Category: Articles
120 Years of Horror
What was the first horror film ever made? Many people might guess Lugosi’s Dracula or Nosferatu, maybe even Frankenstein; and those are good guesses for the average Joe. If you were one of those thinking of Nosferatu, you’d still be about 27 years off. Many film buffs, film scholars and fans agree that the first horror motion picture is…
The Best and Worst of Steven Spielberg: Assessing the Oeuvre of a Great Filmmaker
I still can’t get over the fact that Steven Spielberg directed Hook (1991). It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. A lousy, mirthless script that muddles its classic source material: J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Miscast stars who ham it up with forced panache. And a lethargic pace inspired, I assume, by the speed of a stuffed crocodile. This pile of putrid…
The best films and performances of 2015 (so far)
I know it seems like the height of foolishness to put out a “best of” list when there is still a week to go in the first half of 2015. But I am going out on a limb and assuming that Ted 2 will not crack my Best Picture list even after I get around…
‘San Andreas’ and the Bad Habit of Eating Popcorn While the World Burns
Director Brad Peyton and writer Carlton Cuse had the chance to do something truly remarkable in San Andreas, something that might have sent a shockwave through mainstream American film equal to the quake that decimates the Pacific coast in their movie. Something that might have changed the course of human history. The fact that they…
‘Kung Fury’, ‘Predator: Dark Ages’ and the Democratisation of Spectacle
As a member of a short film selection panel for a major film festival in 2013 and 2014, I was quite surprised by the increasing number of submissions that sought to replicate big-budget Hollywood genre cinema. I suppose I had, quite ignorantly, entered with a preconception that short films were the reserve of art cinema.…