such an institution at this point, it feels like it must’ve existed in some form or another on Manhattan isle...
View Article1960 – Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Best Supp Actor, Best Supp...
by Allan Fish Here we go… Best Picture Psycho, US (9 votes) Best Director Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho (8 votes) Best Actor Anthony Perkins, Psycho (7 votes) Best Actress Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment (5...
View ArticleOBITUARY – Hollywood, The Dream Factory (c.1913-2012)
by Allan Fish You hear it said all the time on American hospital dramas. “Ok, let’s call it, people! Time of death…” With an individual’s life it’s easy to just glance at the watch and blurt it out....
View ArticleArgo, VHS, Creature from the Black Lagoon and Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman on...
by Sam Juliano You know the drill, right? Frost on the car windshields. A big pumpkin sitting on the porch. That scary ghost like figure from Scream hanging out on the railing. World Series fever....
View Article50. Mon Oncle
By Marilyn Ferdinand Those of us who love the silent clowns of cinema—Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and many others—have a very affectionate place in our hearts for their kindred spirit, Jacques Tati. From...
View Article60. The Caesars 1968
by Allan Fish next up in the masterworks of TV series (UK 1968 324m) DVD2 Removed from the ranks of mankind p Philip Mackie d Derek Bennett w Philip Mackie book “The Twelve Caesars” by Suetonius...
View Article49. MASH
By Roderick Heath MASH commences with a sequence that is at once extremely familiar and yet demands new attention. Helicopters carry mangled men in flight, suspended between heaven and earth, life and...
View Article“Besides, he’s a saint…”: ROBERT BRESSON’S BALTHAZAR AT RISK
© 2012 by James Clark A film like Robert Bresson’s The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) carries forward, at a remarkably sophisticated level, the writer/director’s preoccupation (demonstrated in earlier...
View Article48. The Shop Around the Corner
© 2012 by James Clark It’s Christmas Eve, and Mr. Matuschek, owner of a department store in Budapest in the 1930’s, is looking in at one of his store windows on being discharged from hospital...
View Article47. Life of Brian (1979)
‘Yeah, a proud Christian would definitely do Life of Brian justice* (* denotes sarcasm)’ - an email sent to the organizators and writers of this countdown after I said I would take on ‘Life of Brian’...
View Article59. Jennie – Lady Randolph Churchill 1974
by Allan Fish (UK 1974 350m) DVD1/2 Aka. Jennie No mere portrait p Andrew Brown d Simon Cellan Jones w Julian Mitchell m Tom McCall, André Previn art Frederick Pusey, Mike Hall Lee Remick...
View Article46. The Ladykillers (1955)
by Jaime Grijalba. How can you possibly think of killing such a sweet old lady? Well, given the circumstances in which these five criminals are found, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have wanted the same,...
View ArticleReports of its Death Were Exaggerated: Views From the 50th New York Film...
By Bob Clark Between books by the likes of J. Hoberman and David Denby and no end of speculation from online commentators, there’s been a lot of questions asked about the place that cinema has in the...
View Article1961 – Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supp Actor, Supp Actress,...
Here we go again… Best Picture West Side Story, US (7 votes) Best Director Alain Resnais, L’Année Dernière à Marienbad (6 votes) Best Actor Toshiro Mifune, Yojimbo (10 votes) Best Actress Harriet...
View ArticlePat Perry, passionate practitioner of travel and the arts
by Sam Juliano Note: This is the fourteenth entry in an ongoing series that honors creative bloggers who have really made a difference, raising the bar for quality and productivity on the cultural...
View ArticleThe Sessions, Holy Motors, Seven Psychopaths, Brief Encounter, Harold Lloyd...
by Sam Juliano Time is passing at record speed, and people stateside are thinking beyond the trick-or-treat ritual and costume sharing of next week to the purchasing of butterballs at the local...
View Article45. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
by Judy Geater This is a film that has its wedding cake and eats it. James Stewart sums it all up beautifully in two caustic lines – on the one hand: “The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is...
View Article58. Talking to a Stranger 1966
by Allan Fish (UK 1966 365m) DVD2 Hello, stranger… p Michael Bakewell d Christopher Morahan w John Hopkins ph Mark McDonald ed Howard Billingham m Wilfred Josephs art Richard Wilmot Judi...
View Article44. Horse Feathers (1932): “You can’t put the wall over my ice”
by Tony d’Ambra Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Three clowns and a straight man. Anarchists all. Whatever it is, they’re against it. Gonzo intellectual and all-round eccentric Slavoj Zizek from...
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