Today we look at two amazing masterpiece movies by filmmaker Charles Burnett. First up is. . .
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GREAT MOVIES OF 2015: In this blog post, we take a look at 12 great movies (in this programmer's opinion) of 2015. As a kind of science experiment, you might want to look at the pictures that won the awards in 2015 versus the ones we discuss here. You certainly may have a different take than we do. But 2015 proved that it's often the passage of time that's the real arbiter of the movies we come back to. First up. . .
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First up, three movies by master John Ford. Ford's YOUNG MR LINCOLN is part of an unbelievable streak of films (all of which we highly recommend) that includes STAGECOACH, THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, and THE GRAPES OF WRATH. All made within 1 year of each other. What's so amazing about YOUNG MR LINCOLN is actually the incredible reserve and tact Ford displays. Lesser directors would have. . .
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The Old Dark House (1932, directed by James Whale) Haunted house films are a staple of Halloween movie delights. They are sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying, with interesting ensembles. They span from the earliest of recorded cinema (look for The Haunted Castle from 1896 on YouTube, it’s tons of fun) all the way up until yesterday. One of the earliest spooky house movies. . .
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We wanted to explore 3 of Cuaron's previous films today. First up is the last movie he made in Mexico before ROMA, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. It tells the story of two teenage friends on the cusp of adulthood who go on a road trip with a woman in her 30's in the hopes of basically having sex. . .
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BALLAD TO BUÑUEL #3: L'AGE D'OR (1930) Today, we'd like to sing the praises of totally singular auteur Spanish surreal filmmaker Luis Buñuel (1900-1983). Buñuel made early surrealist masterpieces, middle period Mexican surreal yet socially biting dramas, and a final French period that ended with one of the greatest "last" movies this programmer has ever scene. In his first phase. . .
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Guest writer Stephanie Sack on the giallo masterpiece of loneliness Footprints on the Moon (Bazzoni, 1975, Italy)
I have never been lonelier than when I have been with other people.
That is one of the worst feelings in worlds both known and unknown. If you are anywhere in or near or approaching that corridor of aching cold, for whatever reason, right now, I got you. I get it. It's horrible. No thank you.
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GUEST BLOG BY MITCHELL NAGY: Two Japanese Anime Classics Whisper of the Heart and Galaxy Express 999
Directed by the late Yoshifumi Kondo, Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart is based on a shojo manga with adapted screenplay from master animator Hayao Miyazaki. Together they created a film with inviting textures and multilayered depth set in Western Tokyo. . .
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This programmer will post about some of the foreign language movies that made a deep, profound impact on him in his teenage years and a bit later. There's something very powerful and intense that happens with those first few movies on your journey of cinema. You start to discover whole worlds you never knew existed…
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The doc is such a plastic and malleable art form and genre. Though the ones that stick with us seem to really reveal something about reality, true life that fiction can't, documentaries are every inch as manipulated, crafted, structured as fiction movies…
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It might be a mistake to think a Western can only be a movie with cowboys, 19th century American landscapes, horses, gunfights, etc. The Western almost certainly is a state of mind with universal archetypes that date back to Homer’s THE ILIAD (and almost certainly even before that). Here are three great movies from other cultures that are almost certainly Westerns. . .
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