Tag: cinema
Revisiting Lilo & Stitch: Disney and progressive cinema
Disney’s 2013 feature Frozen has done a magnificent job of stirring the pot. The film has been lauded as a one of the most progressive of the pantheon to date, which has in turn sparked a series of discussions concerning the progressiveness of Disney films as a whole. It is no secret that these childhood…
Bad Words and Good Writing: A lesson in screenwriting
Bad Words is the kind of movie that gives critics trouble. It’s easy to write about the dregs – I could pound out 1,000 words on Need for Speed without breaking a sweat – and it’s easy to write about the good stuff. It’s the middle-of-the-road movie that is hardest to capture. But let’s give…
Elegy for the western: A plea for its comeback
Someone needs to resurrect the western. It’s either dead or dying now, and little is being done to give it life – True Grit (2010) notwithstanding. There was a time back in the 1980s when the paucity of films in the category, save the intermittent flick such as Silverado (1985) and Pale Rider (1985), spoke…
Guerra Civil: The Spanish Civil War on Film
From 1936 until 1939, Spain was torn apart by a bitter civil war. This almost forgotten conflict was the precursor to the world war that soon followed, and was one of the bitterest, and cruellest civil wars in modern times. You would need to read a book, and there are many to choose from, for…
Sunset Cinema: 30 superb directorial feature film finales
One of the best things about writing a blog is that it gives my family an excuse to talk to me. And so, when I recently put up a piece about great directorial debuts, I heard from a lot of them. Usually they were telling me, in the politest possible terms, how many titles I…