R.I.P. Jill Haworth (1945-2011)
Otto Preminger had a thing for saintly blondes. The best known of Preminger’s saintly – and hauntingly beautiful – blondes was Jean Seberg whom Preminger discovered and cast as the lead in his[…]
Tagged: epic
The Godfather’s Godfather
Classic films come about through a lucky combination of accident and inspiration. In the case of THE GODFATHER, one of writer/director Francis Coppola’s most inspired choices was to model his film not on[…]
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Poster Comparison No. 8 – The Holy Man and the Cataclysm
I like these two movie posters, one for Roland Emmerich’s 2012 (2009), the other for Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), and I suspect their similarity is anything but[…]
AFI’s 10 Top 10 Genre Omissions
Last week, the American Film Institute announced its list of “America’s 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres” – Animation, Romantic Comedies, Western, Sports, Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Gangster, Courtroom Drama,[…]
The Epic Actor – Charlton Heston (1923-2008)
To see Charlton Heston in person was to realize that some people are born to be movie stars. He had a larger-than-life presence on-screen. And off-screen as well. In 1980,[…]
Favorite Screenwriting Device No. 42 – The Sympathetic Listener
Zooey Deschanel (above) and Casey Affleck (below) in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Much has been written about the scene in There Will Be Blood[…]
Oscar-Bait 101: The WaRomancEpic
All genres are equal, but in the eyes of Hollywood, some genres are more equal than others. This becomes particularly apparent during awards season. (This year’s Academy Award nominations have[…]
There Will Be Blood – Missing Links
Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood Jason Robards as Earl Partridge in Magnolia, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman Robards with David Warner (left) in The Ballad of[…]
Kill Hagen! – Lang’s Kriemhild And Her Revenge
A 5-hour epic film in two parts about a bride who swears vengeance on the conspirators who killed her husband. That’s Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. It’s also an accurate description[…]
I Found One , The Good Shepherd
In my last blog post, I apologized for not locating any shots of cinematic waterboarding. Since then I managed to find one – from The Good Shepherd DVD. (Thanks to[…]
