I believe film occupies a rare place as art, entertainment, historical records and pure joy. I love all films, good and bad, from every time period with an affinity to Classical Hollywood in general, but samurai, sci-fi and noir specifically. My BA is in Film Studies from Pitt and my MA is in Education. My goal is to be able to ignite a love of film in others that is similar to my own.
Adapting video games into films seems to be tricky business for some reason. Many games now have such intricate and even cinematic storylines and cut-scenes (the story advancement between gameplay) that taking those stories and eliminating the gameplay should be a reasonably easy task, yet time and time again..
Back in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, father and son musicologists John and Alan Lomax traveled the American South in search of previously unrecorded and undocumented music styles and songs for the Library of Congress. Their trips resulted in many new discoveries like Muddy Waters and many rediscoveries (locating of previously recorded artists …
Editor’s Note: This month marks the 15th anniversary of Super Troopers. Feel free to share…
Picture it: Thursday, February 14th 1991. You’re with your significant other and you decide to take them to the new movie opening. Odd that it’s opening on a Thursday, but maybe it’s romantic. You buy your tickets and sit down to The Silence of the Lambs, one of the greatest thrillers ever made and, if read in a superiorly creepy way, one of the oddest …
Adaptations of comic books into movies has become serious business. Not only do they make an extraordinary amount of money, but their tone (with the exception with a rare few) are becoming increasingly dour, despite some quips and one-liners to break the tension. Then there is Deadpool, the adaptation of Marvel Comic’s Merc with a Mouth.
The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, have often been accused of mocking the characters and the topics they make comedies about, and it’s easy to make that leap if you don’t understand that poking fun at someone or something is often a form of affection. In every film they make, their love and appreciation for their characters and their…
If there is not a Kung Fu Panda 4, this film will be an excellent end point for the series. It brings the story to a fulfilling and satisfying ending, growing all of the characters well beyond anything we would have thought possible at the beginning of the first film.
Sometimes, a master filmmaker makes a film that is exceptional yet still overlooked. Steven Spielberg has had that happen to him on numerous occasions (too many, really), but never more so than with his 2005 epic Munich. This film should be considered with his great ‘serious’ works like The Color Purple, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan but …
Monty Python’s Life of Brian has been called many things, including brilliant, irreverent and even blasphemous. Of the three, only the last one is incorrect. Yes, the film pokes fun at the legend of Jesus, but not directly and more mocks blind faith and people who talk a good game but do nothing. The film garnered the…
Seinfeld’s “The Race” may not be one of those classic episodes that everyone thinks of when mentioning the classic sitcom, but it’s still a great episode (though, in truth, there really weren’t many bad episodes in the series 9 year run).