Tag: cinema
Shakespeare’s history plays: Precursor to the film franchise?
Ahh, the film franchise. A popular film with interesting characters and a decent premise soon spawns a sequel, then becomes a trilogy, and so on, until it becomes unprofitable, unpopular, or both. If the franchise is based on a book series, every effort will be made to keep the money factory running as long as…
Method in acting and science: Why there is no such thing
Growing up in China, with the state television often showing boring programs, I was hooked to our cherished VCR and movies. My favorite actors growing up were Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (no surprises there). It was only later on that I discovered while doing my PhD in the Netherlands, that actors like Pacino…
Seattle, 1965: When a teenager could see three films and three bands for 99 Cents, then sneak into an adult movie
“How did they ever make a movie of Lolita for persons over eighteen years of age?” For two and a half years, I had been wanting an answer to that question, and was beginning to think I wasn’t going to find out until I turned eighteen. Then, while browsing the newspaper’s movie section on a…
Only in the 80s: Five upbeat 80s films you may not have seen
Whether you think back on 80s cinema favourably or not, it can’t be denied that one of the distinct characteristics of films from this decade is “fun”. Even the more challenging or serious 80s films, like Blue Velvet (1986) or The Shining (1980), had more colour or were, somehow, easier to watch. The stories were zanier, genres were broader, but…
A trip to “The Pictures”: Watching movies in Post-WWII London
In London’s working class districts, during the late 1950s and well into the late 1960s, you did not hear the phrase ‘going to the cinema’. It would always be ‘going to the pictures’, or the common slang term, ‘the flicks’. This was a hangover from the earliest days of silent film, when the flickering of…