Monthly Archives: August 2011

Face to Face (Ingmar Bergman, 1976)

Posted on August 30, 2011 by

Read my review of the DVD release of Ingmar Bergman’s hitherto hard-to-see Face to Face (1976) on Slant Magazine.

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The Films of Anthony Mann (Part 3): Winchester ’73, The Naked Spur, The Man From Laramie

Posted on August 22, 2011 by

The first of five films to team director Anthony Mann and star James Stewart, Winchester ’73 (1950) begins with Lin McAdam (Stewart) and “High-Spade” Wilson (Millard Mitchell) tracking killer Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) into Dodge City, Kansas, arriving in … Continue reading →

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Tod Browning/Lon Chaney: The Unholy Three, The Unknown, London After Midnight, West of Zanzibar, Where East Is East

Posted on August 17, 2011 by

Between 1919 and 1929, director Tod Browning and actor Lon Chaney, Sr. made a total of ten films together, the best of them comprising what might be called the “masochistic melodrama” genre: Chaney’s protagonist, an obsessive, often embittered individual, usually … Continue reading →

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The Films of Anthony Mann (Part 2): Railroaded, Raw Deal, Border Incident, Side Street

Posted on August 16, 2011 by

One of three films noir Anthony Mann released in 1947 alone (T-Men and Desperate being the other two), Railroaded is a solid, visually exciting genre effort, though at bottom it’s a fairly conventional police procedural, with just enough noir emphasis … Continue reading →

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“Neverending Story”: The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968)

Posted on August 15, 2011 by

Based on a story drawn from Isak Dinesen‘s collection Anecdotes of Destiny and originally produced for French television, which explains its abbreviated c. 58 minute run-time, Orson Welles‘ The Immortal Story originally played in stateside theaters as one half of … Continue reading →

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“If They Move, Kill ‘Em!”: The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

Posted on August 14, 2011 by

Preeminent among the Revisionist Westerns, The Wild Bunch also stands as an exemplar of the Twilight Western, elegiac films that explored the “closing of the frontier” theme, Sam Peckinpah‘s own The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1971) being another prime example. … Continue reading →

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The Films of Anthony Mann (Part 1): Desperate, The Black Book (aka Reign of Terror), Devil’s Doorway, The Tall Target

Posted on August 11, 2011 by

After trying to get through the thoroughly old-fashioned Two O’Clock Courage (1945), an ideal cure for insomnia interesting only for its opening dolly-in and crane shot of an injured Tom Conway standing at a crossroads, bleeding from a nasty head … Continue reading →

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“Nobody Loses All the Time”: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974)

Posted on August 6, 2011 by

True, taken all for all, Alfredo Garcia may not be Peckinpah’s best work–that right’s reserved for the technical, thematic and generic revolution that was The Wild Bunch (1969)–but without a doubt it has to be considered a masterwork, as well … Continue reading →

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“Within You Without You”: Outside In (Stephen van Vuuren, Ongoing)

Posted on August 5, 2011 by

Allow me the indulgence to evangelize a little: I’d like to draw your attention to local filmmaker Stephen van Vuuren’s phenomenal ongoing project, Outside In, an “IMAX film made in a basement,” as Stephen likes to put it. Consisting of … Continue reading →

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“Up in Smoke”: Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010)

Posted on August 5, 2011 by

The fact that this French Canadian Oscar-bait was adapted from a play makes perfect sense: Not that it feels claustrophobic or “stage-bound,” thus necessitating “opening up.” Rather, each and every major “revelation” (and by the film’s third act they’re whizzing … Continue reading →

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