Stars and stuff on the silver screen.
The whole evening had a distinctively ’70s flair about it: we drove out to Shoreline, a northern suburb of Seattle, to the Crest Cinema Center to see my first movie since relocating to the Pacific Northwest. The Crest was built in 1949, and seems quite specifically stuck in time, the …
Leonard plays for a sports team. Although it seems unlikely with this ragtag band of misfits, the team makes it to the big game. At a crucial moment, he blows a big play. Leonard dresses in drag to gain the trust of a woman he wants to date. Absolutely no …
Today would have been the 120th birthday of legendary British filmmaker Reginald Sir Coptic Mange. On this momentous occasion I can think of nothing more appropriate than to look back on some of the films that made him one of the titans of the screen. Without further ado, to the …
In 1978, as I applied for film studies at the University of Illinois, my father expressed his disapproval. He quoted me a statistic: “Every year, 50,000 performers compete for 200 available roles on Broadway.” Still, I went against his advice and boarded a flight to the U.S. Since then, my …
Greetings, new recruit of the Japanese Defense Force’s Giant Radioactive Monster Battalion! No doubt that you, as a citizen of our great nation, have been raised with many colorful tales of the heroic struggles your predecessors in the G.R.M.B. fought in the 1950s and 1960s. Perhaps this even influenced your …
Auteur theory has been taking it on the chin lately. Never especially strong in this country — as opposed to Europe, where it has even been allowed to influence matters of copyright, in a shockingly communistic example of art being given primacy over commerce — it’s really taken a beating …
Akira Kurosawa’s films have become something of a sticky wicket for me. He’s obviously one of the greats of cinema, and at his best he’s nearly untouchable, but with some of his most lionized films, familiarity has bred, if not contempt, at least discomfort. The more I watch them, the …
Parker, the amoral and ultra-efficient criminal featured in 24 novels by Donald Westlake, has been kicked around Hollywood almost as much as he’s been kicked around in his books. He was luckiest in his earliest and latest adaptations; Point Blank, the 1967 film that adapted Parker’s debut in The Hunter, was only …
“The darkest place is under the candlestick.” — ‘Me’ Devils on the Doorstep manages to pull off, with near-total success, something so frustratingly difficult to do in film, no one has really managed to accomplish it since Kubrick made Dr. Strangelove: make a work of art that fully captures the insanity …
Program note: ages ago, some internet fiends and I used to play a constrained writing game called “Mad Ape Den”, where you’d have to re-tell a well-known story (novel, movie, TV show, play, etc.) using only words of three letters or fewer. I’d completely forgotten about it until today, when …
“You’ll never make big money. You’re a two-bit guy. No guts, nothing! I want action!” One of the reasons I’ve tried to stay away from well-known films during this month’s discussion of noir — especially ones as well-known as Gun Crazy — is that, well, I’m not the first horse in this …
So far this Noirvember, we’ve looked at an incredibly dark noir novel masquerading as a domestic drama centered around a dance contest, and a non-fiction noir that frames a series of historical mass murderers as perfect little short stories. And today, having moved from crypto-noir to non-fiction noir, we’re going …
What makes you think anyone’s taking care of the girl? I wouldn’t be lifting a finger — not one finger — if I could make myself believe she was still alive. I don’t believe it. Not for ten minutes after they grabbed her. (Inspector Donnelly) Beginning like a classic Paramount …
“I’m not lecturing,” I said, “but you ought to change your attitude. On the level. It affects everybody you come in contact with. Take me, for example: before I met you I didn’t see how I could miss succeeding. I never even thought of failing. And now — “ “Who …
One thing needs to be addressed right off the bat when discussing Rian Johnson’s excellent new sci-fi drama Looper: yes, its time travel narrative doesn’t make any sense. Congratulations on spotting this well-concealed flaw, so integral to the essence of the film that Johnson was blowing it off as largely …
