Tag: film
Interviewing Whit Stillman: A cinematic sense and sensibility
There’s a lot happening for Whit Stillman nowadays. Known for the wry, urbane quality of his films as well as the almost Kubrickian periods between them, Stillman always had a lot on his plate, and this year is no exception. With two major cinematic projects in the works, a pilot for a new series called…
Jason Reitman’s Labor Day: A look at the directorial misstep
I began teaching film around the same time that Steven Spielberg released Hook (1991). When students asked me why the movie had failed, I told them that it was because it took way too long to get to Neverland. In screenwriting terms, the first act was far too long. Then they would ask how someone…
Dismissing the critic: Seven fallacious arguments against criticism
As digital technology offers countless contrarian voices the opportunity to add their share to the din of popular culture, I thought I’d take a moment to look at the difference between a valid objection and a foolish remark that ought to be dismissed outright. Within the democratised digital world, it is a potentially demoralising reality…
Sampling and homages: The problem with heavy movie lifting
Remember that scene in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) where a baby carriage clunks down the steps in the middle of a gunfight? I’m just wondering: Did you laugh when you first saw it … because you knew it was lifted from Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925)? De Palma’s inside-movie joke might’ve been a…
Remembering Judy Holliday: The shameless self-promotion of Gladys Glover
The sad loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman has me thinking about other actors who have died too soon. From Wallace Reid and Rudolph Valentino through Carole Lombard and Marilyn Monroe. John Cazale and Heath Ledger. There is a litany. And somewhere on that list is Judy Holliday, who died in 1965, at the age of…