By John H. Foote Comedy is a genre all its own consisting of ten subgenres, and they evolve and expand as the years slip past. It is also, along with horror, the single most personal of the cinematic genres. I saw Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (1979) with my wife, howling as the film…
By Alan Hurst On a long commute home I often go to my “happy place” which usually involves movies and conjuring all sorts of lists – ten best of this, ten worst of that – you get the idea. Because we’re in a new decade, I’ve decided to pick one movie from each of the…
By John H. Foote Sequels achieved their greatest popularity through the seventies and eighties and beyond, though in fairness they have existed since the thirties and the Universal monster series. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) stands among the greatest sequels ever made, a wonderful film that preceded a series of increasingly bad films meant to…
By John H. Foote Crazy to be even talking about next year’s Oscars, right? Not really. I promise you the studios are already in full swing setting up release dates, marketing campaigns, festival screenings and for your consideration campaigns for when the films are screened. Next year’s Oscar race is already in motion, the wheels…
By Alan Hurst Rock Hudson is one of those rare movie stars whose death and the revelations that came afterward diminished their legacy as a star and performer. It happened to Joan Crawford with the accusations of child abuse in her daughter Christina’s best selling “Mommie Dearest”. And it happened to Rock Hudson in 1985…
By John H. Foote I am watching the Oscars this year in a seething rage. A great injustice will take place tonight when Martin Scorsese, the greatest living film director, and his magnificent film The Irishman will be ignored for Best Director and Best Picture. Yes, great films are often overlooked, but a film so…
By John H. Foote Great directors once again dominated the decade as they had the seventies, resulting in some of the greatest films ever made. Steven Spielberg won two Academy Awards for Best Director for Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), while Quentin Tarantino emerged as the most exciting filmmaker since Martin Scorsese…
By John H. Foote Let me be clear, I am writing about gangster pictures, films that go inside the world of the mob, NOT cops and robbers or crime movies. Organized crime is the order of the day with what I am exploring with this article, big and small. Warner Brothers built their studio on…
By John H. Foote The eighties are often a much maligned 10-year period coming after the seventies, the greatest decade in American film history. The staggering financial failures of major big budget auteur projects allowed the studios to take back the power and lower budgets drastically, but in fairness the eighties has many great films.…
By John H. Foote A five-part series exploring the ten greatest films ignored for Best Picture in their respective year, my hope is not to condemn the Academy by explore that greatness has often been overlooked, just as often as it has been rewarded. Before the Oscars are handed out this year, I promise to…