In outline form, The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and Modern Romance (1981) would best be described as romantic comedies. They have the right structure, working their way through humorous incidents to the ultimate […]
Most notably in film noir, but also detectable in drama and fantasy, Hollywood films immediately after World War II often circled around moods of despair and loss. The war had […]
It’s almost immaterial that one of these films is derived from a novel and the other from a memoir. An experiment: Watch Me and Orson Welles and My Week with Marilyn back-to-back […]
There are two cases on the record of filmmakers producing trilogies that spanned their careers. Fritz Lang began directing films in 1919, but a landmark from his early output is […]
A straight stretch of train tracks extend into oblivion, their iron rumbling with a whispered threat. In the gentle town nearby, two solemn and innocent ceremonies take place at the […]
Welcome to Hollywood: where art goes to die, or so the story goes. Of all cinematic craftspeople, the writer is typically the most prone to cynicism, because the average screenwriter […]
Among the current decade’s crop of movie neo-musicals, Damien Chazelle’s La La Land stands apart for tapping into traditions uniquely native to film. That is to say, it’s a song-and-dance extravaganza […]
