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Raw, analog interfaces and whirring computers, primitive digital readouts, clicking binary code, churning cogitators, and flashing buttons. Eerie red light transfusing a zero-gravity space, the silent cockpit of a spaceship, and the white lights of the Mother artificial intelligence mainframe room. The tortured, dying machines of the analog age. (more…)
2,012 words
A TV series that captures an era will always be like one of those time capsules schoolchildren used to bury in their school grounds, a tin box full of examples of day-to-day objects and destined to lie unseen in the earth until someone digs it up decades – or even centuries – later and gets a glimpse of how people used to live. One such series was Chancer, ITV’s 1991, 12-part drama set in the England of the 1980s. (more…)
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Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life, 1960) is one of the most hailed and fêted films of all time. It was both a commercial and a critical success. It had an immediate and enduring influence on film, fashion, and popular culture in general. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1960. It was nominated for four Oscars and won Best Costume Design. Nino Rota’s music is also iconic. To this day, La Dolce Vita is regularly included in lists of the greatest films of all time. (more…)
2,399 words
Oh, What a Night
Directed by: Eric Till
Written by: Richard Nielson
Starring: Corey Haim, Barbara Williams, & Keir Dullea
There is a magical movie out there that went direct to video. As a direct-to-video film, it cannot be called one of the great classics of all time, nonetheless the movie, and the cultural context in which it was filmed, is significant enough for reflection. The movie is Oh, What a Night, (1992), shot in Ontario in a little more than a month during the late summer of 1991. (more…)
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I contend that John Hughes’ 1985 film The Breakfast Club is a pro-white classic and fascist masterpiece.
The film takes place in a high school library in suburban Chicago although upon release, a lot of people liked to think of it as taking place in Anytown, USA.
The premise is that five white teenagers show up to school for Saturday detention and each one represents a different teen social archetype or high school clique that would have been familiar to viewers at the time. (more…)
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Before beginning the second instalment in this series of film reviews, let’s revisit the criteria.
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No one can say whether a different situation would have arisen if the Third Reich had enjoyed a longer and calmer life.
Julius Evola, Notes on the Third Reich
As they poured across the border we were cautioned to surrender.
This I could not do.
Leonard Cohen, The Partisan (more…)
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I forgot who said it, but it went like this: There is a difference between best movies and favorite movies. You might know objectively that Citizen Kane is the best movie of all time (I happen to disagree), but few people would name it as their favorite movie. A favorite has nothing to do with quality. (more…)
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I can just imagine Woody Allen’s elevator pitch for Blue Jasmine: “Imagine Streetcar Named Desire, only Blanche du Bois was married to Bernie Madoff.” Yes, Blue Jasmine (2013) is derivative. Yes, it is derivative of a classic, to which it will inevitably be compared and found wanting. But for all that, it is an excellent film and belongs among Woody Allen’s best. (more…)
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A recent viewing of the 2012 movie Maniac remake made me question the unsettling parallels between a man hunting for love and one hunting with murderous intent.
The film is very good if you like a giallo slasher in the style of Dario Argento. Producer of both versions, William Lustig, even worked on the Italian master’s excellent Tenebrae. (more…)
6,206 words
Francis Ford Coppola
Megalopolis: A Fable
Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne
Produced, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola
“This is typical of new directors, too many good ideas. Or, in this case, no ideas.” –Mystery Science Theater.[1]
“It was like watching a train wreck unfold day after day, week after week, and knowing that everybody there had tried their hardest to help the train wreck be avoided…. This sounds crazy to say, but there were times when we were all standing around going: ‘Has this guy ever made a movie before?’” – Crew member quoted in The Guardian (more…)
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In “They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To,” Angelo Plume’s paean to the film First Knight, he gives us a blow-by-blow account of the film, lamenting that such films don’t get made anymore. Sad but true for the West. After reading the review, I had my Saturday night pizza, popped open a beer (Sam Adams), and dug into my archives to watch King Arthur, the 2004 film about the once and future king; decidedly different than First Knight, but it has its own flavor and goes very good with popcorn . . . and mead. (more…)
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When I was young, I saw most of Woody Allen’s early movies in bits and pieces on television: Sleeper, Bananas, Annie Hall, Love and Death, etc. There were funny bits, but mostly I found them vulgar and stupid. And Woody Allen himself was repulsive. “What a nerd,” I thought. “Won’t this guy shut up?” I wondered. “What’s wrong with this guy?” (more…)