The Felliniesque Century
Consistently regarded as one of the world’s very greatest filmmakers, Federico Fellini is a daunting subject. Developing a bombastic and playful style, he is one of the few who can […]
Tag Archives: period films
Double Feature: On Falling in Love with Ghosts
Most notably in film noir, but also detectable in drama and fantasy, Hollywood films immediately after World War II often circled around moods of despair and loss. The war had […]
Double Feature: Orson Welles, Marilyn Monroe…and…Me?
It’s almost immaterial that one of these films is derived from a novel and the other from a memoir. An experiment: Watch Me and Orson Welles and My Week with Marilyn back-to-back […]
Keeping Pace: Editing in Chariots of Fire
To single out the editing in the film Chariots of Fire is, of course, to fly past the two or three most famous and memorable aspects of it. That’s not to […]
Uh … 3 ½? — Selma
The Introduction I first saw Ava DuVernay’s Selma in those pre-MoviePass days when going to a theater by myself was a rare occurrence. This was the weekend after the Oscar nominations […]
The Biopic Performance Conundrum: Capote
On the one hand, the impersonation of a historical figure is the most attention-grabbing and prestigious job any movie actor can undertake. Trying to fit into a well-known persona will […]
Double Feature: With Barton Fink In a Lonely Place
Welcome to Hollywood: where art goes to die, or so the story goes. Of all cinematic craftspeople, the writer is typically the most prone to cynicism, because the average screenwriter […]
“I just made the name up to give him some personality” — L.A. Confidential
I always loved their names. To me, they matched each character and the actor playing him to perfection — maybe too well. This may have been a case in which the […]
The Fantasy Biopic: Shakespeare in Love
Eagle-eyed observer that I am, it only took two major clues for me to make the connection between Shakespeare in Love and Amadeus. First is the presence of Simon Callow, which is […]
Double Feature: Brief Encounter and Carol
Director Todd Haynes has acknowledged in interviews that the inspiration for the framing device in Carol came from David Lean’s Brief Encounter. In each case, the in medias res opening leads directly to […]
Geppetto's Clocks 