Category: Articles
Masterpieces of Suspense: The Top 10 Hitchcock Films
Alfred Hitchcock. The greatest director of all time? Maybe not. The most iconic? Who are you ranking ahead of him? His combination of artistic output and oversized public persona, burnished by famous cameo appearances in movies and cemented by his constant presence on TV in the new medium’s formative days, makes him arguably the most…
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…
The Chapter Film: In Honour of the Portmanteau
Mise en scene. Montage. Auteur. The French really like writing and theorising about movies, and thus have bequeathed many terms unto the film lexicon. And I am just pretentious enough to toss them around without regard for whosoever may be rolling their eyes. But there’s one French term to which I have never taken. Portmanteau.…
Lest We Forget: The Great War and Cinema
This August sees the centenary of the First World War. This tragic conflict destroyed nations, took millions of lives, and changed the map of the world. Many films have been made about this war, and this seems a suitable time to examine some of them. I normally seek out lesser-known films for my posts; but…
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…