1970s
Our next installment of Take Two sees us examine David Lynch’s divisive debut feature about strange dreams and deformed children: Eraserhead.
Michelle Sabato, an Italian American herself, takes a closer look at The Godfather, and what “family” means to Italian Americans.
We take a look at Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which deals with the mundane in a truly unique way.
The next in our Sculptures in Time series about Andrei Tarkovsky’s films is The Mirror, a film very autobiographical and surreal in nature.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a flawed yet misunderstood film, imbuing some of the best that the franchise has ever had to offer.
Holiday Horrors provide a comforting alternative to the forced gaiety of the season – and Black Christmas is one of the best to watch.
In July of 1974, television reporter Christine Chubbuck committed suicide on a live news broadcast. This is not a spoiler for Christine, as the film concentrates on the tragic events that led to its title character’s fall.
In Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Solaris, Kris Kelvin (played by Donatas Banionis) journeys to a space station on the sentient planet Solaris in order to investigate whether the planet is still useful for scientific inquiry. Critics at the time considered Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film as the Soviet answer to Stanley Kubrick’s famed 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
‘So Bad They’re Good’ movies are a thing now. Movie list websites are awash with them. Troll 2 is often the high-watermark, and it appears that most of these no-budget horrors tend to be of American origin.
The new Criterion Collection release of A Touch of Zen includes director King Hu’s own notes on the film. In these notes, Hu discusses a conversation he had with a Zen Buddhist who told him that Zen must be understood not through verbal explanation, but through an enlightening experience. Despite his renown as a director of wuxia films, Hu was neither a Buddhist nor a martial artist; but, he believed that capturing an experience of Zen would make for a strong film.
Carrie is a movie inspired by one of Stephen King’s first novels, a dark story mixed with dramatic notes, where all the uncertainties and fears of adolescence, such as the problem of being different in a society that does not forgive, are transformed into anger and the desire for revenge. The movie was directed by Brian De Palma in 1976, but I believe it is a timeless story; indeed there have been many remakes, the last one in 2013 by Kimberly Peirce, setting it in a modern context. De Palma’s film, which can be considered a cult classic, shows the daily life of teenagers at an American high school and explores the theme of bullying deeply, adding some gory scenes towards the end.
Shane Black’s The Nice Guys couldn’t come at a better time. Actually, strike that. If it had come out just a few months later after the slog of the summer movie season of blockbuster remakes, sequels, reboots, and rehashes had polluted our minds, then perhaps it would be received all the more with acclaim.
In the brilliant and insightful documentary A History of Horror, British writer and actor Mark Gatiss explores the horror genre throughout many countries. While discussing British horror cinema of the 1960’s, Gatiss uses the term ‘folk horror’ to describe a short but very curious subgenre. The films that make up this genre are unmistakably British and owe a large debt to the trail blazers of horror cinema in Britain:
It’s been quite some time since my last volume of Words vs. Moving Pictures, in which I discussed Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and compared it to the 1962 film. Since then, it has taken me a long time to try to find another book and subsequent movie adaptation that would be worthy of discussion.
Most people I tell about THX 1138 have never heard of it before. When I tell them it was George Lucas’ first feature-length film, they look at me dumbfounded. Though, if you’d have told me about THX a few years ago, my reaction would probably have been the same.