With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically. Okay. I’m going to be completely honest: I have not been able to figure out why this particular Charlie Chaplin film is this high on the list. The reason can’t merely be that Chaplin decided … Continue reading 11. City Lights (1931)
I want to talk about the delicacy of the movie musical. And, how it’s not often that somebody has a grasp on both stage musicals and movie musicals, simultaneously. Earlier this week, a much anticipated deleted scene from Tick, Tick…BOOM! was released. Fans of the film finally got to see the much-talked about sequence, which had required an awful lot of choreography on the parts of … Continue reading A Green Dress, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Understanding the Delicate Formula of the Movie Musical
It can be hard to sift through all the Netflix Original films to find a good one. There’s just so many that get released at once, that the choice of what to watch, alone, can be overwhelming. But, that’s why you have me! Consider me your “movie guinea pig”. Things Heard and Seen is a 2021 horror/thriller written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and … Continue reading Things Heard and Seen (2021)
Written and directed by James Gunn (Slither, Guardians of the Galaxy), The Suicide Squad is a reboot of sorts of the 2016 David Ayer Suicide Squad. You know, the one that Warner Brothers just couldn’t keep their hands out of? ANYWAY. James Gunn clearly had a vision and he was not going to make the film unless he had 95% of the control. And, I’m happy … Continue reading The Suicide Squad (2021)
The new Charlie Kaufman film, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, has been met with a varying degree of opinions. Some really enjoyed the film while others, not so much. Personally, I liked the film, but that’s only after thinking about it overnight to really make sense of what I watched. Charlie Kaufman is a director and screenwriter that I love, so I partly knew to expect … Continue reading I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020): The Human Condition in Three Acts
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a film that I have always been reluctant to say I enjoy. Does that have to do with the film itself? Absolutely not. It does, however, have to do with the culture surrounding the film. I’ve noticed a trend. Those that love The Nightmare Before Christmas really LOVE The Nightmare Before Christmas and it seems to become nearly their entire personality. The diehard … Continue reading Revisiting Disney: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Movie theaters are in trouble, and even more so than we already thought. The Paramount Consent Decrees have been dismantled. For those unfamiliar, let me explain. With the birth of film in the United States came the birth of the studio system, where studios, under contract, had specific actors, directors, writers, and so on. That also included block booking their films, which ultimately led the … Continue reading With the Paramount Consent Decrees Ending, There’s Fear for the Future of Independent Theaters and Films
An insane general triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a War Room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop. Stanley Kubrick brilliantly satirized the Cold War tensions between the US and Russia in Dr. Strangelove, a black comedy that he wrote, directed, and produced. Even more brilliant, he criticized the ridiculous idea of mutually assured destruction. The concept of mutually assured destruction, or … Continue reading 39. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Fun fact: I’m nearly 30 and Bambi’s mother getting shot by the hunter still makes me tear up. That’s up there with the death of Mufasa, in my opinion. Bambi has never been one of the Disney films that I go back to and, honestly, I’m not entirely sure why. The film itself has some beautiful animation. In fact, the only film that even comes … Continue reading Revisiting Disney: Bambi (1942)
So, if you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll know that I tend to have trouble watching foreign films because I hyper focus on reading the subtitles and miss out on things actually on screen. But, as they say, “practice makes perfect”. I’ve been trying to watch more foreign films to get better at splitting my attention between the subtitles and the images on … Continue reading The Wailing (2016)
