Author: Simon Hardy Butler
Movie Trailers: Bad Previews and the Misrepresentation of Films
Remember that great line from Shakespeare’s King Lear that opines: “The worst is not. So long as we can say ‘This is the worst’”? It’s not true. I recently attended a showing of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) in New York’s Times Square where a nearly uncountable number of loud, obnoxious previews appeared before the…
La Comédie Française: 7 French Comedies That Deserve to Be Better Known
The French like their comedies, and their tastes don’t just extend to Molière – as evidenced by a long line I once saw in Paris outside a movie theatre advertising a Marx Brothers picture. Yet many Gallic laugh-fests are rarely seen outside the continent, owing in part to the use of subtitles, as well as…
Movies & Racism: 5 Films That Should be Relegated to Museums
Racism has been around since day one – and in cinema almost as long. Some racist films, such as Gone With the Wind (1939), are still shown on television, while others, like The Birth of a Nation (1915) are harder to find. The question I want to ask is: Should these flicks be relegated to…
Akira Kurosawa: Debating the Way of the Samurai
The second of a two-part debate between CURNBLOG’s Simon Butler and Jonathan Eig on the films of Kurosawa. The question: Are Kurosawa’s Samurai films superior to his contemporary films? See Part One here. I’m no Miniver Cheevy. That is to say, I don’t wish I was born in another century when knights achieved feats of derring-do and…
Mythology and Hollywood: Gods, Legends and the Need for Better Movies
I have one thing to say to those who keep churning out movies along the lines of Thor (2011) and Wrath of the Titans (2012), and it takes a page out of Pink Floyd’s book: Hey! Directors! Leave those myths alone! The fact is, we do need an education – an education on how to…