Tag: movies
Hope and Glory: ‘Odd Man Out’ and the Need for Cinematic Recognition
Why isn’t Carol Reed’s heavy-hitting 1947 drama Odd Man Out better known? I wondered this recently after revisiting the film on television—following a period of not having seen it for quite a while. My taste for it has never waned, but I had forgotten some of the nuances that are present in this very complex,…
David Cronenberg’s Films Ranked from Worst to Best (Part Two)
In Part One, we began looking at the career of David Cronenberg. It has some clever lines. But if you only care about the cream – or in Cronenberg’s case, maybe “burnt ends” is a better metaphor – then proceed into the abyss. Here are his top ten feature films, IMDB rank in parentheses. 10.…
David Cronenberg’s Films Ranked from Worst to Best (Part One)
“You Should Know How Bad This Movie Is: You Paid for It.” That was the headline of Robert Fulford’s consideration of David Cronenberg’s first broadly released, publicly financed feature film, Shivers, in 1975. Fast forward twenty years. Evening Standard film critic Alexander Walker after seeing Cronenberg’s latest film, Crash, in Cannes: “Beyond the bounds of…
Reviewing ‘It Follows’: An Encounter with a Sexually Transmitted Demon
“This thing. It’s going to follow you. Somebody gave it to me and I passed it to you […] All you can do is pass it along to someone else.” And so Jay (Maika Monroe) suddenly finds herself sharing her life with a tireless, invisible hell-creature bent on brutally murdering her. The idea of a…
Rethinking Birdman: Buddha comes to Broadway
The first frame in Birdman has Michael Keaton levitating in mid-air, in a meditational posture. At other times the camera lingers on a golden head of the Buddha. What is going on? Is Birdman, as some have claimed, a Buddhist film? There is other evidence for this. In the midst of his panic and egoistic…