PCC Top 5 Best Picture Oscar Winners

The Academy Awards recently announced their 10 picks for Best Picture. Naturally we had many thoughts about what was picked and what wasn’t. As with anything, the Academy gets it right some of the time and wrong some of the time. We at the Phoenix Critics Circle (PCC) got thinking about what are the best Best Picture winners of all time. We polled the circle and here is what we think are the ultimate times the Academy got the top honor right. 

1. The Apartment - Nominated for 10 awards and winning 5, Billy Wilder’s classic tells the tale of Bud Baxter(Jack Lemmon) as he lends out his apartment to executives so they can have affairs and he can move up the corporate ladder. That is until he meets Fran (Shirley MacLaine).
   
   Billy Wilder's story of love and longing, made in 1960, echoes with the same pathos felt in modern times. It's funny, charming, depressing, and romantic in all the right ways.
   - Monte Yazzie
   
   

2. Parasite - Of the six categories in which it was nominated for in 2020, Parasite won in four: Best Original Screenplay, Best International Film, Best Director, and Best Picture. It made history as the first Korean film to be nominated and win. The film follows the unemployed Kim family as they form a tense relationship with the wealthy Park family.  Greed, class discrimination and familial trust is explored in this thrilling and unpredictable film.  
   
   A savage satire whose sting only grows sharper with time. - Josh Spiegel
   
   

3. The Silence of the Lambs -Jonathan Demme’s psychological horror thriller remains one of only six horror films that have been nominated for the category and the only to win it. The film stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent hunting the serial killer Buffalo Bill. In order to catch the killer, she seeks the advice of imprisoned serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins).
   
   One of the most unconventional Best Picture wins in the Academy's history. Not only is it horror, it was released incredibly early in the year (February) - not great odds for taking the highest award. But it definitely made an impact, also picking up the coveted (and super rare) top five Oscars (Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress) - a feat only accomplished two other times in the Academy's history.- Mike Massie
   
   

4. Moonlight - This 2016 film directed by Barry Jenkins is presented in three stages of life of the main character - his childhood, adolescence and early adult life. The film explores sexuality and identity. It is the first LGBTQ film, and notably with an all-black cast, to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
   Small, tender, intimate - exactly the sort of film the Academy usually looks over. A milestone in Oscars diversity. - Barbara VanDenburgh

5. The Godfather Part II - Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 crime epic is the only sequel to win Best Picture. The Godfather won best picture as well. The film serves as both a prequel, following the rise of Vito Corleone (Robert DeNiro), and a sequel, tracing Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) as he protects the family business.
   
   The rare sequel that is every bit as good as the original and some may argue is better. The duel storytelling, combining Michael and Vito’s experiences, paints a rich portrait of the immigrant experience in America. - Matthew Robinson

An interview with 'Skin' director Guy Nattiv

Director Guy Nattiv and actor Jamie Bell at an event for ‘Skin’.

Writer and director, Guy Nattiv, sat down with Kaely Monahan and Tuesday Mahrle from Whiskey and Popcorn to discuss his film “Skin”. The powerful movie has an equally amazing backstory. From a photo essay to a secret meeting, to actual filming, Skin is a layered and complex story both on and off the screen.

Take a listen to the interview with “Skin” director, Guy Nattiv, by clicking the link below.

Whiskey and Popcorn is a joint venture between a couple of movie lovers. We love to watch, read and talk about movies. What better way to do that than by creating a podcast and website. We hope you enjoy our ramblings and comment on everything you see here.

A Brief History of a Little Tramp's Shorts

A Brief History of a Little Tramp’s Shorts

by Mike Massie

Of all the inimitable auteurs borne from the silent film era (Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, Max Linder, Charley Chase, Laurel & Hardy, Fatty Arbuckle), Charles Spencer Chaplin has surely pervaded modern audiences in the most commercial, far-reaching, and accessible manner. If the competition aroused comic-tinged compassion through caricatures of daredevilry-inveigled commoners, henpecked family men, orotund souses, or bashful men-about-town, Chaplin cornered sympathies through his most pathetic yet charming underdog creation: a tramp. In his feigned humbleness, the character was never even documented as the same tramp, or “The Tramp”; rather, he was merely “a” tramp - as if his particular visual styling was representative of the most typical of vagabonds. This persona became, nevertheless, one of the most singular of all movie characters.

Though Chaplin is, today, most celebrated for his feature-length films, it was his lengthy, comprehensive practice with shorts that allowed him to mold such emotionally resonant features. Many of his greatest gags were test-driven in his earlier two-reel productions, before being tirelessly rewritten and revised for the longer classics that debuted from the mid-‘20s through the ‘30s - for which he would receive immeasurable critical, commercial, and retrospective successes. But his humbler origins - beginning as a supporting actor who assumed the role of a swindler, a drunk (or other various, tipsy patrons), a masher, or a city slicker - paved the way for this bit player to move to the director’s chair the very same year he appeared onscreen.

Though born in London (in 1889) and making a name for himself there by his early teens as a performer in Charles Frohman’s stage production of “Sherlock Holmes,” Chaplin would soon visit America with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company, participating in comedy sketches and pantomime for the vaudeville circuit (he scored an immediate hit with American audiences with his characterization in a skit called “A Night in an English Music Hall”). It was during his second tour (in 1913) that he met Mack Sennett, the founder of Keystone Studios, who hired the 24-year-old to appear in the company’s popular one-reel comedies. In 1914, Chaplin made his acting debut in “Making a Living,” before hand-picking his “tramp” costume for his second role (in “Mabel’s Strange Predicament” - though it debuted almost simultaneously with “Kid Auto Races at Venice,” which was shot earlier). He clashed with directors Mabel Normand and Henry Lehrman when they refused to adopt his suggestions for his character, but, during the very same year, he would get an opportunity to direct his own short (“Caught in the Rain”). Its popularity ensured that he would continue to direct the films he worked on - at an astounding rate of approximately one new picture every week (for a total of 35 at Keystone).

Chaplin’s initial salary for Keystone was $150 a week, but his considerable success spurred other producers to negotiate for his services. With 1914 not yet exhausted, Chaplin agreed to a one-year contract with the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company for a staggering $1,250 per week (on top of a $10,000 signing bonus), where he would make another 14 films through 1915. At Essanay, he enjoyed more control over nearly every aspect of filmmaking, including discovering a leading lady in the form of Edna Purviance, who would accompany him (off the screen as well, in a romantic relationship until 1917) over the course of 37 years (regularly from his second Essanay project “A Night Out” in 1915, all the way to “A Woman of Paris” in 1923, before also having cameos in “Monsieur Verdoux” in1947 and “Limelight” in 1952). Chaplin’s Essanay films were very much the building blocks for his eventual masterpieces. In “The Tramp,” he boldly tackles a sad ending (iconically shuffling away alone as the image fades to black); in “The Bank,” his romantic conquest spurns him; in “Police,” ironic social statements are made about the cruel world outside of prison; in “Work,” he demonstrates a kinship with the common man, while also commenting on the exploitation of human laborers, and, alongside “Police,” anticipates themes in “Modern Times”; and in “The Champion,” Chaplin experiments with concepts that would become further embellished in “A Dog’s Life” (here, he has a pet bulldog) and “City Lights” (his sparring partner persona exhibits choreography that clearly presages the famous boxing match).

During his time with Essanay, Chaplin would find reasons for concern (“I don’t use other people’s scripts - I write my own!” he notably snarled when told to pick up a script from Louella Parsons, the head scenario writer) and reasons to depart with bitterness (Essanay continued to re-edit and re-release leftover and discarded footage after his contract expired to further capitalize on the artist). But he would also experience fame beyond anything he could imagine (dubbed “Chaplinitis” by Motion Picture Magazine); by 1915, it’s said that Chaplin became a household name even in places where people didn’t live in houses. He would have the last laugh, too, as Essanay’s profitability peaked with his involvement, yet foundered and folded (in 1918) with his absence. His Essanay shorts may not possess the technical and emotional enlightenment of his eventual features, but they’re less facile and rushed than his Keystone endeavors. And they’re a substantial component of the evolution of a man who was, even then, routinely praised as a genius in written critical assessments.

Once again lured by more money and greater creative freedom, Chaplin signed with the Mutual Film Corporation on February 15th, 1916, for an unexampled and populace-shocking $670,000 (publicist Terry Ramsaye compared the salary to the cost of the war in Europe), obliging him to make a series of 12 two-reel comedies. With less pressure (a leisurely 18-month schedule), loyal supporting players and production crews (including Purviance, Charlotte Mineau, Lloyd Bacon, and Scotland’s Eric Campbell - known as “Chaplin’s Goliath”), and superior facilities (he was given his own studio, the Lone Star Studio, which would later be utilized extensively by Buster Keaton), Chaplin’s Mutuals are some of the most monumental of his career.

It was at Mutual that Chaplin could focus, with detail and thoroughgoingness, on perfecting his comic routines. Featuring breathtaking slapstick acrobatics and plenty of improvisation, Chaplin concerned himself with crafting an environment and walking around it until something natural took place - to corner the subtle humor inherent in ordinary reality. Uniquely demanding and indicative of a perfectionist, Chaplin guided every actor through every scene, no matter how minuscule; frequently, he would perform each part with specific hand gestures and eyebrow movements for the cast to mimic. Hundreds of takes were shot and printed, each one varying just slightly as he experimented. Although unorthodox due to the expense and inefficiency, it supplied lively and spontaneous footage, which he could analyze virtually microscopically afterward, sometimes prompting a total rewrite. Remaining faithful to his stage origins, he cared little for technical gimmickry or camera tricks; instead, he wanted to convey actions and emotions through actor performances. Especially in his later works, it was not unheard of for him to completely start over with new actors in the middle of a film, having decided that a particular actor wasn’t absolutely perfect for the part. This unyielding attention to detail caused many films to run too long and cost too much, but the public’s enthusiasm assured the studio that his methods worked - granting ever more liberties in filmmaking as his popularity continued to skyrocket. This practically unappeasable work ethic took its toll, however, as he wrote, acted, and directed 52 weeks per year, leaving him drained and depressed to the point that he would be bedridden for a full day after completing every picture.

Many of his most recognizable set pieces and narratives can be seen in his Mutuals. “The Floorwalker” boasted an escalator abounding with comic possibilities; “The Fireman” saw backward-staged action and knockabout slapstick; “The Vagabond” incorporates drama with the comedy to produce the pathos witnessed in his later features “The Kid” and “The Circus”; “The Pawnshop” manifests one of his most natural and flawless bits of comic transposition with the inspection of an alarm clock; “Behind the Screen” reveals a brief homosexual scenario that was incredibly rare for commercial cinema in the 1910s; and “The Rink” features Charlie’s skill with carefully-constructed roller-skating stunts. This collection of specials would serve as a foundation for the multitude of pictures that followed, with many sequences getting appropriated by peers and subsequent comedians, and others borrowed for Chaplin’s own successive enterprises.

In 1917, Chaplin signed with First National Exhibitors’ Circuit, for which he would make eight films (a propaganda piece for fund-raising purposes, called “The Bond,” was also released during his First National contract). The inaugural episode was “A Dog’s Life,” which was itself an accomplishments of many firsts: it was Chaplin’s first three-reeler; it was the first film to be shot at Chaplin’s new studio at Sunset and La Brea in Hollywood; and it was the first film in which his half-brother and business manager Sydney Chaplin would appear. With this film (and feature-length production “The Kid,” also for First National), Chaplin began fully embracing a structural sensibility to his comedies, insisting that if a gag did not conform to the logic of events in his story, it must be cut no matter how funny it might be independently. During his employ at First National, he would also get married to 17-year-old Mildred Harris in 1918, endure the death of their three-day-old baby, and contend with a bothersome divorce in 1920. At the same time, he released the 45-minute war comedy “Shoulder Arms” and the ambiguously-concluded “Sunnyside” (which debatably ended with a dream sequence).

“The Kid,” released in 1921, would mark Chaplin’s feature-length directorial debut, shifting toward a foreseeable end to his short subject efforts, though he would finish up his obligation to First National by 1923 with two-reelers “The Idle Class” and “Pay Day,” and finally the 47-minute “The Pilgrim” - which would partly compose his 1959 ensemble “The Chaplin Revue” (along with “A Dog’s Life” and “Shoulder Arms”). After this, he was free to produce movies independently under the distribution company United Artists, which he founded in 1919 with fellow magnates Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and D.W. Griffith. At United Artists, Chaplin would create his most enduring features, including “The Gold Rush,” “City Lights,” and “Modern Times.” As a testament to the artistry he so painstakingly, impeccably honed, those last two pictures remained in black-and-white and silent, long after the latter, outmoded technique had become inarguably anachronistic. As an evolutionary, educational, and - above all else - entertaining factor of one of the most far-reaching and durable auteurs ever to make movies, Chaplin’s shorts will surely never be forgotten.

Kids Say ‘Give Us More Female Superheroes’

By Kaely Monahan

The demand for more female super and sci-fi heroes is on the rise according to a new study by BBC America and the Women’s Media Center. And it doesn’t come as a surprise. The box office success of Wonder Woman ensured that studio executives are at least looking into more female-led sci-fi and female-led stories.

In the first in a series of studies Superpowering Girls: Female Representation in the Sci-Fi/Superhero Genre, the researchers polled some 2,431 girls and boys ages five to 19 years, as well as the parents of kids between five and nine years old.  

Both kids and their parents were asked about their favorite role models, favorite superheroes, gender representation in the media, and for the children specifically, what their future aspirations are.

Courtney Thomasma is the Vice President of research for BBC America and one of the leaders on the project. She says the study uncovered two very interesting points when it comes to role models.

“Across the board girls and boys look to role models that are the same gender as themselves. You know you can see it. You identify with your own gender a lot more. That can be really empowering,” she says. “We also found outside of parents and family, superheroes were actually the number one source of inspiration and role models for children.”

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to superhero role models, boys have an extensive list of choices. From Batman to Superman to Spider-Man, there’s nearly a hero for every boy -- although diversity among the superheroes is still lacking. For girls, however, the list is much shorter. According to the study, Wonder Woman is most picked by girls as their favorite superhero, with Supergirl getting mentioned here and there.

“That was pretty telling,” Thomasma says.  “There's an important space for that sort of character and I think, especially in the sci-fi superhero genre where it's about imagination and possibility more so than some other genres. There's a real opportunity for representation in the space. And unfortunately a real lack of representation on the female side.”

This lack of representation translates into real-world concerns for young women. The study found that by the time a girl reaches her teens she is significantly less likely than a boy to describe herself as confident. They also don’t describe themselves as brave nearly as often as boys, and perhaps the most distressing of all 57% of teen girls said that they don’t feel like they’re heard. The numbers are even higher for girls of color.

This lack of confidence and feeling of being unheard means that young girls may not feel able to do things or choose career paths that are traditionally male-dominated. Take for example the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) field. Only one-third of teen girls say they want to pursue a STEM career.

So how does having more female superheroes and sci-fi heroes help?

“Girls were much more likely to say that female superheroes made them feel like they could be anything that they wanted to. (And) actually, boys who have a lot more male superheroes to choose from we're less likely to cite those empowering effects,” Thomasma says.

She believes that there is not only a hunger to see more women in these roles but that there is a real need to show women in the role of the hero.

It makes good business sense to create more female heroes. The demand is high, and perhaps most surprising, girls and boys across the board both say they want to see more women in these roles. If the appetite is there, then it only serves in the studios' interests to fill the demand with well developed, interesting, powerful female heroes.

Take, for example, the overwhelming outpouring of enthusiasm and support for Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor in Doctor Who. She says they were inundated with fanart, fanfiction, videos of reactions to the news that a woman was playing the pivotal role of the Doctor after 50 years of men.

“One (video) clip, in particular, went viral of a mom and her daughter watching the announcement. And this girl looks to the camera as soon as Jodie Whittaker who plays The Doctor took her hood off and revealed that she was, in fact, a woman. The girl turned to the camera and squeals the ‘New Doctor the girl!’ I think with the most aired video of the day. People like P!nk picked it up and shared it,” Thomasma says.

BBC America and the Center for Women in Media is continuing their research, but it is clear that there is a huge space to fill with female-led hero roles. And with Captain Marvel hitting theaters next year, and whispers of a Harley Quinn solo movie, one can only hope that the space so long dominated by white-male heroes will make room for a diverse cast of fresh-faced heroes for our young women.  

Images courtesy of BBC America.

• Kaely Monahan is a radio producer for KJZZ News, an entertainment reporter, and the creator of Whiskey and Popcorn. Follow her @WhiskeyPopcorn and @KaelyMonahan.

Oh, Mamma Mia! There’s Another?

by David Appleford

In the business world of cinema, there are two major seasons that count: the summer releases and the Christmas/early winter ones.  Of course, to the movie buff, the whole year is important, but for the studios, it’s those two major periods where Hollywood really invests; the middle and the end.  And there’s so much at stake.

Seasonal Christmas fare aside, for November and December, it’s the quality stuff that counts; the potential Oscar material; the two-people-talking-in-a-room films where acting and a well-written screenplay are just as important as a CGI effect. For the summer months, it’s those tent-pole, super-hyped movies that count; the sequels; the prequels; the CGI spectacle; and there’s a ton of them. And it’s not just the ever increasing production costs that matter; the hype, the junkets, and the advertising budget alone costs a fortune.

If the film is a hit, it’s where promotions are given, bonuses awarded, and power extended.  If the film flops, it’s where jobs are lost. Through a window, those remaining can see a once influential exec walking back to his or her car parked in a space that is already no longer theirs, carrying cardboard boxes filled with articles that used to adorn their desk or office walls. Some are never seen again.  Others return from time to time, trying to pitch a new idea, hoping that one day their name will once again be painted in their personal parking space.

Due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances, the worst thing that could happen to a film reviewer this past summer happened to me.  I was forced to take a hiatus. The whole summer. That meant missing a slew of new releases. When the next film review is your daily fix, having to miss so many big ones, night after night, can make things feel just as damaging as the health issues that made you sick in the first place.  A lengthy convalescence is one thing; missing so many films for several months is another.

However, on a morning when waking up and the room wasn’t spinning, the feverish symptoms were absent, and the mind felt more together than it had the day before, I ventured out to a carefully chosen, early morning matinee.  I didn’t take notes, there were no reviews to follow, it was just for the fun of it.

It’ll be out on DVD, Blu-Ray, 4-K, and an assortment of streaming services soon, so if you haven’t seen it, treat this as a kind of official critique.  

Title: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
Reason for Going:  It’s a musical, silly.

It is said that on any given day, somewhere in the world, in at least seven different cities, ‘Mamma Mia!’ the live stage musical is in performance, and it shows no sign of stopping. Those monthly residuals to playwright Catherine Johnson who created the show must be incredible.

The success of the jukebox musical is truly phenomenal, so it was never a surprise that it would become a movie.  A big screen version was released in 2008 and again, no surprise, proved equally phenomenal. What did raise eyebrows, however, was there were rumors of a movie sequel. Clearly, hindsight in the film world is always 20/20, and now it makes good business sense to think that eventually a follow-up to a global hit was going to be made, but before it happened it was just never expected.

Unlike the first outing, ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ is a film original; there’s no stage version upon which the story is based.  The end result? It’s a hoot. And it’s totally bonkers.

In its structure, the film is less Hollywood and more Bollywood, the kind where songs are shoe-horned in at the drop of a hat for the slimmest of reasons.  The opening number when a young Donna (an outstanding Lily James) is graduating from university and bursts into ‘When I Kissed the Teacher’ is proof enough, but when the school’s Vice Chancellor (Celia Imrie) joins in with her own chorus, then you know it’s really getting bizarre.  

The same can be said for Cher’s big song.  The film has this guessing game of whether grandma Ruby Sheridan is ever going to turn up for the big party on the sun-kissed Greek island. Her invitation was torn up. Considering that the singer’s face and her name is all over the poster, there’s hardly any guessing required, though what most audiences probably didn’t suspect was that her appearance comes right at the end with only ten minutes or so of the film left.  And she basically sleepwalks through her scene, looking like no grandmother I’ve ever seen. But the point is, when she arrives, she takes one look at handyman Andy Garcia in the crowd, remembers him from her past as being called Fernando, and guess what song she sings. It’s truly bonkers.

Here’s what’s important, and it’s why, despite the film being completely loony, it’s still a great time at the cinema:.  The songs. Those wonderful songs of ABBA. Let’s face it, whether you like them or not, that’s not the point. They songs are indestructible. When Swedish musicians Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus wrote their lyrics, always remember, they were writing in a second language. There was no vagueness in the meanings, no ambiguity in the way an English or an American pop/rock lyricist often writes. They didn’t know how. Each is a story song with a specific theme. ‘The Name of the Game’ is about a woman talking to her psychiatrist, ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ is about a mother watching her daughter go to school for the first time, ‘Super Trouper’ is about being under the spotlight of a Scottish theatre miles away from home (and perhaps the only song that can boast a lyric that rhymes with ‘Glasgow.’) They either tell a story or convey conversational dialog in musical form.  With just the smallest of lyrical tweaks, they work as hooks to a musical. Plus, as a bonus, Pierce Brosnan doesn’t get to sing; pinch me, I must be dreaming. And that’s all we need to know about ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.’

If you don’t find yourself surrendering to the party, then there’s something wrong with you.  A commentator for ‘The Onion’ said it best, so I’ll paraphrase him rather then try to better the statement. If you know you’re not going to enjoy the Abba musical, here’s what you need to do.  Reach around and pull the stick out of your butt. Then relax and enjoy. You’re welcome.

And for the record. Those glittery spandex costumes that the four members of ABBA wore in the early days of their decade long career served a certain purpose. The outlandish, glamrock appearance may have got the foursome noticed, but the real reason for their appearance is less showbiz than you think. At the time of their win in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974, before they became gazillionaires, there was a law in Sweden that gave its citizens a tax break on clothes that could only be worn at work and not for everyday use. The next time you see an ABBA video or a publicity shot of their Waterloo days wearing sparkling platform boots and spandex, don’t think Gary Glitter, think tax returns.

___________________________________

And finally, a parting thought.  Once the clean bill of health came through and I could finally leave the house, the first press screening I attended for an official review was ‘The Happytime Murders,’ the one with the f-bomb dropping muppet-looking puppets, the one that used as its tag line, “From the studio that was sued by Sesame Street.”  Yes, that one. Upon reflection, maybe I left the house a week too early.

Looking Back To The Future of 2001

by David Appleford

There’s a story regarding Rock Hudson at a film premiere at the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood and Vine in 1968.  Some say it’s a movie-myth, but film critic Roger Ebert was there and he wrote about it -- 241 people walked out of the theater before the film’s conclusion. Among them was Rock Hudson, who declared aloud while exiting down the aisle, “Will someone tell me what the hell this movie is about?”

The film in question was Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

2001 at 50!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the sci-fi classic.  To celebrate the occasion, an unrestored 70mm print made from original negatives –- nothing digital added, no tricks, nothing remastered, and no new edits to revise history -– will debut May 12, 2018 at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.  It will have an introduction from someone who was not even around when the bewildered Hudson made his exit 50 years earlier.  Film writer and director Christopher Nolan, who oversaw the production of the new print, has said that presenting the film is, “an honor and a privilege.” 

After the Cannes presentation, the film will open in select theaters May 18, 2018 followed by new releases of the restored version on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra High-Def later this year.  Those who know what Cinerama is and what the film looked like on that giant, curved screen should be chomping at the bit.

A Film By Any Other Name...

While 1968 was the year of the film’s release,  things actually began in 1965.  On Tuesday, February 23 of that year, MGM studios issued a two-page typed release to the media announcing its plans for a new Stanley Kubrick project that was due to start production on August 16.  It was to be filmed in the giant Cinerama process and called Journey Beyond the Stars. 

Privately, once MGM gave the greenlight on Cinerama, Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke called their film How the Solar System Was Won, a joke referring to MGM’s previous Cinerama blockbuster, How The West Was Won.  In reality, Journey to the Stars was never going to be used.  The first working title was Voyage Beyond the Stars, but when the sci-fi thriller Fantastic Voyage was released, Kubrick is said to have disliked the Isaac Asimov penned adventure so much, he changed the working title of his own film from Voyage to Journey... not that it mattered. 

The final title that Kubrick decided upon was never going to be quite so ‘B movie' obvious.  It was based on two things: the futuristic year was chosen from what would be the first year of both the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, while the subtitle would be culled from Homer’s The Odyssey.  Thus 2001: A Space Odyssey it was.  And like Homer’s Greek poem of an epic journey, Kubrick even had his own one-eyed Cyclops to battle along the way; the computer, Hal 9000. Plus, just for the fun of it, if you enjoy comparing, contrasting, and connecting the dots, consider the following.  Homer’s hero, Odysseus, was a legendary bow man.  Kubrick’s central figure played by Keir Dullea is called David Bowman.  Coincidence?  Knowing the director’s exhaustive research on any given subject, in the world of Stanley Kubrick, there are no coincidences. 

The Production Begins

Kubrick had previously moved his family from New York and settled in a house on the outskirts of London where he made his films. The film was planned for a two year production schedule at London’s Shepperton Studios. Then, the production would move on to the MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, all at a cost of $6 million, a staggering figure in 1965. 

There were lots of cuts and changes throughout both the writing and the filming process.  The original Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke working script had a full voice-over narration that basically spelled the whole thing out. Had Kubrick kept to the original outline, you would have heard a narrator explain towards the end of the film, “Now, the long wait was ending.  On yet another world, intelligence had been born and was escaping from its planetary cradle.  An ancient experiment was about to reach its climax.”  But as production continued, Kubrick cut and cut to the point where virtually nothing was explained.  It was down to the visuals and our interpretation of them.

Another cut occurred during the final seconds of the film.  Earlier, when the story jumps from the Dawn of Man to the year 2001, those space crafts we see circling the Earth to the opening chords of The Blue Danube are not ships at all; they’re nuclear bombs, weapons sent into space by various powers ensuring their protection from above.  During the final sequence when the Star Child floats back to Earth, as in the Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, those bombs are ignited and rendered useless, one by one, until there’s nothing left.  Unfortunately, having just ended Dr. Strangelove in a similar fashion, Kubrick didn’t want to be perceived as copying himself, so he made another cut.  Had he left the sequence alone, at the very least, it would have given the film an undeniably spectacular ending.

What was originally supposed to be a late 1966 release ended up taking longer to film than planned.  Eventually, 2001: A Space Odyssey was completed after three years in the making with an eventual cost of a studio back-breaking $10 million, plus. 

And if that wasn’t tough enough to make the studio execs break into a sweat, once they saw a preview of the film, the end result looked so… well, confusing.  What happened to the traditional three acts?  Where was the beginning, middle, and end?  For twenty minutes or more there wasn’t even dialog in the first part, nothing of importance said in the middle, and as for the finale, the execs were just as puzzled as Rock Hudson was going be, along with the other 241 attendees who marched out of the LA premiere.

A Critical Response

For the most part, critics were equally perplexed.  Among the notable names of the sixties, New York magazine’s John Simon called it, “a regrettable failure.”   Andrew Sarris wrote, “it was one of the grimmest films I have ever seen.”  Stanley Kauffmann called it, “a film so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull.” And worse, Pauline Kael in her Harper’s magazine review slammed the film, writing that it was, “a monumentally unimaginative movie,” likening its length to the oversize ego of its creator.  Kubrick is said to have been deeply upset with Kael’s observances.

But not everyone thought the same.  The Boston Globe called it, “the world’s most extraordinary film.”  The Christian Science Monitor wrote that it was, “a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology.”  The New Yorker’s Penelope Gilliatt described it as, “an unforgettable endeavor.”

A Studio Shuffles

MGM was baffled.  Once it opened, box-office wasn’t doing the business required to recoup the monumental costs, so the studio made plans to cut its losses.  It intended to remove the film from its curved 70mm screens to make way for an early release of another of its Cinerama movies, Ice Station Zebra, a film with a more conventional beginning, middle, and end, and even starred the previously befuddled Rock Hudson.  But theatre managers were noticing something odd occurring.  

A young generation of movie-goers were continually buying out the first few rows of the theatre, getting high, and immersing themselves in the images, particularly the psychedelic journey of the final 20 minutes.  Realizing it was a trend that was growing, managers begged the studio to reconsider pulling the film. Give it time, they requested; there’s something happening.  The pause paid off.  Tripping audiences made return trips.  Plus, they were spreading the word and tickets sales climbed.  Soon, theaters were packing them in.  By the end of the year, 2001 was the highest grossing film of ‘68.

Part of the problem that threw MGM’s box-office rhythm out of whack was the lack of advanced sales for the separate performance roadshow presentations (theatres that ran the same film for lengthy periods). Unlike today, during the sixties, films were rarely kept alive by the attendance of teenagers.  They didn’t use credit cards, and they didn’t book things in advance; they would turn up on the day and pay cash.  The studio couldn’t make decisions based on the purchase of future tickets, because there were none.

You’ll often hear it is said that 2001: A Space Odyssey changed the way sci-fi films were made.  You can also say, it changed the way all films were sold. Young audiences in 1968 kept returning.  Even John Lennon is quoted as saying in ‘68 that he saw the film at least once a week.  Plus, there were other influences. The fictional astronaut David Bowman inspired a certain singer/songwriter to change his name from David Robert Jones to David Bowie when he released his sixties pop/rock classic "Space Oddity".

2001 in the 2010s

So, now, fifty years on and a newly minted 70mm anniversary edition about to be unleashed, what’s with all the hoopla?  Is the film worth it? Is it just as relevant?  Does it still feel inspirational?  And is that final act any easier to understand?  Yes.  Absolutely.  Beyond a doubt. But if you’re new to the film, probably not.  However, go on-line, search around for the endless array of 2001 amateur blogs and professional websites and you’ll find plenty of well crafted essays happy to tell you what the film is all about.

Many of the more recent critiques you may read from those who weren’t around in 1968 and have only caught the film in the last decade or so may talk in terms of how slow the film is, or how individual shots seem to last forever, as if there’s something wrong with that.  Certainly by today’s low attention-span standards, 2001 is practically pedestrian.  But what those youthful pundits fail to consider is the time of the film’s release and its Cinerama presentation. 

When 2001 opened, there was no other movie that had ever given the opportunity of looking at what appeared to be the sight of something real floating in space, or how the Earth really looked from afar.  It was eye-popping. The visual effects of Douglas Trumbull were the first of their kind, and remain spectacular today.  To rush the sight of a craft on its way to a circular space station with cuts and fast-paced edits just to keep things moving and to maintain the attention of the young is to lose the grace and rhythm of what is occurring. Plus, the sheer size of the image, particularly if you were lucky enough to see a 70mm print or a fully-fledged Cinerama presentation, allowed your eyes to explore all corners of the screen and to take everything in at your own pace, as you would in real life; a luxury rarely afforded in today’s cinema.

If the chance to see ‘2001’ in its new 70mm print comes your way, then take advantage.  Sadly, outside of LA and Seattle, there’s little chance of catching it on an authentic Cinerama screen - for those unfamiliar, think IMAX, but wider and deeply curved - but if there’s a 70mm presentation nearby, hunt it down and stand in line.  The clarity will stun. 

Interestingly, even though the film is 142 minutes long, there are only 40 minutes of dialog.  And most of what is said consists of nothing more than everyday pleasantries rather than plot.  Yet there is one scene of major importance spoken just before the final act, and it puts everything into perspective.     

When astronaut David Bowman unplugs most of Hal’s higher logic modules, a specially recorded video message from Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) back on Earth is suddenly played on a nearby monitor, one that was meant to be seen by every crew member, but now can only be seen by the sole, surviving Jupiter Mission voyager.   And even though there may still be twenty minutes of film left to go, that prepared speech relayed on the video monitor are the last words you’ll hear. It’s just a few sentences, but they’re haunting.

“Eighteen months ago, the first evidence of intelligent life off the Earth was discovered.  It was buried forty feet below the lunar service, near the crater Tycho.  Except for a single, very powerful radio emission, aimed at Jupiter, the four million year old black monolith has remained completely inert.  Its origin and purpose still a total mystery.” 

 And finally, here’s where things get personal.  Whenever sitting around with a bunch of movie buffs, waxing philosophically about life, the universe, and everything, including inspirational films and favorite scenes from favorite movies, when it circles to me, I have a speech, and it’s this:

Picture the scene.  Astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) sit secluded in one of the space pods.  There’s something wrong and it needs to be talked about, but in private. They switch off all radio communications so that they can’t be heard by their computer Hal 9000.  Once completed, the two men proceed to discuss the computer’s fate, including shutting it down to its most basic level.  They think they can’t be heard, and they’re right; Hal can hear no sound.  But he can observe.  What the astronauts don’t know, and it’s something that’s revealed to us from the computer’s point of view, is that Hal can see the two men through the small, oval-shaped window of their space pod.  He’s lip reading. Once that revelation is apparent, the film cuts to Intermission. No sound, no further information.  Just a black screen with white lettering. 

The effect was devastating. A genuine jaw-dropper.  A moment that packed such an emotional wallop, you couldn’t help but gasp and catch your breath.  And it was at that exact moment back in 1968 while watching the film at the Casino Cinerama Theatre in London, the same city where Kubrick lived and his masterpiece was made, when my attitude towards film changed.  It’s only halfway through the story, but 2001: A Space Odyssey had already proved something to an astonished thirteen year-old whose heart was still wildly racing from the effect of witnessing a powerful scene, simply presented: Film is something so much more than mere entertainment.   

To quote Kubrick: “If 2001 has stirred your emotions, your subconscious, your mythological yearnings, then it has succeeded.”  In other words, when you finally see it, how you react will be as individual in the experience as the design of a falling snowflake -- no two can ever be the same.  You may find a kindred spirit -- one who regards the film on the same level as you. And you may find yourselves agreeing on much of the film,  but ultimately, more than any other major Hollywood studio picture, your initial response and the emotions you’ll feel will be yours and yours alone.  It’s something unique. 

There’s simply no other film like it.

Where It All Began...

by Shari K. Green

What was the first movie you ever saw? Where were you? Who was with you?

You can answer all these questions I posted to you, not only because of your long-term memory being in intact but because it was that meaningful of a moment in your life.

Movies have always been magical. Your first movie might have been funny, perhaps frightening but one thing's for sure, it left an imprint. It may have inspired you to go on to be creative yourself -- be it painting, writing, singing and dance or getting involved in the film business in some capacity.

Films are enchanting because they transform us into another place and time. They give us the power to be who we’re not and see things we cannot. On purpose, one thing they definitely are not is limiting.

Making an impression

When Steven Spielberg made the thriller, Jaws, we were on that boat off of Amity Island with Brody, Quint and Hooper. We were drinking, singing and showing off our scars. We were also in the water petrified to move because Spielberg was so good at capturing every moment realistically; directing the actors to give us characters who were brave yet not afraid to show fear in the eyes. We’ll never forget the feeling of being eaten alive by a shark because we were there, our nerves on edge.

Taking you back

Then there are the family favorites, which is more likely where you started your film watching. These will always have a grip on you for more sentimental reasons. Sitting around the living room, you on the floor, Mom and Dad on the couch and your siblings scattered about the room, is an important event... especially if you were allowed to stay up later than usual to finish watching. You all sat together and watched something from Disney that everyone was looking forward to --  or maybe it was Christmas and a holiday classic was playing.

It doesn’t even have to be one of your first movies, but these moments, long past, are cherished and always will be for the tender, sweet, loving story playing out on the screen as well as for the people in that room with you -- some of whom you may no longer see. What was the first movie you watched with your entire family. Unless it resulted in a fight as to what it was you watched, it’s most likely a beautiful memory to recall from time to time.

Animation and Music

If your start came from watching an animated film, the enjoyment of it most likely surprised you and, from that point on, you had to see that movie as often as possible, daily even (sometimes to the dismay of anyone within earshot).

Disney/Pixar films can be the ultimate discovery, no matter your age. Is the first one you saw still one of your favorite films of all time? Mine was ‘Bambi’ but it’s not my favorite.

Do you still get the same warm feeling inside that you got after seeing it back then? Those early family films get almost get rooted into your very being and you have a visceral reaction whenever you hear a line or song; a reaction that will never stop happening.

Soundtracks and scores play an incredibly large part in them, in all films, to lift you and drop you at a moment’s notice, done by design to manipulate your state of mind. This works for all genres. Thank God this was discovered because when it works, you’ll never be the same.

Think Star Wars. Will you ever forget that composition? How do you feel when you hear it? What do you see? Thank you, John Williams. If you don't agree that sound works, watch a horror film with your ears plugged. You won't get scared once.

What Nightmares Are Made Of

Speaking of, terror never lets go so horror films make a big impact. Seeing a horror film when you're young isn’t the best for the psyche. The impressions such films create stay with you are hard to ignore and therefore move on. Looking up to make sure The Blob isn’t oozing from the ventilation system, after seeing just a small portion of the flick, is one such example.

By the way, did you ever watch something you weren’t supposed to when everyone thought you were in bed? Did you sneak yourself behind a large piece of furniture and watch something you weren’t allowed to? These dark films always came on late at night, when everyone in the house was able to watch, except you because you weren't old enough.

However, if you were able to successfully get away with watching horror movie by sneaking in the room, and especially if it were the first, were you afraid to sleep alone that night?

Mine was Westworld and I haven’t forgotten how it made me feel toward actors. He intimidated me like no other. The fact Westworld  is a series on HBO now thrills me and I never miss it, though nothing about it terrifies me in the way Yul Brenner’s Gunslinger did. His performance was magnificent. It sold me. He was a robot and he was going to get me. Period.

The Opening of a new Adventure

Whatever film you began this journey into illusion and imagination might have been, as with everyone, it’s kicked off with a spark of music accompanying, generally, an animated logo from the studio presenting the film to you. Just hearing this can get you prepared and elated for the trip you’re about to take. Don’t ever lose that excitement for film.

Many adventures await!

The Oscar Season Time-Crunch Problem

by Josh Spiegel

With few exceptions, the last 25 years have created familiar patterns for cinephiles and Oscar watchers. The first few months of a given year are usually full of unremarkable releases from studios simply trying to clear up their slate for the later months. The summer season is home to the biggest blockbusters that Hollywood has to offer. And then there’s the fall, when the prestige pictures get the spotlight, as both big and small distributors angle to get a spot at the table when the Oscars, Golden Globes, industry guilds, and critics’ groups (such as the Phoenix Critics Circle) give out awards.

In the last couple of years, some aspects of these patterns have shifted, but largely those revised patterns only shifted what constitutes the summer movie season. Big-budget blockbusters that previously would have been released only in June, July, or August now get released as early as April (such as this year’s The Fate of the Furious) or as late as December (a little film called Star Wars: The Last Jedi, for example). As of this writing, the highest-grossing film of 2017, Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, was released in mid-March, not around Independence Day or sometime during the hotter months of the year.

 

The Prestige Movie Season

But while the summer movie season now extends to almost the entire year (though studios still basically avoid releasing big movies in January and August), the season of prestige pictures is still largely focused on the final three months of the year. Since 1990, only six Best Picture winners at the Oscars were released before September, with The Silence of the Lambs opening in theaters in February of 1991 and winning the gold statue more than a full year later. In addition, within the last 15 years, just Best Picture winners were released in the early part of their respective release years: Crash and The Hurt Locker. Otherwise, the Best Picture winners, as well as many other nominees, go down the festival circuit: they premiere at Telluride or Toronto or New York in September, and then are slowly rolled out in October, November, and December.

Sam Rockwell, Frances McDormand, Martin McDonagh and Graham Broadbent at the Toronto International Film Festival for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

2017 is no different: right now, depending on which Oscar prognosticator you read, at least seven of the possible Best Picture Oscar nominees were released, or will be released, within the last couple of months. The outliers are Christopher Nolan’s wartime thriller Dunkirk, Jordan Peele’s exciting directorial debut Get Out, and other dark-horse candidates like The Big Sick; Get Out, a safe bet to get nominated in a number of Oscar categories, would be the equivalent of The Silence of the Lambs, a horror film that hits the zeitgeist and was released in February. However, these are still outliers, where other likely nominees such as The Florida Project, The Post, Phantom Thread, Lady Bird, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri either went the traditional festival route, or are just now being unveiled to critics and industry audiences.

The Post and Phantom Thread might be the most extreme examples of the latter case. Steven Spielberg, in the middle of post-production on his upcoming sci-fi/adventure film Ready Player One, read the timely script for The Post, rounded up an all-star cast including Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, filmed the movie, and finished it all within the last 12 months, barely without breaking a sweat. Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film about a fashion designer in 1950s London also began filming this year, and was too far into post-production in the fall to be unveiled at festivals. The studios distributing these films were no doubt all too pleased to wait until December to unleash new films from such beloved directors during the holiday season.

Racing Against the Clock

From the perspective of a critic, this is both a good and a bad thing. It is, generally speaking, a wonderful gift to know that the last quarter of a calendar year will be the home to many exciting, challenging, and unique movies. In a year like 2017, movies like Dunkirk, Get Out, and The Lost City of Z thus feel like pleasant surprises, lined as they are throughout the rest of the year. The flip side is that the last few months of 2017, or other years, become improbably busy for a diligent critic, just to make sure that you’re as up to date as possible with the most lauded films from big and small studios. It would be wrong to complain too much about this problem—woe is the film critic, struggling to watch a lot of movies in only a couple of months—but the choice that studios make to backload their higher-quality films at the end of the year still causes problems.

Look again at the 2017 release schedule. The first three months of the year only featured three movies that are likely to be honored, even with nominations, at the forthcoming Oscars. Two of those are animated films—The LEGO Batman Movie and The Boss Baby—and are likely only going to get Best Animated Feature nods. The next contender of any kind opened in early June: Warner Bros.’ first good DC movie since the era of Christopher Nolan’s Batman, Wonder Woman. (The muted reception to Justice League may have done enough to kill Wonder Woman’s chances at any Oscar buzz aside from VFX nods.) The summer also featured The Big Sick and Dunkirk, but was otherwise light on anything other than bloated sequels, unnecessary franchise revivals, and unwanted adaptations of dubious source material.

This is not a screed that’s meant to suggest that 2017 was a bad year for movies. 2017, like pretty much every year, has been a great year for movies. The diversity of storytelling, the further diversity of the people getting to tell those stories, and the generally exciting feeling of watching new films from auteurs like Spielberg, Nolan, Anderson, James Gray, Dee Rees, Patty Jenkins, Peele, and others has made this a phenomenal year for film. But every December (at least within the last decade or so), the feeling is less that it’s been a great year for movies, so much as a great three months for movies.

Peak Movies?

If you read any amount of TV criticism these days, you’ll likely see critics rightly point out the frustrating fact that there’s simply too much TV to watch and keep up with these days, on countless networks, platforms, and the like. Each week, Netflix has a new TV show or stand-up special, and the same kind of frequency can be found both on networks as well as the countless cable channels and online platforms available to viewers around the world.

That kind of frequency isn’t yet overwhelming the world of cinema. The last four calendar years have each featured at least 700 movies released around the United States, but just over 250 of them were released in at least 100 theaters at any point in their release. The point is this: if there are only so many movies getting even a mildly large release strategy in a given 12-month period, why are so many of them cramped into the last few months of the year?

Though the Oscars have found more favor in recent memory with films that aren’t massively popular—the last four Best Picture winners have an average box office gross of $43 million, and The Hurt Locker is the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner in the last 40 years at just $17 million—studios still assume that placing awards-bait movies earlier in the year is a sure guarantee that they’ll be forgotten. Both Get Out and Dunkirk were box-office successes, but each of them has stuck around so long in the awards conversation as much for their popularity as for the way they speak directly to the current political and societal moment in America. Smaller films may have been critically well-liked but can’t stand themselves apart from the rest of the pack. So it’s a vicious cycle: studios see their movies get forgotten in the early part of the year, so they shove them in November and December, in the hopes that they won’t get forgotten in the late part of the year. It’s a gamble either way.

The patterns of how studios release their movies shift gradually; only ten years ago, Warner Bros. took the gamble of releasing a big-budget action film in March, and once 300 proved a big success, it inspired other studios to begin taking those kinds of leaps as well. Now, the summer movie season is nearly an all-year sport, with only a couple of months representing the quiet periods. Should movies like Dunkirk and Get Out prove successful at the Oscars, maybe it will help reshift studios’ perspectives regarding whether or not they can risk releasing a prestige picture outside of the late fall and early winter. They’re overdue to start spreading the cinematic wealth.

Is 2017 a Year For Women in Film?

by Kaely Monahan

This year has already been glass-ceiling-shattering experience in many ways for women in film. From Viola Davis taking home The Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Fences to Wonder Woman exceeding expectations to Saoirse Ronan’s unbeatable performance in Ladybird — there’s a sense that the film industry is finally turning a corner when it comes to women in film.

Then in October, The New York Times drops its in-depth investigation into the sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Suddenly the stage curtain is ripped back and dozens of women in the media industry from actresses to production assistants have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein and others.

Since then a tidal wave of sexual assault accusations has rocked not just Hollywood but America’s entire society, the lasting effects of which have yet to be seen.

So can we really say that 2017 really is a year for women in film? In a way, yes.

Cracks in the ceiling

We saw the smash success of Patty Jenkin’s Wonder Woman — which exceeded audience expectations and smashed box offices globally. And while many will point to Wonder Woman as the pinnacle of female box office success for this year there are a plethora of films with intriguing, sympathetic, and complex female characters that delight, amaze, confound, and even antagonize audiences.

Take Ghost In The Shell. Regardless of its flaws — which are many and problematic — Scarlett Johansson’s Major is a fascinating expose of humanity and what it means to be human. Was the film great? No. Did it hold up to the original anime? Not really, but for as much as fans and critics may have disliked this film it’s creation proves that studios are willing to gamble on putting out a film that is bizarre to Americans and led by a woman.

On a completely different level, A United Kingdom, forces audiences to look at racism of the past and question how far we’ve actually come today. The biopic is about the real life love story of Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), a white Englishwoman and a King Seretse Khama of Botswana (David Oyelowo). The marriage was vehemently opposed by the English government and the Botswanan people were not keen to see their king marry a white woman either.

Directed by Amma Asante, who also directed the biopic Belle, A United Kingdom is a quiet film filled with more determination that a Disney princess movie. Pike’s performance is so subtly beautiful and profound, you cannot help but cry at the end of the film.

Speaking of Disney princesses, Emma Watson donned the iconic yellow ball gown in Disney’s live-action remake Beauty and the Beast. While the film was lauded by some and snubbed by others, there’s no denying that young feminist Watson was determined to show more to the bookish princess than the original animation. This 2017 version of Belle shows her as inventive as well as booksmart. Would such a broadening of a fairytale princess have happened even five years ago? A decade ago?  

Even the gritty male-dominated war movie genre had a powerful female led story this year. While Dunkirk overshadowed all other war movies for 2017, The Zookeeper’s Wife is worth remembering if only it for its beautiful cinematography and heart wrenching story. Jessica Chastain delivers a brilliant performance as Antonia Żabińska.

There are more and more comedies being led by woman as well. This summer, Amy Schumer delivered a twist on the mother-daughter chick-flick genre in Snatched. While on the surface this film is dopey, silly, and in some parts annoying, the core of the film holds it together. Not to mention the pairing between Schumer and Goldie Hawn is one worth seeing again.

Jumping to the end of the year we have Valerie Faris’ Battle of the Sexes which explores that fateful tennis match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell).

Then the queen of Hollywood herself, Meryl Streep tackles the role of Kat Graham, The Washington Post’s first female publisher. She is paired with Tom Hanks in a thrilling love letter to old journalist and newsprint. Her performance is perfect in the hands of Steven Spielberg and it’s pure movie magic between her and Tom Hanks. And let’s not forget that Jedi apprentice Rei (Daisy Ridley)  is returning in The Last Jedi this December.

CLIMBING THE LADDER

These are just a handful of the films starring women who deliver complex and evocative performances just this year. But what about behind the camera? Strides might have been made on screen but there is still a long way to go before Hollywood is anywhere near gender equality.

CREDIT: MICHAEL C. RODRIGUEZ FOR VARIETY

According to a 2017 study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, women made up only 17 percent of the crew behind the top 250 domestic grossing films in 2016. And that includes directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers. And this is was actually a decline from 2015.

Where women did make gains was in television. In a separate study by the same center, women made up 42 percent of major characters on broadcast network, cable, and streaming programs. That’s nearly half!

With studios trying to lure audience back into seats, perhaps they should keep that statistic in mind.

So where does this leave us when considering if 2017 has been a year of women in film? At least with actual representation on screen, there is a feeling of modest gains. Even so, there is a concerted effort to put out movies with women who have complex and fully fledged backgrounds. Not all are perfect -- some are allowed to be hateful or fear inducing.

As a critic and woman, 2017 has felt like a win for women. Hollywood is making progress — we are making progress. Even with the allegations of sexual assault that rocked the industry, women are fighting to make it in film, and it feels like we’ve reached a turning point. Where we go from here remains to be seen but I for one believe Hollywood is trying and in modestly succeed in changing its trajectory to give us ladies equal representation on and off the screen.

• Kaely Monahan is a radio producer for KJZZ News, an entertainment journalist, and the creator of Popcorn Fan Film Reviews. Follow her @PopcornFans and @KaelyMonahan.

Critics, “Fans” and the Rotten Tomatoes Problem

by Brent Hankins

It's hard to pinpoint precisely when it began to happen, but over the past few years Hollywood has begun spinning a particular narrative whenever a tentpole release doesn't resonate with critics: "we made it for the fans."

This line, peddled extensively in the wake of last year's dual offerings from the DC Extended Universe and numerous times since then, has been seized upon by devotees of a particular franchise to justify their difference of opinion, and paint critics as a curmudgeonly bunch whose primary goal is to denigrate someone else's hard work.

The first problem with this argument comes in its selective application, chiefly when a movie performs well at the box office despite a critical drubbing. Shortly after the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Amy Adams told Yahoo, "None of us are making the movies for the critics, so to speak, you can’t go into it from that perspective... We really hope the fans like it, and so far the reaction’s been really positive on that front."

BAD REVIEWS ≠ BAD BOX OFFICE

This suggests that any film garnering mostly positive reviews was made specifically for critics, and won't connect with fans  - but there's no basis for the notion that these two groups are mutually exclusive. For example, this year's Logan received near-universal acclaim from critics (it currently holds a 93% Certified Fresh rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes - more on that later), and was lauded by comic book fans for being the most faithful cinematic rendition of the Wolverine character that we've seen yet.

Cara Delevigne in Suicide Squad

Speaking with Reuters to promote Suicide Squad, Cara Delevigne lodged a similar complaint. "The critics have been absolutely horrific. They’re really, really horrible. You know, I just don’t think they like superhero movies." But again, this statement is easily refuted with just a few minutes of research: with an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% Fresh, Doctor Strange, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming are just three recent examples of superhero movies that were embraced both critically and commercially - and let's not forget what many consider to be the pinnacle of superhero films, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

In both of the above scenarios, the films in question racked up impressive financial numbers despite their poor reviews. It's puzzling, then, when Hollywood also tries to blame disappointing box office performance on negative reviews from critics - another popular version of this argument that seems to defy any sort of logic. When the R-rated reboot of Baywatch opened to a paltry $18 million earlier this year, Dwayne Johnson - the self-proclaimed "franchise Viagra" - Tweeted "Oh boy, critics had their venom & knives ready. Fans LOVE the movie. Huge positive scores. Big disconnect w/ critics & people."

GREAT REVIEWS ≠ GREAT BOX OFFICE

Blade Runner 2049

Johnson is correct in that a disconnect seems to exist - after all, why would “fans” flock to the theater for Batman v Superman, which opened to $166 million, but elect to stay home for Baywatch? And what happens when rave reviews don't correlate to strong ticket sales? Even with stellar reviews, positive word-of-mouth and an A- CinemaScore, Blade Runner 2049 only managed to haul in $32 million during its opening weekend - a far cry from its reported production budget of $150 million. So if poor reviews equate to poor performance, shouldn't the opposite hold true?

Not really, because as a recent study has determined, review scores - particularly those aggregated and published by Rotten Tomatoes - have no impact on box office economics. This hasn't stopped the finger-pointing, with Martin Scorsese dismissing the site as "[having] everything to do with the movie business and absolutely nothing to do with either the creation or the intelligent viewing of film," and Brett Ratner predicting it would lead to "the destruction of our industry."

But here's the rub: the same study found a distinct correlation between audience scores and critic scores, "meaning that audiences are becoming expert at smelling a 'bad' movie and staying away." This piece of data contradicts the notion of critics and fans somehow being two separate entities - if a film with mostly negative reviews is received in a similar fashion by audiences, then the problem lies not with the consumers, but with the product they're being fed.

Let's consider the notion that critics actually are the adversary, that their ultimate goal is to inflict hardship and mental anguish on filmmakers and studios by lambasting their latest offerings. Each year, film critics spend hundreds of hours of their lives in movie theaters or in front of television screens - why would they give up so much of their time for a profession (or in many cases, a hobby) they don't actually enjoy? Doesn't that seem overly masochistic?

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

Trust me, I wish that every moviegoing experience was a positive one, but just because I enjoy film as a general rule doesn't mean that I'm going to enjoy each and every film that I see. Likewise, it's possible for a film to contain a number of elements that I'm a fan of separately, but that doesn't necessarily mean those elements will combine to create a satisfying experience.

And what about the flip side of that coin, the insinuation that your only criteria for gleaning enjoyment from a film should be your personal affinity for a certain actor, director, or character? There are few things I love more than Batman, but my unshakable appreciation for the Caped Crusader didn't lead me to rubber-stamp Batman v Superman with a positive review, because being a fan doesn’t preclude me from acknowledging the flaws in a piece of art. And while I’ve been a vocal fan of Dwayne Johnson for years, you’ll never convince me that Baywatch was little more than a transparent attempt to cash in on name recognition by emulating the formula of the 21 Jump Street reboot.

CRITICS ≠ THE ENEMY

The truth is this: Hollywood is reeling from one of its worst years in recent memory, and they're searching everywhere for a scapegoat when the blame lies mostly at their own feet for churning out mediocre offerings that no longer resonate with moviegoers. But rather than engage in some necessary self-reflection, they're instead trying to create an artificial divide by telling the general populace that movies are being made just for them, and that critics don’t “get it” - except, of course, when the opinions are favorable, at which point these same critics will have their reviews mined for quotes that can be splashed across a poster or inserted into a TV spot.

You can’t have it both ways, Hollywood - film critics can’t be the villain in your narrative one day, when the latest hastily assembled “blockbuster” fails to perform, and then become part of your marketing strategy the next week when you actually release a picture worth the price of admission.

We are not the enemy.

Working in Movies

by Jeff Mitchell

Tumble out of bed, and I stumble to the kitchen.  Pour myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch and try to come to life.   Jump in the shower, and the blood starts pumping.  Out on the street, the traffic starts jumping with folks like me on the job from 9 to 5. 

- “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton

Ms. Parton’s lyrics - from her 1980 hit song - should ring true for just about anyone who has grabbed their lunch pail, left their residence and clocked into work.  Of course, in 2017, the way we work has changed.  Metal, oblong lunch pails are generally devices of the past.  Instead of driving 45 minutes in rush hour traffic, some employees log into their PCs from a home office, kitchen table or coffee shop.  One could easily name about another three dozen work evolutions, but with more competing demands pulling on the average 21st century adult, the 9am to 5pm workday has transformed. 

The aforementioned 8-hour workday might break down into a bizarre 10-hour shift of: 7am to 10am, 12pm to 4pm, and 7pm to 10pm. And with the service industry job explosion and new global workplaces, early mornings, late evenings, weekends, and holidays are not necessarily off-limits either.  (Wow, what would Fred Flintstone think?) The point is that work composes a significant portion of our waking hours, and since movies can reflect our lives, the workplace plays a sizable role in the world of cinema too.

Now, just about any movie - outside of My Dinner with Andre (1981) or 127 Hours (2010) – features someone earning a living in some capacity, but here are some notable films from several genres that center around the workplace.

Blue-collar work

Outside of the comfort of temporary walls, break rooms, air-conditioning, and coworker birthday celebrations, blue-collar movie-heroes put in an honest, hard day’s work for a day’s pay. Their bosses, however, may not view the world with the same sense of fair play.  The average employee sometimes fights uphill battles.

One of the best movie-examples of this is On the Waterfront (1954).  Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) knows something about fighting, because this ex-boxer – turned longshoreman - battles Johnny Friendly’s (Lee J. Cobb) operation at the Local 374.  Johnny is rolling in dough, but the men earn a mere pittance while unloading pallets of bananas or Irish whiskey from a constant stream of incoming ships for long, long hours.  In Brando’s iconic, Oscar-winning performance, he brings a sincere and endearing humanity to Terry, who takes a stance against inequitable conditions.  He stands up for what is just, even when he feels personally inequitable.  He believes that he “earned a one-way ticket to Palookaville” and “could have been a contender”, but we know that Terry is certainly more than an ordinary contender.

Whether or not one agrees with his politics, there is no denying that Oscar winner Michael Moore stands up for the little guy.  Moore won the Best Documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine (2002), but his movie career started with the groundbreaking, matter-of-fact documentary, Roger & Me (1989).  Growing up in Flint, Mich., Moore watched as General Motors closed nearby factories, so he decided to grab a camera and confront GM CEO Roger Smith.  Twenty-eight years later, actions like GM’s have repeated in every state in the union, but hey, Moore did warn us.

Working behind the register of a New Jersey convenience store would appear to be a stress-free job, but no one warned Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) about his upcoming day in Clerks (1994).  In director Kevin Smith’s absolutely hilarious first feature – filmed in black and white on a shoestring budget – Dante deals with a constant stream of oddballs looking to buy cigarettes, candy and milk, while his ex-girlfriend drops by and two harmless drug dealers loiter outside.  Highly conversational, Smith’s picture paints the struggles of directionless 20-year-olds, as Dante and his best friend, Randal (Jeff Anderson), opine about the original Star Wars trilogy and pornography and also plan a street hockey adventure.  No, Dante’s work is not overly laborious, but he was “not even supposed to be here today.”

Honorable mentions:

Silkwood (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Men at Work (1990), but only because it has the word “work” in the title.

Downsizing

Although office employees do not endure physically strenuous roles, modern-day corporate environments certainly provide their own forms of duress.  Office Space (1999) is the most frequently quoted and referenced film of the last 18 years that wonderfully captures carpet dwellers’ ecosystems, and rightfully so.  In addition to looking for staplers and producing TPS reports, downsizing rears its cost-cutting head in the picture as well, and that practice has been a staple for many movies over the years. 

In Up in the Air (2009), Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has spent years firing people, and in fact, he has built his career around it.  Spending most of his waking hours flying to various locales, he gives unlucky employees their walking papers with a humane, but firm hand.  With so much experience in delivering horrible messages, he has developed a panache for offering advice to outgoing worker bees.  In one particular scene, he suggests to Bob (J.K. Simmons), a frustrated middle manager, to perhaps pursue his dreams in the culinary arts.  Bob absorbs the message but realizes that he will only pull in $250 a month in unemployment while chasing this aspiration.

Bob may eventually accept his fate, but William Foster (Michael Douglas) in Falling Down (1993) takes an altogether different approach.  Let go from his defense contract job and stuck on a Los Angeles roadway, William leaves his car and walks across the city sporting a short-sleeve white-collar shirt, a tie and glasses last seen in a 1950’s elementary school classroom.  He is angry about his losing his job, losing his wife in a divorce and now he begins losing his temper during encounters with his fellow Southern Californians during a stifling hot day.  His sense of purpose is lost, and his journey in this urban minefield offers a highly metaphorical experience for the viewer.

In Two Days, One Night (2014), Sandra (Marion Cotillard) copes with two figurative minefields as well.  She is taking a temporary leave of absence from her job at a Belgian solar panel company due to depression and anxiety, but management might permanently remove her from the company payroll in order to cut expenses.  Actually, management offers other employees a choice:  keep your bonus or keep Sandra employed.  In a truly fascinating look at the human condition, Sandra approaches each of her coworkers over a weekend to ask for their vote of confidence, and her colleagues respond in various – heartbreaking and sobering – ways.  The Academy rightfully nominated Cotillard for a Best Actress Oscar, as she masterfully captures the internal churn of potentially losing one’s job, while her character attempts to discover her self-worth.   

Honorable mention:

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

THE Working Man – Michael Keaton

Tim Burton raised a few eyebrows by tapping Michael Keaton for the role of the Caped Crusader in Batman (1989), but the Beetlejuice (1988) star donned a black suit, mask and cape and successfully delivered critical and box office praise with a serious, brooding persona not seen by Adam West’s version of the character.  In the end, casting Keaton’s no-nonsense approach made perfect sense, and this Pittsburgh native has enjoyed a career by playing industrious men.

In Mr. Mom (1983), Keaton’s character, Jack Butler, actually loses his job at an auto plant and switches daytime roles with his wife, Caroline (Teri Garr).  Jack becomes a stay-at-home dad, while Caroline gets a job to support their family, and Keaton serves up about one thousand quotable lines in this memorable comedy written by John Hughes (e.g. “Yea, 220, 221.  Whatever it takes.”).   Admittedly, the film loses steam in the last act once Jack gets it together at home, but not before he hilariously struggles with shopping, changing diapers, operating several household appliances, and more.  

Three years later, Keaton starred in Ron Howard’s Gung Ho (1986), and this comedy confronts cultural differences between the U.S. and Japan.  A Japanese auto company buys a closed Pennsylvania auto plant and attempts to introduce efficiencies not practiced in America. Keaton’s Hunt Stevenson is a slightly bolder, crasser version of Jack Butler, who would make a great weekend-softball team captain, when he is not tirelessly attempting to turnaround the plant’s fortunes.

Keaton traded in auto company work for the newspaper biz in a pair of very notable films.  Ron Howard signed on Keaton again in The Paper (1994), and the film captures the tension between financial pressures of the industry with journalistic values, and the opposing views are championed by Glenn Close and Keaton’s characters, respectively.  Howard juggles several intriguing plotlines with an all-star cast including, Robert Duvall, Marisa Tomei, Jason Robards, and Catherine O’Hara, but the movie’s lifeline comes down to a war of wills between Alicia (Close) and Henry (Keaton).

Whether or not director Tom McCarthy saw Keaton play the city editor in The Paper, he made a master stroke in casting Michael in his Best Picture Oscar-winning film Spotlight (2015).  Keaton plays Robby Robinson, who leads The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.  A small, tightknit group of journalists, the team deeply dives into lengthy investigations, ones which absolutely need plenty of time, space and resources to find resolution.  Spotlight recreates the Globe’s efforts in uncovering extensive child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the greater Boston area, and Keaton’s Robinson presents a steady hand and support for his journalists (Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James). 

Spotlight is one of four terrific films that Keaton has enjoyed during his recent comeback.  Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), The Founder (2016) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) are the others, and naturally, he plays hardworking entrepreneurs in these movies as well.  Who knows if Keaton is the hardest working man in show business, but he might be the king of contemporary working men on the big screen.

Women in the Workplace

In 2017, one of America’s great mysteries is that women still do not earn as much as men.  Depending upon the study, one might find that the average woman earns 70 to 90 percent of a typical man’s wages.  Not only do women continue to fight for equal pay, but treatment too, and these campaigns have been reflected on the big screen. 

Commercially, no other film resonated with the public more than 9 to 5 (1980).  It was the second highest grossing film that year ($103 million and second only to The Empire Strikes Back), and it addressed an unfair workplace for women in a comedic and empowering way.  Judy (Jane Fonda), Violet (Lily Tomlin) and Doralee (Dolly Parton) plot against their boss, Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman), after his repeated sexist slights in the office for years.  The three wind up running the company, while keeping Mr. Hart indisposed in a most bizarre way.  All three leads are especially good and very likable, and Fonda offers the biggest surprise with her understated performance.  Arriving in theatres during the height of the women’s movement, the film – and Parton’s song - struck a chord with audiences, especially with women who were impacted by discriminating office environments in their own lives. One can imagine packed 1980 movie theatres bursting out in laugher and emotional release when Doralee threatens Mr. Hart by saying, “I’m gonna get that gun of mine and change you from a rooster to a hen in one shot.”

For Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron), she feels like she is trapped in a hen house with packs of aggressive wolves within her place of work, a local Minnesota mine.  In North Country (2005), this single mom has no other way to support her two kids and realizes that the work would be demanding but had no idea that she would become the victim of an avalanche of sexual harassment and emotional/physical abuse within a male-dominated environment.  From the beginning of her daily shift, Josey and other women live a nightmare, and while watching this movie (taking place in 1989 and based on a true story), it absolutely makes one sick that this type of chauvinism existed just 28 years ago.  Somehow, Josey wills the strength to face seemingly impossible odds while toiling with her own vulnerabilities.  Theron and Frances McDormand rightfully earned Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.  

Speaking of Oscars and McDormand, she and Sally Field won Best Actress Oscars for playing strong women in the workplace.  In Fargo (1996), Brainerd Police Chief Marge Gunderson (McDormand) – carrying a folksy persona and a future baby (as she is very pregnant) – pulls all the right strings to untangle a kidnapping plot.  Chief Gunderson is the smartest person in every room, and her calm and temperate approach to crime fighting proves just as effective as forceful police roles that audiences are used to seeing. 

Field captured her first Best Actress Oscar with Norma Rae (1979) by playing the title role.  Like the female-trifecta in “9 to 5” and Josey in North Country, Norma clashes with the system too.  She works in a North Carolina cotton factory, but rather than fight for female rights, she stands up for all the workers against unfair conditions.  Defiant and altruistic in her beliefs, Norma is a leader, and the words “stand up” can be taken literally and figuratively in the picture.  When she raises a sign (with “UNION” written on it) above her head, every pair of eyes - on-screen and in the audience - become completely focused on her.     

Honorable mentions:

Holly Hunter in Broadcast News (1987), Melanie Griffith in Working Girl (1988), Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby (2003), and Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae in Hidden Figures (2016)

Government Bureaucracy

According to a June 23, 2015 Forbes.com article, Walmart and McDonalds employ 2.1 and 1.9 million people, respectively, and although this business publication does not list Starbucks, drive five miles from your home in any direction, and one might conclude that this mammoth coffee house cannot be far behind, right?  Perhaps Starbucks skyrockets to 5 million employees during pumpkin spice season, but I digress.  Walmart may have cornered the market on worker bees in the private sector, but yes, the government is the world’s largest employer.  In fact, the same article stated that the U.S. Department of Defense provides jobs for 2.3 million people.

Over the years, movie houses have filled theatre seats with films about the government, and Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) particularly stands out.  Now, politics has become a figurative combat sport in recent months, but after watching this Jimmy Stewart classic, one realizes that the fight has endured for decades and decades.  Jefferson Smith (Stewart) is a brand new senator and arrives in D.C. with a squeaky clean image, as a colleague tells him, “This is no place for you.  You are halfway decent.”

This movie certainly is leaps and bounds above decent, as Capra engineers a timeless David vs. Goliath film.  Senator Smith does not even own a slingshot, but his inspiring principles certainly aim true.  

Director Stanley Kubrick aimed true and landed on target with his wild, weird, unsettling, and hilarious dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).   Peter Sellers plays the President of the United States (and two other roles, including the infamous Dr. Strangelove) and is joined by an extensive cast, whose characters are hunkered down in a war room trying to prevent a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.  Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George scribe a bureaucratic mess in which phone calls and side meetings emerge as fairly useless, because red tape and regulations did not account for one of its base commanders going “a little funny in the head” and ordering a strike on the U.S.S.R. 

Dr. Strangelove, of course, contains one of the most iconic images in cinema with Maj. King Kong (Slim Pickens) riding a nuclear bomb like a horse and waiving a cowboy hat in fulfilling a morbid date with destiny.  As satirical as Strangelove feels, another film arrived in theatres that same year with a similar premise, but with much bleaker tones. 

Director Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe (1964) - a deadly-serious picture with a Twilight Zone-feel - features U.S. military leaders desperately trying to call back six bombers from unleashing a nuclear assault on the U.S.S.R.  The President of the United States (Henry Fonda) attempts to avert the crisis, and everything hinges on his call with the Soviets.  Men with lots of stripes and badges litter the screen, but they also work in shadows.  Within the confines of sterile control rooms and office spaces, Lumet often places various scenes within real shadows that symbolize the ironic practice of protecting American lives by actively participating in military buildups.  In one particular frightening conversation, one argues that 60 million Americans killed in a nuclear attack is significantly better than 100 million.  Fail-Safe may not be a pleasant trip to the movies, but it stands as one of the most frightening thrillers in cinema and a perfect companion piece with Strangelove.

Honorable mention:

No Way Out (1987), Lincoln (2012) and I, Daniel Blake (2016)

Work Should be an Adventure

These films about blue-collar jobs, downsizing stress, women in leadership roles, government bureaucracy, and a few others starring Michael Keaton are all centered around the workplace.  These cinematic gems, however, do not offer arduous experiences for the viewer, but tales of caution (Fail-Safe) or celebration (9 to 5).  Certainly movies can be wondrous escapes from reality, but catching a movie about real life – and in this case, a film in which its lead protagonists clock into the office for a full workday – can be just as rewarding…and/or inspiring. 

For anyone who has wanted a career change, watch the quirky, bizarre but highly inventive Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), in which Joe (Tom Hanks) quits his downright awful job in a dim, dank office and launches into a most unexpected, colorful adventure.  Movies can be a reflection of our lives, and since life should be an adventure, that includes our time between 9 to 5.  The next morning that you “tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen” in preparation for the workday, I hope that you are sporting an authentic smile or formulating a plan to eventually get one.  It’s not impossible.  It’ll just take a little bit of work.

Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008 and graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.  Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest.

Giallo: The Italian Influence on the Horror Genre

by Matthew Robinson

"I'm Dario Argento, and my style is something recognizable I think by the audience."

A unique film import seeped into American cinemas in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s: Giallo, an Italian subgenre of horror consisting of extreme bloodletting, stylish filmmaking, and an attention to musical placement. This style of film was so distinct that it forced film scholars to examine the wave of filmmakers coming out of Italy at the time. Giallo’s influence is alive today with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Brian DePalma making direct reference to this lush style of horror. But to fully understand Giallo, one must look at a film's overall style, form, and thematic elements, as well as some of the major works within the genre.

WHAT IS A GIALLO FILM?

Suspira (1977)

While it is difficult to specifically pinpoint what constitutes a Giallo film, there are some identifying aspects of the subgenre that help define it. The first is the film’s overall feel and style, the cornerstone of all Giallo films. Many Giallo films focus on extreme bloodletting during death sequences, which play out as operatic and ornate centerpieces and are labored over on a technical level. Acute attention is given to the sets, props, cinematography, and editing of these bloodletting scenes, making them feel intricate and surreal to the viewer. In contrast, today’s horror films tend to focus on shocking viewers during death scenes through quick jumps and rapid thrills.

Another style aspect of the Giallo subgenre is the film’s shooting location and the actors’ wardrobe. Many Giallo films feature Italian landmarks and other famous scenery to promote the film’s Italian origins. Actors wear costumes reflective of the era’s fashion. The film’s killer almost always dons a black trench coat and black gloves with a covered face. The setting for the film’s murders is often tied to the film’s fashion as well. The dresses and makeup worn by the women within Giallo films tends toward the highly stylish.

Blood and Black Lace (1964)

Giallo films use several elements of form including gorgeous cinematography, stylized editing, and the important placement of music. Visual flare characterizes the elaborate death scenes and adds beauty to the locales. The moody lighting and slow camera moves lend an atmosphere of fear and dread. Many Giallo films deal with mental illness and visually contain surreal and psychedelic flares. Technically, the camera moves are intricate and precise, often using mobile framing. Several Giallo films, such as Dario Argento’s Opera, are noted for long tracking shots and extremely daring crane shots. The editing is highly stylized and features quick cuts that create a frantic feeling during murder scenes, often in stark contrast to the languid pace of the rest of the film’s narrative. The editing may include jump and non-linear cuts to help create the aforementioned surreal and psychedelic moments.

The music of Giallo films plays a vital role. The film’s killer is often given his own theme music, and murder scenes may feature the same song played over them. The use of rock music was unique at the time these films were first produced. Dario Argento most famously worked with Goblin on several of his films by weaving their unique and heavy electronic rock sound into his murder scenes.

Tutti i colori del buio (1972)

Several thematic elements can be found within all Giallo films. The male killer and lead female protagonist may suffer from mental illness. The female lead is often the only witness to the film’s murders, which causes her psychotic episodes or the mention of seeking or needing therapy. Giallo films may also contain disturbing dream sequences or hallucinations. Tourism is another common element. In addition to the use of Italian landmarks and/or other famous site locations, the lead character is often a tourist in an unfamiliar setting. In some instances, the films will take short asides to highlight this, such as a day-trip to the countryside. Finally, repressed childhood memories frequently drive the killer to murder others, and this may be repeatedly shown throughout the film in broken flashbacks.

An Introduction to Giallo

While there are many ways one could get into this sub-genre, I will suggest three films to begin with as well as some further recommendations. While these three films do not all represent the best that Giallo has to offer, they do offer a well-rounded entry point into the works of three prolific directors (Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and Dario Argento).

The following films exemplify the signature traits of a Giallo film: Blood and Black Lace, Don’t Torture a Duckling, and Opera.

Blood and Black Lace

Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964) is often credited as the first Giallo film, and its influence is evident a decade following its release. The film opens with a beautiful young model being murdered by a mysterious masked figure outside the fashion house where she works. When her boyfriend is suspected of her killing, her diary, which contains incriminating evidence linking her to the killer, vanishes. The masked killer goes on a rampage, killing many of the models in the fashion house to find the diary and keep his identity a secret. With its overwhelmingly stylish and chic design and its attention to beautiful women falling victim to a black gloved, sadistic lunatic in a trench coat, Blood and Black Lace is a first of its kind film. However, Bava throws the film’s plot and characters too far into the background, from which the movie suffers. While individual scenes are visually fantastic -- primarily the kill scenes due to the film’s effective pacing and dynamic visuals -- the film as a whole lacks any real mystery. The story is too thin to allow the audience to play along in figuring out the murderer’s identity. However, the film does deserve credit for defining the Giallo killer’s appearance. The black gloves, masked face, and trench coat worn by the killer are particularly effective. Bava frequently directs the killer to emerge from the shadows, using colored gel lights to cast a burst of red onto the murderer. This effect is eerie and creepy, and one can quickly see why it had such a defining influence on the Giallo subgenre.

Dont Torture a Duckling

Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) is one of Lucio Fulci’s best movie titles as well as one of his better films. The film deals with the mysterious deaths of three children in a small, rural town. The opening shots of Fulci’s film are gorgeous panoramic views of the rolling hills of the Italian countryside. After these initial opening shots, Fulci’s camera pans over to a woman who is desperately clawing at the ground, unearthing the skeletal remains of a baby. While the meaning of this scene is vague, the audience soon discovers that several children in the town have gone missing. The town is ready to take action to find the kidnapper. Fulci creates a “whodunit” that is interesting and far from dull. Don’t Torture a Duckling is a fantastic Giallo; it maintains its mystery by lingering on clues and revelations just long enough to make the film’s horror moments effective. It’s also one of the rare instances where Fulci seems to care for his female protagonist, in stark contrast to his more misogynistic films like New York Ripper (1982). There is an influential scene in the film where a woman is beaten to death by chains and sticks. The film’s brutality is juxtaposed nicely with the serene countryside on a sunny afternoon, and energetic soul music plays on a radio overhead. This mixture of violence and contemporary music feels fresh, and it's clear that this film has significantly influenced other directors, notably Quentin Tarantino.

Opera

Dario Argento’s oft-overlooked stunner Opera (1987) features the director’s most daring camerawork and dynamic pacing of his impressive career. Opera contains a number of astonishing technical achievements. In fact, one incredible, “How did they do that?” crane shot circling the large opera house flying over the patron’s head is truly something that must be seen to be believed. The film follows Betty, an understudy who gets her big break when the play’s lead is run over by a car. But after her performance, a masked and gloved killer forces her to watch him as he murders someone else. Betty becomes paranoid with fear, and her sanity is questioned over the duration of the film. A detective begins searching for the killer, and Betty continues to be forced into watching the murders of everyone around her. Argento’s style is in full form here and the film is both effective and a technical achievement. The camera constantly creeps around the opera house, a perfect setting for Argento, using dolly shots to suggest the killer is omnipresent. The setting also allows for a lavish display of costumes and set design. The film is a visual feast for viewers. Colored lighting is heavily used to suggest Betty’s sanity slipping and is one of the director’s trademarks.

 

Giallo's Influence

Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980)

Giallo films had a relatively short lifespan in the 1960s and 1970s, but out of that time came some truly original work. Directors like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci took risks, stylizing their films with chic costumes, grand sets, and bold camera moves. Their influence can be seen today in directors like Quentin Tarantino and especially Brian De Palma. Giallo may be a subgenre relegated to cult status, but its influence is widespread. The American slasher film would not exist, nor would Italian thrillers contain as much style without these films. The elements that make a film Giallo also make them stand out today as films that deserve more attention. While the genre holds its fair share of treasure and trash, Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace, Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling, and Dario Argento’s Opera are three of the finest examples of the subgenre.

Other Key Giallo Films:

• A Bay of Blood or Twitch of the Death Nerve

• Short Night of Glass Dolls

• All The Colors of the Dark

• Deep Red

• Lizard in a Woman’s Skin

• The House with Laughing Windows

• What Have You Done to Solange?

• Tenebre

• Dressed to Kill

The Master: George A. Romero

By Monte Yazzie
 

It's Halloween night, 2010, and the costumed kids were beginning to dwindle in the neighborhood. I remember repeatedly asking my wife throughout the evening to check the time. Why do I remember this evening so clearly? Because it was the premiere of The Walking Dead. In 2010, zombie pop culture was already bustling with popularity because of recent films like Shaun of the Dead (2004), Resident Evil (2002), and Zombieland (2009). However, it was a television show, based on a comic book, which would take zombies from genre fare to mainstream icons. Now, people talk about zombies the way they talk about Disney characters, in fact many people are both unabashedly fans of both.

But none of this -- all the films, television shows, video games, books, and toys -- is possible without one key element, an independent horror film made in 1968 called Night of the Living Dead directed by George A. Romero. While not the first film to establish the zombie mythos (that credit goes to the 1932, Victor Halperin-directed, Bela Lugosi-starring White Zombie), Night of the Living Dead is the most important zombie film ever made. It established the rules for the genre, the why and how zombies are the way they are. It defined that zombies eat the flesh of the living, that they are reanimated corpses, that they are immune to injury, and that the only way you can kill a zombie is to destroy its brain. It's a character mythology that has become so defined in the culture that going against it brings arguments from film fans, to the extent of having people ask in the description of a zombie film whether or not it's a "Romero-zombie". It also defined important aspects for the filmmaking process: specifically, what was possible for filmmakers, how one would make an effective movie on a budget, and, unbeknownst to Mr. Romero, how a genre story would garner social implications for the casting of an African-American man in the lead heroic role.  It's undeniable that the world, not just the world of film, would look a whole lot different without George A. Romero's influence on it.

Birth of the Living Dead

The progression of Mr. Romero's career was predicated on the shoulders of Night of the Living Dead, but before his monumental movie, Romero's career started with short films and commercial work. With a group of friends, and inspired by Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, a horror/science fiction crossover that focused on a plague that turned humanity into vampire-like creatures, the director started a production company and began work on Night of the Living Dead. It's easy to see how these stories by Romero and Matheson resemble each other on the surface, but they also hold greater meaning when looking at the social commentary working underneath the monster movie characteristics.

What both stories imply is the notion of revolution; whether it be one man in Matheson’s novel or a group of people against insurmountable odds in Romero’s film, the world is trying to impart its influence by telling the people resisting to give into change. It seems all too perfect considering the social climate in the 1960's, that a film, let alone a genre film, would reflect some of the changes in the world. Though social implication, such as hiring an African-American actor, was never a direct choice by Mr. Romero but rather a choice to do what was best for his film. Actor Duane Jones was cast to play a role that was initially written from a Caucasian perspective. George did not change a line of dialog but left the role as it was written. It was a moment in cinema history that would have profound effect on the future of race in film. Night of the Living Dead was a success, though it would be ten years before Romero would revisit his zombie world with the horror classic, Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Romero's second film took a different turn, a romantic comedy turn, about a young man who returns home to Pittsburgh and meets an older woman who acts in commercials called There's Always Vanilla (1971). It's a film heavily influenced by the sentiments of the middle-class perspective in the 70's, specifically how the world was changing for middle-class people in America.

Merely a year later, Romero had another film in production, a horror drama involving murder and witchcraft called Season of the Witch (1972). Far less of a straightforward horror offering than more of a drama with horror elements, Romero again explored the world that he was familiar with, defining clearly that Season of the Witch was about feminism and women's rights, as opposed to the occult aspects it promotes to the forefront. If there is one thing clear about Romero's style as a filmmaker, it's that the director understands the power of genre film in storytelling. Season of the Witch is at times a balancing act, taking the melodramatic aspects of a lonely and neglected housewife looking to unleash her desires and pairing it with horror elements like witchcraft and dark magic. The horror here simply serves as a medium for Romero to allow his character to break free from gender stereotypes.

Mr. Romero kept his yearly film streak going, this time returning to something far more reminiscent of his first feature with The Crazies (1973), a film about a small town infected by a military biological weapon that turns people into crazed killers. Romero plays on the anxiety and untrustworthiness that Americans were having with the world, and the government, at the end of the Vietnam War. He makes it hard to recognize the bad guy here; is it the faceless soldiers in hazmat suits or the depraved victims attacking people they once knew? It’s easy to see the connection the filmmaker was trying to make. The Crazies is one of the highlights during this space in Romero's career.

These films after Night of the Living Dead led Romero towards two seminal films, one of which would go down in history as one of the greatest horror films ever made, Dawn of the Dead (1979). But before this, Mr. Romero patented his skills on the superb film Martin (1978). Taking place again in Romero's home state of Pennsylvania, Martin is a film about a young man living in the suburbs during the recession, who believes that he is a vampire. Still encapsulating his social concerns, though more subtle and refined than his previous efforts, Romero explores post-Vietnam themes of drug addiction, poverty, and the forsaken nature of the government against its citizens.

Martin is a film that shows Romero near the pinnacle of his skills.  Here, the horror plays a stark contrast throughout much of the film.  The violence is uncomfortable, and the progression of Martin's inherent need to be a vampire is never directly stated but left to the conclusion of the viewer. It's seemingly at this moment that the director begins to fully understand how to make his vision as a filmmaker and storyteller come to life, and also recognizing the role the viewer will play in transforming and interpreting film. You can feel everything that will eventually influence and define the structure of his masterpiece.

Dead Rising

The middle period of Romero's film career is the most lauded and talked about. Dawn of the Dead follows a group of survivors who barricade themselves from the living dead inside a shopping mall. Romero’s film is bold and vicious, taking the special effects wizardry of Tom Savini and turning the violence into something gratuitous and comic. The story, at its core, concerns consumerism and the collapse of the American dream. The lumbering corpses aren’t necessarily the villains, they are merely operating within their nature. Instead Romero poses humanity as the depraved but also the righteous, the heartless but also the compassionate; these are the director’s most accomplished characters, which is why the film works on so many levels. Just as Romero changed the filmmaking game with Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead changed what was possible within the genre of horror.

Romero would finish his “zombie trilogy” with Day of the Dead (1985), which shows humanity retreating into a subterranean bunker to escape the “ghouls” that have taken over the world. Humanity continues to devolve while the walking dead grow more aware. It’s far less of a raw experience or a socially relevant satire but instead an unnerving, uncomfortable character analysis. Romero proposes thought-provoking questions about what the future of the world would look like if the characters in the film were allowed the influence. It’s interesting to see how fitting this story would be today.

Between these two films also comes one of Romero's lesser talked about movies, but it's one of the best of his career. Knightriders (1981) gives the King Arthur mythology a modern take.  Instead of horses, these knights ride motorcycles. It's an absurdist comedy that takes itself, like many of the director's films, completely serious. With a wonderful performance from future star Ed Harris in the lead role, the script tackles aspects of greed and stardom in the age before reality television stars.

The 80's and early 90's also allowed Romero an opportunity to collaborate with two iconic figures of modern horror: Stephen King with the anthology film Creepshow (1982) and Italian master Dario Argento with Two Evil Eyes (1990). Creepshow, based off the influential EC Comics books, would influence the world of horror and become the blueprint for anthology horror tales. Two Evil Eyes, adaptions of two Edgar Allan Poe stories, allowed Romero and Argento the opportunity to work on material from an author who was a significant influence on the work of both of the directors.

Mr. Romero's career wasn't without some hardships, as the director had a difficult time working within the studio system. Films like Monkey Shines (1988) and The Dark Half (1993) had studio interference that altered, changed, or ran out of money to support the vision that the director was trying to achieve. Even the smaller, independent film Bruiser (2000) found issues and was subsequently released straight to video.

The Dead End

In the end, Mr. Romero returned to the monsters he created, capping off a career with three continuing stories that further progressed the world of the living dead. Land of the Dead (2005) was the glorious return for the filmmaker.  After twenty years, the creator of the zombie culture returned to tell another story, all this in the midst of a world that had come to love the "ghouls" that George created so many years before. Again, this wasn't just a zombie film, the auteur had something to say. Land of the Dead focused strong commentary on the privileged and underprivileged, the poor and the rich, the have and the have-nots. It had everything those familiar with the artist's work could have expected.

Diary of the Dead (2007), a documentary-style movie that follows a group of film students who happen upon real-life zombies, and Survival of the Dead (2009), a modern western that pits two families on an island against each other while zombies roam nearby, would round out the film career of George A. Romero. These pictures still had the unique touch found in all Romero films, underneath the guise of a monster movie is a story that is reflecting the thoughts of a filmmaker and the emotions of the world that is influencing him. Whether the social injustice found in the world, the consumerism and greed that corrupts people, the imbalance of power felt within society, or the future of filmmaking for new generations, it's always been a socially influenced story for George Romero with zombies glued in afterwards.

George A. Romero died July 16, 2017 -- a visionary director who changed the landscape of horror and created a sub-genre of film that literally took over the world, just like he said it would in his first film. Though Romero's influence is much more than creating a monster, what he did for the American independent film landscape in 1968 cannot be completely described because even as you are reading this right now, his influence is still shaping and molding filmmakers pointing cameras at their dreams. Without Romero the film culture in America may not be as free as it is now. George A. Romero...the Master.

Are Film Critics Relevant?

by David Appleford

In one of the many recent on-line reports prior to the June 2nd release of Wonder Woman, one article published on Yahoo’s entertainment tab stated how positively the film rated with the critics as collected and evaluated by RottenTomatoes.com, the home of the celebrated "Tomatometer".  The article stated the Tomatometer showed a 98% positive result among the early film critic reviews.  In fact, at the time of writing this article, the current percentage sits at a comfortable 92%. That’s nothing to sniff about.  Except, many Yahoo readers did. 

Everyone's a Critic.

It wasn’t the fact that Rotten Tomatoes had given the film a high grade, or that anything particularly negative had been expressed; it was this: not one of the contributors (a polite term for internet trolls) in the writer’s comments section could have cared less what a critic thought. None of them, and there were hundreds of comments. The first comment I read wrote, “I’ll judge for myself.” Another asked, “What would any of them know?” And then there was the eloquently phrased, “Who gives a flying F***K what those F******S think?”

And those were the polite ones. 

Clearly, with regards to the number of on-line hits yours truly is fortunate enough to occasionally receive, there are some readers who actually do give a "flying F***K", but the point is a good one.  As one who writes for both film and local valley theatre, I’ve realized something interesting that, on hindsight, should have always seemed obvious.  When it comes to writing for live theatre, readers are genuinely interested in what the critic thinks, and either use the review as a guide when looking for a little insight if they have yet to see the show or play, or use it as a point of debate if they have seen the production in question and would like to engage in a little further discussion.  When it comes to the movies, everyone’s a critic.  

Who's to blame?

When the advance word, usually created by the studio itself, has created a must-see glow around an up-coming, potential blockbuster, the last thing those excited by the prospect of a Transformers 17 wants to read from a reviewer is what a piece of garbage Michael Bay has once again delivered.  They don’t want the thrill of anticipation punctured.  In fact, they resent it. So they ignore it.  But oddly, what has now occurred, as evidenced with the response to the Wonder Woman reviews, even the good reviews are being ignored.  (For the record, if there is ever a Transformers 17 at a time when real reviews are a thing of the past, it will still be garbage.)  Important tip for critics: switch off the hype; difficult, but it can be done.

The Critics?

Actor Shia LaBeouf is credited for once saying, “Have you ever noticed how most critics disagree with the public?  That should tell you a lot about critics.”  Actually, that tells us more about Shia LeBeouf, but let’s keep calm and carry on.

So, who’s to blame?  The critics? Believe it or not, sometimes.  Writers should certainly refrain from sounding too lofty, writing in a way that makes them sound simply pretentious; using positive references to obscure movies that no one saw or ever liked; describing a movie as using "stereoscopy" when everyone else calls it "3D". It all turns the reader off.  Younger writers who like to form overly complicated sentences while using words such as "existentialism" or "egalitarianism" are doing no one, including themselves, any favors.  Such phrasing may sound significant when trying to impress a college professor, but when you’re supposed to be advising the movie-goer, it comes across as vomiting word salad. It gives critics a bad reputation. Plus no one knows what you mean.  Besides, whom exactly are you writing for, anyway?      

True, a critic of the critics could always say it’s just one person’s opinion, but if the critic is experienced and knows his or her stuff, it’s a qualified opinion, and that’s a major difference.  Taste is one thing, opinion based on knowledge is another. My father used to say that the problem with critics is they see too many films.  They know too much.  That’s like saying a musician practices music too often.  We don’t talk about the movies much anymore.

Here’s a brief look at certain types of film.  Personally speaking, most modern comedies are the worst, and there’s nothing more satisfying than ranting about their overall decline and how they’ve slowly descended into potty-mouthed, witless trite aimed at an age group that (if the suggested American rating code was ever followed) shouldn’t even be in the theatre watching it in the first place. 

But there are certain things a reviewer can’t say with certainty. 

For instance, a critic can never account for a movie-goer’s individual taste or what will make them laugh.  Laughter is personal.  So a reviewer can’t say that the reader will definitely sit stoney-faced throughout Pineapple Express, when clearly many loved it and found the mix of bloodcurdling violence and murder coupled with moron humor hilarious. (There’s no accounting for the taste of another). 

Neither can you say that a certain horror film has no scares when, again, many will cower in their seat. And you can use that for all genres. What didn’t thrill the reviewer in an adventure may well have the movie-goer on the edge of their seat.  All the reviewer can do is offer insight based on their knowledge; write why the film is lazy or derivative, give examples to support your theories, and try to guide the reader into thinking about the subject in a way they may have never before considered. But never say a reader won’t laugh, won’t be scared, or won’t be thrilled, because many will.

My dad actually thought A Night at the Roxbury was a funny film.  Again, we don’t talk movies much.

The Hollywood Studios?

Is the blame to be directed at the studios?  To a degree, but not completely. 

At a time when the Hollywood hype machine is in full gear -- when studios leak secrets well in advance of a release in order to start rumors, whet appetites, and get the conversation going, and when entertainment fluff is presented as news, including TV interviews and movie junkets that want all conversations with the press firmly positive -- does the average movie-goer even read a review? 

Studios are certainly happy with a good review, but they’re equally annoyed by a negative one.  That’s why not all new releases have screenings for the press. They know their product is bad, but they don’t want reviewers telling movie-goers the same thing.  Let the Friday night crowd find out for themselves… after they’ve bought a ticket.

Over the years, that well-oiled hype machine has developed to the point where a reviewer isn’t really required to help get the word going, and it’s the word of mouth where the real promotion begins. Hype can now create the word itself in a way it never did.  How often have you heard someone say, “It sounds great,” because they’ve seen the star of the film tell them how great it is on their promotional late night TV appearances such as Kimmel, Colbert, or that small-screen-hype-machine himself, Jimmy Fallon.  Being told a film is great by someone you like on TV goes a long way. Celebrity endorsement has always been an effective source of advertising, but now it’s celebrities endorsing their own work, and viewers still buy it.

How About Those Trailers?

Here’s something to consider:  the trailer is an advertisement -- a promotional tool. If the film is a large budget production, the studios will often leak a piece of info letting you know that the trailer of the blockbuster will soon be released on TV during a certain program, maybe a ball game or an awards presentation, and movie-goers should be ready for it.  Then, when anticipation is at its highest and that allotted TV time finally arrives (after several reminders that the trailer is coming) before the promotion is even shown, there’s a regular product ad sponsoring the event.  Think about it.  The studios have created an atmosphere where you’re now excited not about seeing the film, but about seeing the trailer -- essentially a commercial -- and there’s even another commercial sponsoring the showing of that commercial.  Don’t you find that bizarre?  And with all that in mind, how about the trailer itself?

Let’s be honest, unlike earlier days, only occasionally does that trailer ever truly reflect the film.  First, it’s not unusual that the music you liked in the promo is nowhere to be found on the soundtrack.  It might be a current hit from a rock band not actually in the movie, but its current popularity due to repeated radio airplay draws attention. The marketing department is banking on you liking the song, so in turn you’ll probably believe you’ll like the film.  By the way, whatever they’re using in the background to the TV trailer of the new remake to Murder on The Orient Express, I sincerely hope it’s not in the actual movie. 

And then there’s the movie clips flashing before you. They might be edited in a way that one character makes a remark in one scene, only to receive a comical sounding response from a character in another. Yet when you finally see the film, those moments with action and reaction have no relation to each other. The quotes could be over an hour apart and the two characters are not even talking to each other.  And in some cases, what you saw in the trailer wasn’t even in the film. Can marketeers be brought to trial for false advertising?  Another important tip for critics: avoid all trailers.

So, What’s The Real Problem?

Here’s what I think, and many who have kept with this article thus far may not like it.  The real reason why the average moviegoer neither respects nor cares what a reviewer thinks is because of the following: the average moviegoer does not know how to read a review. 

I’m not referring to the quick paragraph in, say, People Magazine where you get a quick synopsis followed by how many stars out of five the film earns. I mean an essay, an analysis, a real critique --  the kind that you find in The New Yorker or the quality press where an experienced writer knows what he or she is writing about and has to assume that the reader knows, too.  Like the story of the Texan art collector who admits he doesn’t know much about art but he knows what he likes, so it is with the average movie-goer.  The average moviegoer doesn’t know the construct of what makes a film work. He’s never studied film or taken courses, and probably cares little for foreign films with subtitles. The average moviegoer simply knows what he likes, and doesn’t get it when reviewers write why he shouldn’t like it.  He doesn’t understand what a critic is writing about, and it’s those movie-goers who’re writing those comments on Yahoo.

For reviewers who have another day job, ever noticed the look on the face of an office colleague who asks you what you a thought of a film, and what happens when you respond by basically paraphrasing your review?  They glaze over; their eyes become their monitor desktop picture; they have the look of a George Romero zombie. They don’t care about the ins and outs of Kubrick’s mise-en-scene (another tip: avoid using "mise-en-scene") or the nuances of a foreign-language version that makes it better than the American remake -- especially if they never knew it was a remake in the first place.  All they want to know is, did you like it.  That’s it.

What's a Critic to do?

So the answer to the question, "is a publishing movie critic relevant in a world where everyone’s a critic?"  Absolutely.  But are they required for the average movie-goer who just wants to know whether you liked it or not? Clearly, no, especially when another Yahoo reader’s comment on the subject of Wonder Woman stated, “I’ll wait until the audience reviews come in.” 

But that doesn’t mean to say it’s not worth doing, either.  Like those who distrust the mainstream press when reporting politics, especially if the report doesn’t reflect their party in a positive light, they’re not thinking.  A news reporter is the only buffer between the public and the politician.  Without them, there’s no questioning authority, challenging obvious exaggerations, revealing falsehoods, and holding accountable those who should be held accountable.  Without the press we’d eventually live in a world where political spokespeople experienced in avoiding the truth (think Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway) always had the final word, heaven help us.  As it is with the mainstream press, so it is with the film critic. They have to exist.

Those Yahoo readers making their comments can say whatever they want, but without a knowledgeable film review keeping check and telling everyone where a film is not even trying, filmmakers would get away with murder.  They often do.  Laziness and taking the easy route to the box-office is par for the course.  Look at the list of films you’ve seen in the last few years.  On average, aren’t they mainly mediocre?  But isn’t it great when you discover a small gem and have the forum to praise it and live in the hope that someone is going to take notice? 

Keep writing, keep reviewing, keep taking notes at screenings, hold lazy writers and directors accountable, and don’t worry about the troll in his mom’s basement calling you a "F*****R". 

Besides, for all we know, that might be my dad writing a personal note to me for seeing too many films.  No kidding, he even said that La La Land was one of the worst movies he’d ever rented.  For real.  Nope. We won’t be talking movies again.

Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3000

by The Massie Twins

Alien

In 1979, one of the greatest horror movies of all time could have been Prophecy - an environmentally-conscious thriller from veritable, veteran, master-of-suspense director John Frankenheimer (the man behind the pulse-pounding The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and sci-fi noir Seconds (1966)). But instead, because its plot was slow, meandering, and unfocused; its set designs were uninspired, incomplex, and simply not scary; and its monster effects were shoddy (the gawky, killer bear-thing mustered chuckles rather than screams), a different picture from 1979 took the opportunity to make its mark.

Ridley Scott’s Alien was, in many ways, set to fail in the same fantastic fashion in which Jaws could have collapsed under its own ambitions just four years earlier. From a director who was still learning the ropes to an ungainly, titular antagonist that malfunctioned regularly, Alien could have been a bumbling disaster - much like Prophecy. But in the acting, the environments, the photography, the sound, the tone of the film, the editing, and certainly the visual effects, Alien managed, perhaps miraculously, to look impeccable; everything somehow came out all right.

"You know, Sigourney, it’s better if you don’t look in the camera," the then 28-year-old actress was brusquely told by Ridley Scott, who himself had only one film to his name. Incredibly, the role was also originally written for a man. But this unlikely heroine became so striking, particularly with the earnest way in which she responded to all of the harrowing scenarios (Ridley purposely kept the alien components hidden from the crew, as much as possible, so that their reactions would be genuine), that she would remain the one true constant between three theatrical sequels.

"As soon as you accept a script like this, you begin to worry about what you’re going to do with the man in the rubber suit," said Scott, just as pre-production got underway, addressing a fear - and a failure - that became unfortunately realized by Frankenheimer’s Prophecy. Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger saved the day for Alien (despite being dismissed at one point by the producers, who thought his early concepts were far too repugnant) with his grotesquely erotic creature designs, crafted primarily from an existing painting entitled Necronom IV. Not only did Giger invent the alien itself, he also contributed to the derelict ship, the fossilized space jockey prop (a towering, 24-foot, behemoth sculpture), the uninhabitable planet, and the egg/facehugger combo (which was deemed so inappropriately vagina-like that the single-slit opening was censored/edited into a cross shape - much to Giger’s amusement, as one vagina essentially became two). It’s also difficult to dismiss the uncomfortably obscene nature of the facehugger, which commits oral rape to impregnate its victim, and the phallic shape of the chestburster, which mirrors the adult version’s cranium. "Giger did this black cockroach from hell," mused concept artist Ron Cobb. "When you saw the suit standing in this little bay where Giger was sculpting it, you would actually flinch when you walked in the room. It was really terrifying."

The story might not be the most original: a crew of seven are slowly picked off one-by-one in a haunted house in space (many critics of the time even likened several specifics to Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965), which did conspicuously feature an oversized, mummified humanoid in a dilapidated ship). But if ever there was a film to take such a practiced premise and radically upend it through alarmingly advanced visuals, it was this one. From its claustrophobic, labyrinthine spaceship corridors, to the otherworldly, windswept planet, to the obvious set pieces of gore and mutilative attacks, Alien is very much a movie of significant, unforgettable, horrifying frames, hauntingly strung together to maximum effect. Although, upon its release, many of the more gruesome set pieces (primarily the chestburster sequence) would become emphases of conversation, the structuring of these moments is nothing short of archetypal. Perhaps what makes it all work together so well is that every second is handled with the utmost sincerity and severity; comic relief is virtually nonexistent and the cast members take their parts completely seriously.

The little details are also spectacularly winning: the casual, believable small talk between space truckers, mostly focused on monetary incentives; the Mother interface room, glittering with patterns of lights that are just off-putting enough to distract from the outdated computers themselves; and, of course, the macabrely hypnotizing, convoluted, biomechanical layouts of Giger's artwork come to life. Humidity also plays a prominent role as one of the most notable of the minor details (something elementary yet effective, which doesn’t find its way into enough low-budget pictures): oxygen/carbon dioxide is emitted from spacesuits and venting apparatuses in the form of heavy steam; obnubilating fog tumbles across the alien planet’s surface; the floors and walls of the derelict ship glisten with rigid beads of moisture; at some point, every character sweats indiscreetly; and the monster itself is so overloaded with viscid fluids that it salivates continuously.

The fact that the hapless explorers are commercial mining employees and not experienced archeologists or military rescuers, is also brilliant - as is the order in which the characters are dispatched, starting off with some of the more confident decision-makers and superiors in the chain of command. This ties into the use of problems that arise outside of the monster itself (an evil company unconcerned with safety protocols; unexpected betrayals; damage to the ship; faulty lights; and a lack of adequate weaponry) - a tactic employed by many of the best horror films of the era. Jump-scares also make an appearance, along with familiar but dependable gimmicks - like the graininess of camera feeds and the cutting out of video and sound during the planet's investigation, loudly knocking over a random item, or a blaring self-destruct clarion. Jerry Goldsmith's music must also be mentioned (it contains some nicely unforeseen, playful notes), along with the script’s superb use of foreshadowing (dialogue such as ...like he exploded from inside, and If we break quarantine, we could all die; the discovery of molted skin; and a deviously suspenseful motion-tracking device).

Aliens

Taking an astonishingly long time (especially by Hollywood standards) to churn out a sequel, James Cameron's Aliens (1986) would prove to be worth the wait. The tone and style shifted dramatically, as Cameron’s vision become something of a war-torn, Vietnam-like battleground of ill-preparedness (with platoons being outgunned and outmanned) in a hostile, foreign terrain, amplified by equal helpings of cockiness and skepticism. In this direct follow-up, plenty of time has passed, but the threat is chillingly familiar. Graduating from a single, confined location to a far vaster array of tunnels, sub-levels, vehicles, docking bays, and medical centers - and increasing the enemy from a lone infiltrator to an organized, established colony of more than a hundred - Aliens aimed to expand upon nearly every premise touched upon in the original. And it also added a pronounced amount of high-octane adventure, giving this entry in the franchise the rare distinction of being an action movie just as much as a horror film.

The alien eggs are more elaborate, gooier, and reveal more striking hints of the scorpion hellion buried beneath organ-like sacs of fluid. The facehugger, which was formerly a stiff, rubbery carcass after its throat-violating mission was accomplished, has become a spidery, lightning-fast assailant that lunges from lofty perches or scurries across floors on bony fingers. The chestburster now possesses arms and a greater range of movements, all while its entrance boasts inflated unease with the combination of a female victim who begs for a swift mercy-killing, more dismaying sound effects, and the body-horror of binding organic secretions. And the adult drones are now plentiful and flexuous, shot with altered frame rates to generate eerie, insectoid movements and behaviors. If all of these exaggerations in the xenomorph (a term coined for use on these singular extraterrestrials) life cycle wasn’t impressive enough, Cameron also designed a mother alien to lead her brood. Based on paintings by the director himself, legendary effects wizard Stan Winston crafted the imposing monstrosity (a marvel of animatronics and slime) that would be dubbed the "Alien Queen", which contributed to an epic showdown between the universe’s toughest female fighters. Lesser components are also conceptually escalated, including a motion-tracking device, an android revelation, and the motives of the deviously omniscient Company. It would seem that Aliens took everything to the next level - a level so high that future iterations had no where left to go (as painfully evidenced by Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection).

What these two seminal sci-fi masterpieces ushered in was a slew of derivations and rip-offs that plagued the ‘80s and ‘90s. But if an aspiring filmmaker was to copy another artist’s work, there really is no better place to start than with Alien and Aliens. The list of films that drew inspiration from these sources is virtually endless. Among them are wholly watchable, entertaining B-movies, as well as mediocre efforts and downright laughable works of plagiarism. Some of the better attempts include projects like Deepstar Six (1989), The Terror Within (1989), Leviathan (1989), Species (1995), Mimic (1997), Virus (1999), and even Life (2017). The tawdrier ventures include Parasite (1982), Contamination (1982), Xtro (1982), Biohazard (1985), Creature (1985), Syngenor (1990), Screamers (1995), Pandorum (2009), and Splice (2010). But, by far, the most despicable, contemptible, trashiest imitation of Scott and Cameron’s contributions to the genre is Alien 3000.

Alien 3000

If Alien is the ultimate haunted-house-in-space picture, and Aliens is the apex of action and horror united (and the epitome of an anti-space-opera), Alien 3000 is the absolute worst of each of those ideas combined. If it wasn’t bad enough that the movie is virtually irredeemable in its shabbiness, the advertising for it is something altogether, differently reprehensible. The DVD cover art actually depicts a creature from the wrong movie (it's from the 1997 film Breeders) and, unfortunately, it never makes even a guest appearance in this one. There's also not a single reference to the year 3000. This just might be the single most disastrous exploitation of the Alien legacy ever made. Despite countless derivations produced up to this point (it was released in 2004), and countless others manufactured afterwards, Alien 3000 is so bad that its dreadfulness just might never be topped.

The title graphics are oddly reminiscent of Alien: Resurrection, with glowing green text and glimpses of the model used for the starring abomination - which is so pitifully designed that it isn't even as articulated as a child's toy. The film then opens on a peeping tom with binoculars spying on a couple as they make out (he cringingly uses the phrase "little jack rabbits" as slang for the woman's exposed breasts). The three of them are actually all part of the same group, studying seismic readings in the area. When a 6.0 quake opens up a cavern in the side of a mountain, the threesome venture inside to discover ancient gold artifacts (including conquistador-like swords encrusted with rubies) and ominous shadows moving around in the back of the cave. Of course, the first creature to emerge is a tiny bat, scaring the shapely blonde - before a much larger, nearly invisible humanoid (very much like a Predator) swiftly decapitates her.

But it's all part of a nightmare, revealing that lone survivor Katie Simmons (Megan Malloy) - from a previous attack that unfolded identically to the opening scene - is plagued by graphic visions during her incarceration at the Thorton Psychiatric Clinic (a set that never gets more intricate than an apartment kitchen). When a park ranger stumbles upon the dead bodies of the hikers in real life, it's up to the Bureau of Paranormal Research to get to the bottom of it. Katie is then visited by BPR agents (technically called detectives from the Office of Paranormal Investigations), to whom she reveals that the brutal slayings are somehow connected to the cursed treasure in the cave - and that her precognitive abilities are linked to the mysterious monster. Somewhere along the line, the government hires mercenaries, led by Sergeant McCool (Christopher Irwin), to explore the cavern and, if possible, to capture the anathema.

The head of the BPR, Sheila (played by Priscilla Barnes), can't seem to deliver her dialogue clearly - perhaps because she refuses to remove the eraser-end of a pencil from between her lips. "I understand. I do have a Ph.D. in psychiatry," retorts lead investigator Carla (Shilo May), outlining what the filmmakers believe to be necessary verbiage for character development. The remainder of the supporting roles are counterparts for the Colonial Marines from Aliens - from the tough female fighter; to the cocky, expletive-spewing soldiers; to the calmer, controlled commander. One guy does nothing but sharpen his knife on a whetstone; another totes a paintball bazooka for anticipated downtime; and one of the indistinguishable troopers likes to spit or chew on a cigar.

The production is extremely low-budget, sporting all the trademarks of prohibitively limited resources and hasty filmmaking. The actors are terrible (Lorenzo Lamas, who takes top billing, appears for a couple of minutes and then vanishes, only to reappear for very brief additional sequences - wherein he does little more than pose with his shotgun or a pirate sword; he's very much a Z-grade action star in the first place, here also serving as an associate producer); footage is reused; the ADR is considerably off; the costumes and armory are all unmatched or misshapen; the soldiers' rations are just granola bars; and the mercenaries never go any deeper into the cavern than the entrance (presumably because the budget couldn’t accommodate an additional set). One of the characters even calls his companion by the wrong name, while another moment shows the exchange of hand signals - and then the spoken line, Did you see that? which, of course, negates the need for hand signals. To further make a mockery of all things sci-fi and horror, Alien 3000 includes panicky conversations getting broken up by the more level-headed members; weapons being dramatically loaded with ammunition; an unglamorous, comical sex scene; specialist Phoebe (Phoebe Dollar) cheering on the alien as it attacks a deserter; and Kate continually awaking from nightmares, screaming directly at the camera, on no less than six separate occasions.

Additionally stealing from Aliens, the characters must wait for a helicopter to return to pick them up (a dust-off), only to realize that the creature has climbed aboard, resulting in the vehicle's destruction; motion-trackers that have blips for movement (though they don't actually move) are hefted; there’s a suicide by grenade; and a military march plays subtly in the background. The movie even proceeds to defraud Independence Day, with an alien who communicates through the vocal cords of its human victim, and Predator, through the use of an invisibility cloak, infrared imagery for the monster's visual perspective, and green blood. And there are also sporadic flashbacks to an entirely different movie, which is never explained. However, this becomes clearer to anyone aware of the fact that Alien 3000 was previously released as Unseen Evil 2 (a loose sequel to the equally deplorable Unseen Evil from 2001, which was itself also released under the title The Unbelievable). In the case of this exceedingly shabby filmic endeavor, it would be far wiser to simply re-watch the aforementioned 1979 and 1986 contemporary classics; sometimes, it’s just not gratifying to seek out obscure copycats of beloved masterpieces. One can only hope that Ridley Scott’s 2017 film Alien: Covenant - his first official prequel to use the title Alien - can redeem (or perhaps erase) the plenitude of pitiable attempts at recreating the awe of his 1979 magnum opus.

In a Post-Truth World, Look to Cinema

By: Ryan Bordow

Has a movie ever fundamentally changed the way you think?

Fight Club

The first time a film hijacked my ideological process was somewhat stereotypical for a teenage boy. It was spring break, I was 16, and my cousin found out that I hadn’t seen David Fincher’s cult classic Fight Club. My parents — who were, at that point, fairly puritanical about what movies I was allowed to watch — were gone all week, so my cousin brought Fight Club over with the reverence that some have for religious texts. Off went the lights; on went the ritualistic rite of passage: a young man’s first engagement with the movie’s philosophical explorations of manhood and consumerism.

Fight Club

That day is largely responsible for two things: my desire to be a filmmaker, and my never-ending inclination to question authority structures (including those of capitalist systems, as the movie’s characters would’ve wanted). My young peers at the time were unconvinced that “a movie about men fighting in a basement” could prompt such a drastic sociopolitical conversion. Seeing art as a force for change was pretentious well wishing, a niche belief for the kids without confidence in themselves.

That attitude has pervaded into many adult lives. A host of filmmakers and actors have voiced outspoken political opinions lately, but they’ve been repeatedly shot down by cries of “they’re just Hollywood elites”, or — in the words of one Facebook commenter — “they work in make-believe and don’t live in the real world.”

But what if cinema has more truth to reveal than its dissenters (or even its supporters) expect? In the past few years, some of the world’s most powerful people have cast aside the pursuit for truth like it’s an inconvenience. Scholars have taken to defining the world’s current state as “post-truth”. Hopefully, I can convince you that the consumption of worthwhile art is an antidote to this acceptance of artifice. It’s more important than ever to sit down, turn the lights off, and watch a good movie — whether your authority figures want you to or not.

 

Is Cinema Just Make-Believe?

Arrival

Documentaries aside, movies are typically fictional accounts. Even movies that are based on true stories are fictionalized to add a degree of entertainment or dramatic flair. So yes, on the surface, cinema involves a bit of “make-believe”. But there’s more to take into account.

One of the crucial pieces of advice given to screenwriters (besides “show, don’t tell”) is “write what you know”. If a filmmaker is going to commit the necessary time, money, and soul to tell a story in cinematic form, they’d better shape their vision around aspects of the human experience that they know well. We don’t want to watch movies lacking in conflicts or characters that we can identify with.

That's demonstrable. You may not have fought wars in space, but you might identify with the pressures of living up to a path already set before you. You probably haven’t battled mutant hunters with your adamantium claws, but you might understand the feeling of watching your old friends vanish from your life while you struggle for purpose. You definitely haven’t had tense conversations with a self-aware artificial intelligence, but you might have questioned what it means to be human.

Point is: whether filmmakers are expressly trying to make a point or not, cinematic storytelling echoes human experience, no matter how “make-believe” the outer narrative. It’s impossible for a film made by a human being to not have subtext — though the depth and intention of that subtext certainly vary.

Big Fish

This phenomenon is demonstrated with emotional resonance in Tim Burton’s masterwork Big Fish. A dying man’s estranged son visits home in an attempt to learn the truth about his father. Edward Bloom had raised his son Will on outlandish stories about his life, but Will is not satisfied with these unreal accounts and wants to hear his father’s actual history. Still, Edward and his surrounding community supply Will with stories of giants and werewolves and love stopping time — all visually rendered with colorful grace.

By the film’s end (spoiler alert!), Will discovers that the fantastical elements of his father’s stories were illuminating allegories for real personalities; real pain; real passion. Will then understands his father and the people around him more than he thought possible. The undercurrent of Edward Bloom’s stories was an attempt to capture otherwise indescribable feelings — and “make-believe” was the conduit that described them most truthfully.

Truth Behind the Scenes

Calvary

So fiction presented cinematically is a vehicle for genuine human expression. Sometimes filmmakers wish to communicate their worldview, other times it’s a side effect of translating a human being’s vision into movie form. Where does “truth” make its grand entrance? What’s the key ingredient of Fight Club (or Ex Machina, or Calvary, or another film with especial life-changing ability) that can start a receptive viewer on a journey of questions and authenticity?

A screenwriting professor once told me “events have no inherent meaning”. If this is how the universe works, then truth is subjective: individual experience shapes truth, and cinema is crafted from parts of individual experience with which we can identify. Truth lies therein by definition. If objective truth guides this universe, then pursuit of it throws us in community with millions of other people whose individual experiences differ from ours.

Either way, the key ingredient is empathy. Empathy is not a partisan issue; empathy dissolves cultural divide; empathy refuses class distinction. If truth is subjective, empathizing with another helps us garner their truth; if truth is objective, empathizing with another helps us glean the advances towards truth that they’ve accomplished. Thankfully, movies envelop our mind and senses with the genuine expression of another. Cinema is empathy.

The Cinematic Commission

Boys Don't Cry

In a world of temptations to toss truth aside, our charge might be to engage with great cinema. But simply watching a lot of movies isn’t enough: we must seek out cinema that fathoms the difficulty of truth. Avoid movies that divorce conflicts and characters from reality in order to flaunt messages without nuance; look for films that weave understanding of the human condition into every frame. If they can entertain and engross all the while, even better (this is where the helpful opinions of film critics come in handy!)

An open mind is paramount. What truth can you find in Boys Don’t Cry if you’re not willing to empathize with the struggles of transgender people? What truth can you find in Arrival if you’re uninterested in the language of someone completely unlike you? When the lights go down, switch on a heart wide open and a goal to understand.

Look to cinema like that, and our “post-truth world” is going to be just fine.

Baseball in the Movies

A Tale of Two Pastimes

By Jon Hueber

It's spring here in Arizona, which means longer days, warmer temperatures, and MLB Spring Training. For six weeks, the valley plays host to 15 of the 30 MLB teams, as they train for the grueling season ahead. While baseball is on the minds of many, film lovers have a lot to be excited for too. Awards season is over, the Phoenix Film Festival is on the horizon, and Hollywood is just now starting to roll out some of its bigger offerings, as the summer blockbuster season begins earlier and earlier.

So here, in Arizona, we see a convergence of these two pastimes as baseball and movies seemingly come together to give fans the best of scripted and unscripted entertainment. But baseball and the movies have so much more in common than just the time of year.

Baseball has long been considered a sport of poetry or prose. The constant confrontation between pitcher and batter is a story in itself, with a good guy and a bad guy battling it out, depending on whom you're rooting for. There is high drama with every pitch, and the blockbuster eruption of a booming home run swing that can change a game much like Bruce Willis can change the plans of a bunch of thieves at a Christmas party.

Baseball and the movies go so well together that the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, has an entire exhibit dedicated to the convergence. The exhibit features costumes and props, and some really interesting facts about the films made about the beloved sport.

Here are some of the most iconic baseball movies, in no particular order, that really highlight how our two pastimes have come together to create magic.

Pride of the Yankees

Gary Cooper's turn as Lou Gehrig in 1942's Pride of the Yankees marks one of the earliest marriages between film and hardball. In fact, baseball players in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s were just as big as movie stars, with icons like Babe Ruth, himself the feature of more than a handful of movies, Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle commanding the same level of attention as Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and James Cagney. Pride of the Yankees used Lou Gehrig's diagnosis of ALS, and his subsequent retirement from the sport he loved, as the basis for the drama, and it worked on every level, creating one of the most heart-wrenching and memorable baseball movies ever, and most of it is based on true events.

The Icons

True stories of baseball icons have always been great foundations for movies. The Babe Ruth Story (1948) featured William Bendix as the Bambino, and the film covered Ruth's rise and reign over baseball, culminating in his mythical called shot in Chicago during the 1932 World Series. The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) actually featured Jackie Robinson in the starring role, telling the story of how he and Branch Rickey (Minor Watson) broke the color barrier in organized sports and changed not only baseball, but all sports forever. In 1952's The Pride of St. Louis, Dan Dailey portrayed hall of fame St. Louis Cardinal Dizzy Dean, one of the best pitchers of his era.

Damn Yankees

Not all baseball movies featured heart breaking, or inspiring true stories. Damn Yankees (1958) starring Tab Hunter, Gwen Verdon, and Ray Walston was a film adaption of a popular Broadway musical, with song and dance numbers and plenty of laughs, which showed that baseball could be fun too.

You're Killing Me Smalls

Baseball is a kids game, when it comes down to it, and Hollywood has tapped into that market multiple times with movies that feature the impact baseball has on children. The Bad News Bears (1976) featured Walter Matthau giving up drinking long enough to coach a dysfunctional little league team. The film was a huge success and created a franchise for a time in the 1970s. Skipping ahead a bit, films like The Sandlot , Rookie of the Year (both 1993), Angels in the Outfield, and Little Big League (both 1994) inspired a generation of young filmgoers. Seriously, mention the line, "You're killing me smalls" to anyone in their 20s or 30s and you will get a smile.

The 80s

The 1980s saw some of the best baseball movies ever. Robert Redford was The Natural (1984), Kevin Costner turned a cornfield into a baseball diamond in Field of Dreams (1989), and also took an inexperienced, but talented Tim Robbins under his wing in Bull Durham (1988), a film that many professional MLB ball players consider the best baseball movie ever. The 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal was the basis of Eight Men Out (1988), and Neil Simon wrote the story for 1985's The Slugger's Wife, starring Michael O'Keefe and Rebecca De Mornay. But the '80s also produced one of the funniest sports films ever with 1989's Major League.  The film features Tom Berenger, Corbin Bernsen, Wesley Snipes, and Charlie Sheen leading the sad sack Cleveland Indians to the pennant against all odds. Major League would get a sequel in 1994, and a third film was released, but by then, the series had gassed itself out.

There's No Crying in Baseball

Tom Hanks and Geena Davis teamed up in 1992 for A League of Their Own, a film dedicated to the women who took up the sport during World War II while the boys were overseas fighting evil. The ensemble cast, which also featured Madonna, Lori Petty, and Rosie O'Donnell introduced movie lovers to an element of our nation's pastime that they may not have known before, and did so with laughs and tears and history. A League of Their Own continues to resonate nearly 25 years later, and is up there with the best baseball movies. Plus, it reminded us that there's no crying in baseball.

Now At Bat

Recent films about baseball have carried on the tradition, with some major league talent involved. Films like Moneyball (2011), starring Brad Pitt, Trouble With The Curve (2012), starring Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams, and 42 (2013), starring Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, have proven that the marriage between baseball and film is still strong, and will continue to thrill fans of both -- or either -- going into the future.

This list is in no way comprehensive of the films about baseball. It is only meant to highlight how, for almost 100 years, the two pastimes have come together time and again to thrill and entertain audiences, whether they are in the stands on a warm June evening, or a dark theater in late July. Baseball and movies have a long and storied history together, and as baseball has been the backbone of our society for the last 150 years, film, too, has contributed to what makes America, well, America. Baseball and the movies are meant to go together like the battery of a pitcher and catcher, and while they don't need each other to succeed, when they work together as a team, fans are the true winners.

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh, people will come Ray. People will most definitely come." - James Earl Jones' Terence Mann to Kevin Costner's Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams.

Where is The Final Girl?

by Matthew Robinson

Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

“When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” - Edgar Allen Poe

In 1992, Carol J. Clover wrote about the horror genre’s division among the sexes with particular emphasis on the female victim and male murderer. Clover designated the woman survivor of these films "The Final Girl" and noted that the survivor often embodied a specific set of qualities, such as being chaste and of sound moral character. Has this notion of "The Final Girl" continued to persist in the horror genre today, 25 years later, or have new patterns begun to emerge?

Who is The Final Girl?

From left: Olivia Hussey in "Black Christmas"; Marilyn Burns in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"; Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween"; Amy Steel in "Friday the 13th, Part 2"; and Jan Jensen in "The Last Slumber Party."CreditFrom left: Bev Rockett/World Pictures Corporation/Warner Bros. Pictures, via Photofest; Bryanston Distributing Company, via Photofest; Trancas International Films/Anchor Bay Entertainment; Paramount Pictures, via Photofest; B. and S. Productions

As Clover outlined, The Final Girl carries a set of signifying qualities. She is an intelligent and levelheaded individual and is usually the first to sense that something wicked this way comes. The audience most closely relates to her character as both The Final Girl and viewers anticipate the horror that awaits them.

The Final Girl is pure, sexually inexperienced, and free of drug and alcohol use, vices that often lead other characters toward their deaths. The Final Girl may also lack gender-defining qualities and be, for example, a Tomboy, which allows for gender fluidity between The Final Girl and the audience. She may take on more masculine qualities as she seeks to defeat her villain, using phallic weapons such as a knife or machete to slay her demon. She is not a damsel in distress but a hero by the end of the film. She is someone that both male and female viewers can identify with and root for along the way.

Clover also urges viewers to approach the typical slasher film through a feminist lens. While the female heroin becomes masculine in her efforts to survive, the male killer thus becomes more feminine as the film unwinds. The viewer often learns that the killer has a stunted sexuality or physical anomaly, suggesting a damaged masculinity that ignites his desire to kill.

The Final Girl progressively transforms into a more masculine version of herself as she survives each encounter with the killer. This challenges the long-standing tradition of the male hero. But while the masculine qualities The Final Girl takes on are necessary for her survival, so is the need for her character to remain female to preserve the overall balance of the film.

The history of The Final Girl

It seems worthwhile to examine the horror genre up through the present day and highlight those films that continue to embody Clover’s theory of The Final Girl. The following examples trace the development of The Final Girl over time as well as the unique challenges The Final Girl presents to the male norm of heroism.

Leatherface and his chainsaw.

Clover regards Sally from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) as the first major example of The Final Girl within the horror genre. Clover acknowledges that Marion Crane’s sister Lila in Psycho (1960) may be considered the inaugural instance of The Final Girl, but Lila is such a minor character that Sally seems a better model.

In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a deranged family of ex-slaughterhouse workers terrorizes and kills Sally’s friends and brother before going on to torture Sally herself. Sally escapes and is chased by the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface along with another member, “the hitchhiker”, of the slaughterhouse family. Sally eventually reaches the highway and is saved by a passing semi-truck driver. The film ends with Leatherface swinging his chainsaw around in defeat.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis)

Laurie Strode from the Halloween (1978) series is a second example of a classic Final Girl. Laurie exemplifies the qualities Clover lays out in her theory: she’s a virginal Tomboy and is the only character to first notice and understand the villain’s, Michael Myers’s, motives. She successfully outwits Myers’s repeated attacks and survives.

Stretch and her chainsaw

The character Stretch in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) symbolizes a unique turn in the horror genre. This turn is one of reflectivity as director Tobe Hooper openly addresses the gendered nature of the slasher flick. In the sequel, Leatherface and Chop Top terrorize a radio talkshow host. Although Stretch is not unsullied, she makes herself unavailable to suitors. At one point, Leatherface corners her in a radio station. With his chainsaw revving, Stretch begins to charm Leatherface, and Leatherface returns her seductiveness with grunting sounds of pleasure. As a result, Leatherface releases Stretch and in a sense protects her by leading Chop Top to believe that he has indeed killed her. At the film’s climax, a large explosion kills most of the family and only Chop Top survives. Stretch turns the tables on Chop Top by grabbing a chainsaw and slicing him in half. The film ends with Stretch waving her chainsaw around—a reference to the original film.

The way the two Chainsaw films end, Sally saved by a man and left screaming and then Stretch left yielding a chainsaw after saving herself, may be a mark as to the progressive nature of the horror genre and changes to the standard Final Girl formula.

Neve Campbell as Sydney Prescott in Scream (1996)

Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven’s semi-satirical slasher Scream (1996) bends Clover’s theory a bit as well. The film famously lays out the rules for surviving a slasher film: no drugs, no sex, and never say “I’ll be right back.” Sidney is atypical of the classic Final Girl in that she has sex with her boyfriend, a man who is later revealed to be one of the two killers in the film. Although Sidney breaks the no sex rule, her sexual experience is still morally sound because she is in a committed relationship with someone she loves. Although Scream updates and modernizes Clover’s theory, the moral code remains in tact with the audience.

Alex, The Final Girl in High Tension

Alexandre Aja’s High Tension (2003) throws an interesting curveball into the slasher genre by featuring a killer who first appears male but is later revealed to be female. The film unhinges Clover’s theory a bit more by suggesting that the female killer, Marie, is driven to kill out of mad love for The Final Girl, Alex. This gender swap surprise re-envisions the classic slasher model into something more contemporary and perhaps marks the beginning of the end for the slasher film.

Amber Heard is Mandy Lane

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) continues the reimagining of gendered horror roles. In this film, a hooded killer appears to adhere to classic slasher rules. For example, a young woman performs oral sex on a young man and is killed moments later. However, in the end the killer is revealed to be two people: one man and one woman, but the woman eventually proves to be the real killer between the two of them.

In both High Tension and Mandy Lane, the slasher film is flipped on its head. Females take on both the masculine survivor and masculine killer roles. These two films openly play with the audience’s expectation to see certain roles portrayed within specific gender molds. The reason both films feel like they have twist endings is because the audience never expects the killers to be women.

The slasher film seems to die off to some degree at this point in time. The waxing and waning of the popularity of sub-genres is normal, especially in horror. Mixed into the early 2000s are remakes of classic slasher flicks such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween. These remakes do little to change the classic formula and are not notable enough to spend time on here.

Today's Final Girl

More recently, two films have emerged that are post-Final Girl: they have a self-reflective quality and comment directly on the essential qualities of The Final Girl. The Final Girls (2015) and Final Girl (2015) openly acknowledge Clover’s ideas.

In The Final Girls, the daughter of an actress from a famous slasher film called Camp Bloodbath gets sucked into the film itself. Since her mother died in a car accident, getting sucked into the film gives the girl a chance to reconnect with her mom. She tries to keep her mother virginal and alive in hopes of bringing her out of the film and back into the real world. She knows the rules, the idea of the Final Girl, and actively uses it to her advantage.

In Final Girl, a young woman is trained from a young age to go after a group of college boys who murder women. Again the film plays with the notion of a Final Girl as defined by Clover by having its main character aware of the rules. Curiously, both films uphold what all slashers tend to: the feminine transforms to the masculine to defeat the killer.

Where does the transformation of the horror film now place the idea of The Final Girl and Clover’s brilliant analysis of the slasher flick? The slasher film has become self-aware due in part to the aforementioned 2015 films. As the horror genre cycles through different trends—such as the haunted house and supernatural phenomenon—it is interesting to ponder when the classic slasher will regain popularity. Will it return to its roots or be reimagined into something new?

Clover herself was careful not to give too much credit to slashers for showcasing empowered female characters. Gendered roles still exist in horror films today, but it does seem like the genre has progressed. One can look at recent horror films such a Robert Eggers’s The Witch, Gerard Johnstone’s Housebound, or Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane to find strong female characters that do not need to transform into masculine versions of themselves to overcome their villains. Instead, their femininity is viewed as the source of their strength.  

The Final Girl may today be a thing of the past. Looking at the year ahead in horror, the paranormal theme still reigns supreme with Insidious Chapter 4, Annabelle 2, and Rings as forthcoming releases in 2017. If the slasher does come back, one must imagine that the gendered roles Clover uncovered in 1992 will continue to morph and evolve. Until then, The Final Girl seems to be lying dormant like a masked killer waiting for its next sequel. Clover’s theory will continue to stand as a useful looking glass with which to trace the transformation of the female as a poetic victim to an empowered, masculine individual capable of surviving so many of the horror genre’s greatest stories.

The Future of Cinema isn’t Doomed… Yet

By Brent Hankins

Family members and acquaintances often marvel at the number of films I see each year, and although my 2016 total far exceeded that of any previous year (to be fair, I attended three film festivals), I'll readily admit that even in a “normal” year, I probably spend far more time staring at a theater screen than your average consumer. It's not uncommon for someone I know to discover how many films I absorb and to shake their head in bewilderment. "I don't understand how you do it," they might say. "There are hardly any good movies anymore."

I beg to differ.

This is an argument I've encountered with somewhat alarming frequency over the past few years, and not just from people in my personal life. You can throw a rock and hit any number of blog posts or editorials about the perceived decline of cinema, and even some of the fabled "Hollywood elite" are getting into the mix. In 2015, Dustin Hoffman told Vanity Fair that film is "the worst it's ever been" in his 50-year career, and Ridley Scott recently trashed the superhero genre and said he thinks "cinema mainly is pretty bad."

Admittedly, there's a part of me that feels inclined to cautiously agree with these sentiments, at least when it pertains to mainstream fare - but the beauty of cinema is that it doesn't have to be limited to the mainstream. Despite what trailers and Facebook ads and social media marketing accounts might have you believe, there are other options available.

 

Wandering off the beaten path

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

That's not to say that I have something against mainstream cinema as a whole - on the contrary, I loved Captain America: Civil War and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story just as much as the next person. But I also feel that films of this caliber tend to be the exception, rather than the rule, and in my experience I'm less likely to come away disappointed with a smaller film that was produced by a passionate team, rather than a major studio tentpole that was engineered to appeal to the widest conceivable audience and generate as much box office revenue as possible.

Moonlight (2016)

The thing about exceptional films is that you're often required to wander off the beaten path in order to track them down. For example, consumers probably encountered significantly more commercials and advertisements for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back than they did for Moonlight, despite the fact that both were released on the same date.

The difference is that one of those films had an expensive marketing campaign and opened on more than 3700 screens, and the other did not. But I'd be willing to bet that on the average, audiences who chose the latter walked away with an experience unlike anything they'd ever seen onscreen before, whereas moviegoers who opted for the former just got to watch Tom Cruise punch people for two hours.

Green Room (2015)

The reality is that 2016 offered an impressive collection of stellar films, but many of them flew under the radar of the average consumer. Festival hits like Green Room, Swiss Army Man and Everybody Wants Some opened to disappointing numbers and evaporated from theaters in a matter of weeks, overshadowed by major studio releases such as The BFG, Legend of Tarzan and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. 

And while some of these smaller titles may eventually find their audience via streaming services and home video sales, the truth is critical acclaim will never carry as much weight as box office performance. Opening weekend numbers are still the most widely used measuring stick of success, and Hollywood financiers are becoming increasingly skittish about ponying up their cash for projects they don't view as guaranteed hits.

We can save cinema

I know this all sounds a bit hopeless, but it’s time for some good news: the future of cinema isn’t set in stone, and as consumers, we have the power to course-correct. Now more than ever, it’s important that we give new creators a chance to see their stories writ large on the big screen, that we give new voices a chance to be heard amid the ever-growing cacophony of content.

The Handmaiden (2016)

In 2016, Park Chan-wook’s brilliant erotic thriller The Handmaiden explored themes of patriarchy, lust and classism against the backdrop of Japan during the Korean occupation, while Chad Hartigan used warmth and humor to relate the story of a black father and his teenage son adjusting to life in Germany in Morris From America. And Barry Jenkins crafted a complex, heartbreaking and beautiful tale of a young man from the Miami projects coming to terms with his sexuality in Golden Globe Best Picture winner Moonlight.

None of these films had multi-million dollar marketing strategies, nor did they open in thousands of multiplexes across the country, and you won’t find them anywhere near the list of top-grossing films last year. But they told new stories from new points of view, gave audiences something that didn’t feel like it had been done before, and did so with poise, grace and authenticity. Films like these are a shining example of why representation and diversity are so crucial, and the embodiment of these ideals is something that deserves our support.

Morris From America (2016)

So if you truly love this art form and want to ensure its survival, then take the initiative to stray from the herd and wander the road less traveled. Open your mind to new ideas and new perspectives by attending a film festival, or by seeking out smaller films that may not appeal to the masses, but might just connect with you in a personal way. And when you find something you love, something that speaks to you on a level that X-Men: Apocalypse or Independence Day: Resurgence doesn't, make sure you spread the word so others might have the opportunity to enjoy the same type of experience.

Cinema isn't dead yet, dear reader - but if we aren't careful, we just might kill it. And if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not see that happen.

A Hollywood Christmas

by David Appleford

There’s something to keep in mind when looking back on the history of the Hollywood studio and its relationship with the Christmas movie.  Hollywood never liked them.  That’s not to say that those who run the studios were seasonal hating Scrooges.  Really, who doesn’t like a good Christmas movie when you’re in the mood?  It’s just that as a business, the studios never thought there was an audience big enough to warrant regular, yearly releases.  Strange but true.

Check the original poster 20th Century Fox used to promote its 1947 Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street. It shows Maureen O’Hara and her leading man, John Payne, dominating the foreground while Edmund Gwenn’s Santa is relegated to the back, the far back.  In fact, you can hardly make him out.  Studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck wanted his seasonal film released in May.  His argument was that more people went to the theatres in the summer, not the winter, and he was right.  The numbers were proof positive.  As a result, all indications of Christmas were immediately removed from the poster.  Miracle on 34th Street was considered a summer movie; the Christmas theme in the promotional hype was rarely mentioned. 

If you look at the broad yuletide spectrum of Hollywood and the big screen Christmas movie, you’ll see a pattern.  There’s a handful of classics from the forties and fifties, but it’s for the smallest of hands.  You know the films.  They’re shown every year on syndicated TV lead by the perennial favorite It’s a Wonderful Life, but here’s something interesting.  On its initial release, the Frank Capra directed classic struggled to find an audience.  Reviews were less than stellar.  One industry insider even reports that in 1947 the FBI became interested when it was asserted that the film was really Communist propaganda; it made the banker, Mr. Potter, the villain of the story.

Here’s a fast track through the decades.  During the sixties, you can look as much as you want, but in truth, there’s no real Hollywood seasonal movie interest to be found; the studios basically gave up the ghost of Christmas to TV where comedy specials, variety shows, Rudolph and A Charlie Brown Christmas reigned.  Even during the seventies, when it came to holiday entertainment, if it was a movie you were watching it was generally designed for the small screen, not the big.  But there was a definite breakthrough during the eighties.  (We’ll get to that in more detail in just a moment).  The nineties brought a steady stream of big screen holiday features to lure audiences away from the TV, even if, generally speaking, quality usually remained absent.  Then came the new millennium and Hollywood finally seemed to get a handle. 

Does Christmas = Christmas Movie?

Before we get to the specifics and a few recommendations, what would you say is the rule that constitutes a film to be a genuine Christmas movie?  Just because its setting is Christmas doesn’t mean that it’s a seasonal movie.  We all know that Die Hard takes place at Christmas, but be honest, when you first came out of the theatre during its original run did you really walk back to the car with the thought of sugar plums dancing in your head?  If the film hadn’t closed with Vaughn Monroe singing “Let it Snow!” over the end credits you’d have forgotten there was ever a Christmas tree in the Nakatomi building in the first place.

And, please, don’t call Brazil a Christmas movie, either.  We all know there are Christmas decorations in the offices, but, seriously, what kind of Grinch would gather the family around a cozy TV screen on Christmas Eve with everyone full of good cheer and hungry for more and then pop Brazil in the DVD player? 

Here are the rules, and they’re simple.  1) Taking place at Christmas is certainly important, granted, but not always required.  After all, guess what time of year Christmas in July took place.  The main aspect is 2) it has to be Christmas themed.   The 1970 musical Scrooge naturally qualifies, so does Disney’s One Magic Christmas.  Even the obscure and hard to find Holiday in Handcuffs qualifies, though anyone who considers themselves a fan of film and would intentionally subject themselves to that has to be smoking something stronger than just a seasonal cigar. 

Scrooge

Accepting that Christmas movie audiences are first and foremost looking to be entertained and couldn’t care less about Oscar material, once you’ve got White Christmas and those other above-mentioned earlier classics out of your system, the 1970 musical Scrooge directed by Ronald Neame is a great beginning.  If you look at everything seasonal released during the seventies, this musical version of A Christmas Carol is the only big screen production that celebrated the season in the way we would want most Christmas themed movies to be.  Bright, brash, tuneful and – excuse me while I wipe something from the corner of my eye – a total holiday joy.  The film was made hot on the success of that other big screen Charles Dickens musical, Oliver!  In fact, without Oliver! there might never have been a Scrooge.  It was filmed on many of the sound stages used in the ’68 musical and many of those same sets were dusted and brought out of storage. 

A Christmas Story

Hard to believe, but it was as recent as the eighties when Hollywood’s attitude to the Christmas movie changed.  It didn’t necessarily change its low output, but it proved one thing: Despite a studio belief that no one would go to see a Christmas movie on the big screen at holiday time, the eighties saw a turnaround, and it was all because of a collection of short stories written for Playboy by satirist Jean Shepherd called In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.  Director Bob Clark had scored such a surprising financial success with his teen-sex comedy Porky's that the studio gave him the go-ahead to film A Christmas Story.  The truth is, without Porky's there would never have been A Christmas Story.  The story of Ralphie and his desire for a Daisy Air Rifle has become a genuine, modern day, American classic whose popularity shows no signs of diminishing.

A Christmas Story was first released in November -- just before Thanksgiving -- 1983 and had all but disappeared from theaters before Christmas arrived. Such was the unexpected popularity of the film that complaints were sent to both the studio and theater owners for pulling the film out of circuit too early.  Some theaters relented and showed the film on select screens until the following year.  And it was because of that turn of events that the Hollywood approach to Christmas film distribution changed.  The voice of the narrator, which is supposed to be Ralphie as a grown man, is actually the author himself, Jean Shepherd.  Shepherd can also be seen in the film.  Look for a brief cameo in the department store scene where an irate man tells Ralphie he needs to get to the back of the line if he wants to see Santa. That’s Shepherd.  Plus, for the benefit of trivia buffs, the woman standing next to him is his real-life wife, Leigh Brown.

Because audiences suddenly flocked to A Christmas Story and even demanded it return to theatres once distributors pulled it off screens, other Christmas themed films slowly emerged but with more regularity.  It would take another decade for the genre to get into full, theatrical swing, but the eighties continued to produce several yuletide themed movies that are still popular today.  If it wasn’t for A Christmas Story, Hollywood may never have given the greenlight to Bill Murray in Scrooged or the low-budget 1989 family favorite, Prancer.    

The dawn of the quality christmas movie

The landscape for Christmas movies looked completely different in the nineties than all previous decades.  Suddenly, Christmas became box-office.  Like an avalanche of seasonal snow, Christmas movies became an expected part of those November/December releases.  That didn’t necessarily raise the quality quota.  In fact, most were pretty bad.  Titles like Santa with Muscles didn’t help.  And even though that last one did not star body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger, he did put some muscle behind his own nineties Christmas comedy, Jingle All the Way, which didn’t really help, either.  But there was Home Alone and Home Alone 2 which dominated the box-office on their subsequent nineties release dates.

Now, here’s the good news as we move forward.  Not only did leaving the twentieth century on New Year’s Eve mean fireworks, parties and a rise in designated drivers, it also must have done something to the suits in Hollywood.  Quality finally came to Christmas movies.  Let’s be honest, trying to find an all-round, satisfyingly good Christmas themed movie during most of the previous decades was as unlikely as discovering a Macy’s gift card in that final demand from Scrooge & Marley.  But from 2000 going-forward, Christmas movie prayers were answered.

The problem now when looking for films to recommend is not what to put on a movie list but what to leave off.  There are so many we could be talking about them from now until, well, Christmas.  For example, who wouldn’t want to recommend the 2004 animated feature, The Polar Express?  True, the early technique of Performance Capture animation made most of the human characters appear like talking cabbage patch dolls, but the film’s scenery looked spectacular.  

However, not everything with a seasonal flair released after 2000 was first class.  There were still all of those made for TV movies where any creativity began and ended with a catchy title, such as Santa Paws, Holidaze or Karoll’s Christmas.  Never seen them, never will.  For all I know they could be perfectly decent, but I’d be suspicious of a 2007 movie called What Would Jesus Buy?  Not exactly sure what the producers might be thinking of, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say... socks.

Bad Santa

Bad Santa is definitely not for the family, but it still qualifies as a Christmas movie.   Both Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray were considered for the part of Santa but both had to pull out due to other commitments.  It became Billy Bob Thornton’s role and he’s great in it.  The actor is even on record as saying that if he could go back in time and re-live favorite moments of his life, there are two chapters that stand out.  Making Bad Santa would be one of them.  He also said that he was flat out drunk during most of the film and staggered around the set intoxicated.  (And there we were thinking he was doing some of his best method acting).  For the record, the other favorite chapter was when he worked for the Arkansas Highway Department.  That’s not a joke, by the way.  That’s what he said.

Love Actually

Finally, the film that appears to have captured the affection of Christmas movie lovers with no sign of its popularity diminishing is the ensemble comedy to end all ensemble comedies.  Released in the United States on 14th November 2003, Love Actually is a romantic comedy set in London at Christmas and revolves around not one but several different intertwining stories performed by an ensemble of first-rate character actors, including Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightly and Hugh Grant.  For the record, the word 'actually' is spoken at least twenty-two times by various characters throughout the film.

You'll notice at the beginning and end of the film the setting is London's Heathrow Airport where several passengers who have just disembarked from their various flights are met by their families and loved ones. These were all real people acting naturally, their hugs and embraces caught on film.  Writer Richard Curtis, who was also given directing duties, sent a team of cameramen to the airport and had them remain there for a week filming anything that looked appropriate to the theme of the story.  Everyone who was caught by the camera was then asked if it was possible to use the footage for the movie.

Perhaps one of the most amusing behind-the-scenes stories is that of English actor Kris Marshall.  Marshall played the part of a young Brit called Colin, and Colin is convinced that the only way he can meet women who’ll appreciate him is if he flies to America for Christmas, which is exactly what he does. No sooner has he stepped off the plane and collected his suitcase full of condoms from the luggage carousel when he meets three young American women who are immediately attracted to his London accent.  They take him back to their apartment.  Yes, Christmas wishes, even Colin’s, can come true.  The story goes that Marshall had such a great time filming the moment when the girls undress him - a scene that required twenty-one takes until the actors got it right - that he actually gave back his pay-check for the day stating that because he had such a great time rehearsing the scene, he was willing to do it for free.  Personally, I’m thinking that in reality that might be one of those movie urban legends that grew with the telling, but then again, isn’t Christmas all about wanting to believe?  Let’s enjoy the story and just go with it. 

Those who have seen Love Actually talk of how the movie made them fall in love all over again; such is the power of this very funny and occasionally touching Christmas comedy. Though be warned.  If you have yet to see it and you’re thinking of a rental to help you get into the Christmas spirit, there’s one thing to keep mind; it’s adult in nature and earns its R rating. By all means enjoy, you'll have a great time, but keep the kids out of the room.

More than any other genre, ultimately the Christmas movie is something personal.  Like the same ol’ decorations your parents used to put up each year, it doesn’t matter if they’re tasteful or not, they’re what makes you feel warm and cozy in winter and represent what the season means to you.   Whether you have yet to find your favorite, maybe some of the films mentioned here will add to whatever brings you your own feelings of comfort and joy. 

So, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and here’s the really great thing about DVDs, Blu-Rays, rentals or downloads: Think about it, you don’t really have to wait until December to see them.