Category: Articles
Q: The Winged Serpent – 35 Years of the Genre Redefining Classic Creature-Feature
In my previous article “That Infamous B-Flick: The Giant Claw” I talked about what a huge fan of creature-features I am, how they were part of the beginning of my cinephilia, and that while I had seen quite a number of them in my childhood, The Giant Claw (1957) was one that I never got…
Cinema Soupçons in ‘WarGames’ and ‘North by Northwest’
I can’t think of two movies that are more alike than WarGames (1983) and North by Northwest (1959). Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. All right: a vast exaggeration. But let’s look at the similarities between them. They’re both thrillers. They both deal tangentially with the Cold War. They both feature characters on…
The President’s Analyst: The 50th anniversary of a prescient classic
“We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of the President of the United States.” That is how a recent Change.org petition began and it gathered close to 30,000 signatures in a few weeks.…
Numbers in Movie Titles: From One to Twelve
From 21 Grams to 47 Ronin. 99 Homes to 127 Hours. 2001: A Space Odyssey to One Million Years B.C. Yes, numbers in movie titles have been a thing. Not a meaningful thing, but then again “ten lords a leaping” isn’t the most meaningful of gifts either. Yet legend has it that if you give…
Youth Unmasked: Matthew Vaughan’s Kick-Ass Coming of Age Story
“I always wondered why nobody did it before me; I mean, all those comic books, movies, TV shows… you’d think that one eccentric loner would’ve made himself a costume. I mean, is everyday life really so exciting, schools and offices so thrilling that I’m the only one who ever fantasized about this? Come on, be…