By Cleaver Patterson. Some films have an air of effortless style which others can only dream about. The Man in the White Suit (1951), directed by Alexander Mackendrick and produced by the revered Michael Balcon for Ealing Studios, is one such film. Starring company regulars Alec Guinness and Joan Greenwood, […]
A Few Notes on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Having just viewed Steven Spielberg’s new film Lincoln, I am moved to write a few words about it before it fades from my memory, which will happen rather rapidly. I’ll leave whatever historical inaccuracies the film may contain for others to consider – perhaps my friend […]
It Always Rains on Sunday
By Cleaver Patterson. British cinema was renowned for producing two types of film in the years following the end of World War II – polished and witty comedies and hard-bitten, realistic drama. The London based company Ealing Films were accomplished purveyors of both, with the dark humor of their sublime […]
Santa Sangre: A Psychedelic Attack on the Senses
By Cleaver Patterson. Mexican cinema has always been a law unto itself. Over the years its stars – like the legendary siren Dolores del Rio who came to international prominence during the 1930’s and the larger-than-life Cantinflas, star of the Academy Award winning adventure-comedy Around the World in 80 Days […]
Love alters when it alteration finds: Confession (2012)
By Robert Kenneth Dator. The missed assignation, and the phone call that never comes, and the axioms would seem to pile up in drifts within the mind of the suffering lover: ‘leave well enough alone’; ‘let sleeping dogs lie’; ‘curiosity killed the cat’—even so, the voices of a weak resolve […]
Trying Too Hard: Lovely Molly (2011)
By Cleaver Patterson. Molly (Gretchen Lodge) and her new husband Tim (Johnny Lewis) move into Molly’s old family home, and settle down to married life. However the remote farmhouse harbors dark secrets from Molly’s past and, while Tim is away days at a time with his job as a long […]
Rasputin, the Devil and a Mummy: Hammer Classic Rereleases
By Cleaver Patterson. The prolific Hammer Films was a company which never ceased to amaze, both in its choice of subject and in the quality and quantity of its output. From the highs of their iconic takes on the haemoglobin drinking Count in Dracula (1958) and grotesque DIY surgery of […]
The Master (2012)
By Jacob Mertens. Many times, a film is most compelling inside that beautiful moment of transport evoked by the flickering lights cast across a white canvas. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is not one of these films. The auteur’s latest demands a great deal of attention from the audience and […]
Forgotten Fincher: The Game of the Privileged
By Matthew Sorrento. By reissuing David Fincher’s The Game (1997), the Criterion Collection commits an act of outright auteurism. This film sits on the lower Fincher shelf, somewhere near Alien3 and Panic Room. The filmmaker’s come a long way – he now seems unflappable after his reflections on life/mortality in […]
Looper (2012)
By Jacob Mertens. Imagine the breadth of daily life changed by a single important innovation: the ability to travel through time. In order to breathe life into this story, a writer must allow the detail of time travel to slowly distort the world around it as if dropping a pebble […]