Cinematic Soulmates: Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars

Remakes (or reimaginings, reboots, etc) seem to be all the rage in Hollywood these days, but this phenomenon has been occurring within the realm of cinema for a long time.  Most of the time, remakes are pointless and don’t bring anything new or interesting to the table, thus alienating fans of the original work while simultaneously failing to bring new […]

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Cinematic Soulmates – The Long Goodbye and The Big Lebowski

Film noir is one of the oldest genres in cinema, and one that sort of epitomizes the films of the 1930s and 1940s.  Indeed, even modern film noirs are often period pieces, since the genre is so closely linked to those two decades, in which many of the genre’s classics first emerged.  As such, the genre often feels quaint, embodying […]

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Cinematic Soulmates: Man on Wire and Exit Through the Gift Shop

It’s documentary day here at Cinematic Soulmates.  Today we’re going to look at two movies that don’t appear to be all that similar, but are united by their subjects, both of whom are larger than life men who hail from France and set out to accomplish amazing things while presenting heightened versions of themselves to the world.  Now, before you […]

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Cinematic Soulmates: A Hard Day’s Night and That Thing You Do!

Even if you don’t like the Beatles, you have to at least acknowledge the band’s importance.  Collectively, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr not only changed the face of music, but they impacted nearly every facet of popular culture, from films to fashion to relaxed attitudes about drug use.  While they appeared in a handful of their […]

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Cinematic Soulmates: ¡Three Amigos!, A Bug’s Life, and Galaxy Quest

In my last column, I discussed how cinema is essentially a medium that is built upon its own history, with countless directors using their own films as excuses to pay homage to those that inspired them.  Whether it come in the form of lifting a particular bit of technical flair like a camera movement or editing choice, or the outright […]

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Cinematic Soulmates: Solaris and The Fountain

Joseph Hall once wrote “Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.”  In other words, like it or not, death is an inevitability for all of us.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that death features prominently in popular culture.  Countless films, books, poems, and songs feature death as a prominent theme, often in an […]

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Cinematic Soulmates: Ghost World and American Splendor

When most people think of comic book movies, they tend to think of muscle bound men and sexy women strutting around in revealing spandex costumes, striking poses and pummeling one another within an inch of their lives.  However, there is another side to comic books, one that looks at the human condition through the lens of ordinary, everyday folks who […]

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