Part of the brilliance of director Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) is the way in which it demystifies space travel. His characters aren’t heroic astronauts or brilliant scientists or mystic space knights. Instead, they are blue-collar working stiffs who just happen to make their living on a mining ship that traverses the stars. It is a clever (if not wholly original) […]
Read more
With Halloween right around the corner, it seemed like a good time to take a look at two films that not only redefined the horror genre, but also had a lasting impact on the culture as a whole. Director Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962) has developed a strong cult following in the years since its release, but it is […]
Read more
Carol Burnett once said “Comedy is tragedy plus time.” What she meant is that anything can be considered funny given enough time and distance. George Carlin agreed with her to a point. He believed that everything could be considered funny, and it didn’t matter how much time had passed. His contention was that “It all depends on how you construct […]
Read more
Stories that follow the traditional “hero’s journey” template are often geared toward adolescent boys, and feature easily identifiable male characters in the lead role. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and countless other properties can be placed into this rather broad category, and they all tend to reinforce the notion of the young male protagonist as champion or […]
Read more
Warrior (2011) is the latest film from Gavin O’Connor, the director of Miracle (2004), and stars Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte. The film tells the story of Tommy Reardon (Hardy), a troubled young man who grew up in the shadow of an alcoholic and abusive father (Nolte), but fled with his terminally ill mother when she had finally […]
Read more
Director Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian fable Children of Men (2006) is a veritable master class in the art of modern filmmaking, and nearly any moment in the film would be worthy of inclusion in this column. However, the sequence that towers above them all, and serves as the focus of this installment, comes late in the film, and depicts a rare […]
Read more
From the earliest days of cinema, filmmakers have long been fascinated by the often contentious relationship that exists between Mankind and nature. Indeed, one simply has to look at director Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) for an early example of this, as it perfectly illustrates the give and take relationship we share with the natural world. Since […]
Read more
It has been said that film has the ability to transport us. Whether it be to far off lands, other worlds, worlds that do not exist, or the distant past, films can take viewers to places they’ve never been before, or to places they could never visit in real life. However, nothing has the ability to transport a person back […]
Read more
Good satire is often timeless, even when the package it comes wrapped in is horribly dated and square according to current standards. Such is the case with this month’s double feature. Both Death Race 2000 (1975) and The Running Man (1987) contain social commentary that is eerily relevant to the events of today, despite several aesthetic trappings that root them […]
Read more
Human beings have long wrestled with the distinction between justice and revenge. This is a debate that has raged on for centuries, and it continues to divide people to this day. Countless articles have been written about the efficacy of the death penalty, with some seeing it as a just punishment for those who have committed heinous crimes, while others […]
Read more