Tag: cinema
Dolares de arena: Small Pleasures, Deep Hearts and Dreams to Explore
The story goes that when financiers of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc screened his initial cut, they were appalled. They had invested quite a bit of money so that Dreyer could recreate the court in Rouen where French clerics would ultimately find Joan guilty of heresy. Yet Dreyer’s…
Jake Wilson on Mad Dog Morgan: Histories, Myths, Legends and Motivations
It was in 1976 that Philippe Mora released his underappreciated classic, Mad Dog Morgan, starring Dennis Hopper as the once notorious bushranger Daniel Morgan. In many ways, Jake Wilson’s excellent new monograph of the same name, the latest entry into the Australian Screen Classics series from Currency Press, positions Mad Dog Morgan as a fusion of…
Why Shyamalan’s The Visit is less than the sum of its parts
You want to know the problem with writing? Everything gets written down. In ink. Posted to websites where it will never go away. And so, occasionally something like this happens. A few weeks ago, I posted a review of the new Jesse Eisenberg movie American Ultra. It was a very positive review for a movie…
Opera Onscreen: How to Resurrect a Dying Genre
Given the fact that Placido Domingo instinctively ruffled his fingers through my hair 30 years ago as I—then a member of the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus—marched by him on stage during a production of Carmen, I can’t help but admit a personal bias toward the legendary singer … which includes admiration for his efforts in…
Song of the Sea: An Ode to the Hand Drawn Line
At present the animation industry is globally dominated by CGI technology and it’s now incredibly rare that you’d see a hand drawn 2D feature film. Disney long ago gave up hand painted film cells to make way for the ease of computer generated productions. Pixar’s revolutionary style has been joined by other big name production…