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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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One of the finest arts one can learn and do well is acting. To be believable in a role, one must put oneself into a role totally and completely. It has to be something the audience will buy, right? There is a right way to cry, to laugh, to fall, and to get punched in the face. If a punch […]
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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 […]
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It happens almost every time a movie comes out; “The book was better.” Often the change from one medium to another is at best mixed, and even more often lackluster. This is understandable, books go into far more depth and spend far more time building characters and plots and some of that is simply lost when it moves to film. […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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On February 28, 2011 the world lost an iconic beauty. Jane Russell was the original bombshell. She was voluptuous, witty, and sharp as a tack. The woman didn’t take guff from anyone. Her on-screen presence raised some eyebrows – and pulses – in her bosom-bearing roles. Her first feature film, The Outlaw, had Hollywood censors sweating. They delayed the release […]
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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 […]
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