Features
Film Noir stems back to the earlier days of Hollywood, starting with the Humphrey Bogart classic The Maltese Falcon in 1941. This film, the first from cinema great John Huston, established many of the trademarks we associate with the sub-genre today. The term Film Noir literally means “black film” and refers to how dark and shadowy the films tend to be.
Every time you look for new horror movies the same ten titles show up. The Shining, Jaws, The Exorcist, The Haunting, Psycho, Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, Halloween, The Ring, and Night of the Living Dead. Not to say that these aren’t great films, they’re on the best lists for a reason; they’re classics!
Remake. The very word can send a shiver down a film fan’s spine. It’s just a further sign that Hollywood is no longer original, that they must pillage classics for ideas to recycle.
Something about Halloween just makes you want to be scared. It’s the one time of year when it feels truly fitting. And nowhere is that more easy to accomplish than with a horror movie.
It is easy to be a bit cynical about the state of modern commercial filmmaking. So many of today’s wide-released movies are either remakes of a remake of a remake or star a buff white dude fighting crime (usually in a cape or police uniform). With big studios investing so much money in the big movies we see today, they cannot afford to take huge risks.
An independent filmmaker wears many different hats: director, writer, producer, investor, et cetera. Now add to this list social media manager.
The word “gritty” is often used by reviewers to describe films which portray graphic physical violence, lone wolf characters, and probably a line of coke or two. While I feel that’s accurate, my own personal definition for a gritty film differs slightly. If I describe a film as gritty, expect it to be both emotionally and physically violent and draining.
Jon Lovitz is a name most young folks don’t know or remember. He is an alumni of Saturday Night Live way back from 1985 to 1990. If you don’t know him from there then maybe you remember him as this guy.
If you ask somebody about the war films they’ve seen, the first titles that come to mind are usually large-scale epics that feature scenes of combat and violence. These films effectively depict the horrors of war. However, the level of action in some of these films can be distracting and compromise our emotional involvement with the characters once we see how quickly they can vanish, and the level of violence that can occur.
Now that the summer sun has set and winter is on the way, it’s as good a time as any to reflect on the best that cinemas had to offer for those who wished to hide away from the heat in darkened screening rooms. Without further ado, here are my top five kings of summer blockbusters 2014. 5.
Chilean Filmmaker Pablo Larraín never mentioned the word Trilogy when he embarked on creating Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010) and No (2012), however, these three films do act as part of a whole: Larraín’s vision regarding Pinochet’s military coup of 1973 and the ensuing dictatorship. Tony Manero and Post Mortem are both grim parables of folks stuck in a moral stupor, wandering the streets of a Chile that no longer knows itself, that silently witnesses the arrest and disappearance of hundreds of people every day, violence and torture a common thing and a convenient shroud for the crimes of civilians.
What I love about Martin Scorsese is that he is a filmmaker who loves movies. Over the years his personality has taken on new dimensions as a film historian as well as a director. The movies he’s restored through his non-profit Film Foundation company has brought tons of movies that would have either gone unseen, or deteriorated without his restoration projects.
There is a difference between stark realism and good storytelling. Cinema is open to different perceptions. We, as aware audiences, ought to give more importance to the integrity of presenting the story and not its factual correctness.
There had been many films about outer space before 1968, but it was in that year that Stanley Kubrick lit the fuse leading to a powder keg that would explode 9 years later. The influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey is arguably the most influential film ever made.
Today, I’m presenting a pretty awesome mobile app, and it’s called Movie On Me. Social media has made the world a lot smaller – I have online friends in India, the U.S.