There are three basic types of spy stories: 1) the one about the ultra-skilled professional spy who is almost always successful, e.g., James Bond; 2) the one about the civilian amateur who gets caught up in spy stuff, e.g., Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps; and 3) the one that depicts professional spying as a dirty depressing ... read more »

In celebration of having just received via mail a copy of Amid Amidi’s marvelously illustrated book, Cartoon Modern, I am posting one of the defining classics of modernist animation, Flebus (1957), directed and scored by Ernest Pintoff for the Terrytoons studio under the supervision of genius animator/designer, Gene Deitch. The abstract “cartoon modern” style practiced ... read more »

Some conservatives apparently see Pixar’s Wall-E, with its images of a future ecologically devastated Earth, as a “carbon-phobic, Al Gore-worshiping, global-warming panic-mongering assault on capitalism, President Bush and U.S. prosperity.” But not Charlotte Allen at the Los Angeles Times – HAL bless her – and she explains why here.

Thomas M. Disch, who took leave of this world on July 4th, was one of our finest writers, an American Borges (for lack of a better comparison). What did he have to do with movies? Very little actually. However, he did love film, and he wrote a childrens’ book, The Brave Little Toaster, that inspired ... read more »

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, and Epic. According to Bob Gazzale, President of the AFI, “These countdowns are a collective opinion of leaders from across the film community,” and “Any ... read more »

The CGI performance-capture version of Angelina Jolie as “Grendel’s Mother” (the only name ever used to refer to her) in Robert Zemeckis’s 3-D Beowulf is just the latest in a line of cartoonishly exaggerated femmes fatales to be found in Zemeckis’s work. The first and most iconic of these is Jessica Rabbit (top) in Who ... read more »

Remember Sideways? The surprise independent hit comedy about a pair of middle-aged wine-lovers who go on a road trip to discover, uh, wine? (Or something like that.) If nothing else, Sideways was a tremendous shot-in-the-arm for the careers of its two male co-stars, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church. Want proof? This year, Paul Giamatti ... read more »

Like Alan Vanneman (below), I thoroughly enjoyed Monster House, a better-than-average computer-animated horror film for kids, with absolutely spectacular 3-D effects – if you’re fortunate enough to see it in that format. I have no doubt that the true auteur of the piece is co-producer Robert Zemeckis, who performed similar miracles with the 3-D IMAX ... read more »

If almost any director or screenwriter other than Richard Linklater had been given the opportunity to make Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly into a movie, I think their immediate reaction would have been, “This is too talky” “Show it, don’t say it!” “Action, not words!” and so on, reiterating all the conventional wisdom clichés ... read more »