Robert Aldrich directs Jack Palance to one of his best performances in this film noir classic…
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Stream-And-Run: The Big Knife (1955)
Robert Aldrich directs Jack Palance to one of his best performances in this film noir classic…
Stream-And-Run: Force 10 from Navarone (1978)
In which Robert Shaw and Harrison Ford learn you just can’t trust those dirty Nazis…
Monday, April 29, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Stream-And-Run: Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)
The holy horror trinity of Karloff, Lee and Steele…
Friday, April 26, 2013
Stream-And-Run: Message from Space (1978)
The most awesome episode of Power Rangers you’ve never seen…
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Stream-And-Run: When Eight Bells Toll (1971)
Believe it or not, Anthony Hopkins wasn’t always an old-ass man.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Song-A-Day: An Ideal of Hope
So you saw the most recent Man of Steel trailer, yeah? Hype is a dangerous thing, but this new Superman movie is seriously beginning to look like the movie of the summer. Most impressive is the music running throughout, which is apparently a part of Hans Zimmer's score and YouTube is already dubbing "An Ideal of Hope" (real or not, I love that title). Following John Williams' tremendous score is no small feat, but judging from this snippet alone, Zimmer has nailed it - crafting a piece of music that seems to fly as high as its main hero.
One thing to take note of: all the Superman themes dating back to the original Fleischer cartoons have had some string of three notes as the main chorus, echoing the main character's name ("Su-per-man"). Zimmer's theme here is no different, playing around with different triplets of notes throughout to wondrous effect.
June 16th can't get here soon enough...
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Stream-And-Run: The Burning (1981)
An early slasher offering from the Weinsteins before they were obsessed with buying Oscars…
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Song-A-Day: Liberty Tree
"Liberty Tree" by George Bruns and Tom Blackburn, from the film Johnny Tremain. After you've donated to the Red Cross, another way to pick up your spirits would be to watch this 1957 film, which is an old Disney classic and a great celebration of Boston's history.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
RIP Roger Ebert
Not two days after posting a "leave of presence" from his website, Roger Ebert passed away earlier today. I could write at length about the effect Ebert's reviews have had on me, but suffice to say I wouldn't be posting infrequent movie reviews here if I had never come across the man and his work. For a film nerd who grew up in a nowhere town where even driving to the closest Blockbuster was a near-Herculean effort, Ebert's reviews (and At The Movies) were something of a godsend. It was through Ebert I learned names like Bergman and Fellini and Godard, and it was also were I learned the most valuable bit of information when analyzing film: "It's not what the film is about, but how it's about it."
Ebert never stopped writing, even as his health deteriorated over the years and he found himself without the ability to speak; he was more productive in the last year alone than he had ever been. Even announcing his pseudo-retirement in the article linked above, Ebert laid out plans for revitalizing his website and starting a new venture (which I hope still happens). In memoriam, here's some of his pieces that I'll always remember:
Roger Ebert's Last Words, cont.
Apocalypse Now
Le Samourai
Tokyo Story
Pulp Fiction
Dark City
The Tuxedo
Thanks for everything, Mr. Ebert.
UPDATE: Now I find out that we lost Carmine Infantino today as well. Jess Franco, Ebert and Infantino all in the same week... What the hell, world...
Song-A-Day: Was It All In Vain
"Was It All In Vain" by the Benjamin Franklin Group, from Lucio Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse, a super-weird, existentialist spaghetti western the Italian gore-meister directed in 1975. The movie is strange and violent and left me feeling more than a little dirty after watching it - there's also a revelation about a character towards the end that gives me the creeps to this day.
Anyway, for some reason (probably the unforgettable theme to Django), it was popular amongst the spaghettis of this period to have folksy, somewhat bland songs playing on the soundtrack that pretty much describe the plot as it's happening (see Keoma for a particularly terrible/awesome example of this).