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 version of Saint Joan (1957), but the archetype appears in his movies as far back as Alice Faye’s performance in Fallen Angel (1945 – the year ... read more »

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 other American gangster movies, but instead upon the visual style and structure of  Luchino Visconti’s 1963 masterpiece, THE LEOPARD (IL GATTOPARDO).  By choosing Visconti as his model, Coppola infused new life ... read more »

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 coincidental.  Both posters show Holy Men dressed in garments of flowing red and orange, both men perched on top of mountain peaks that overlook a world about ... 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 »

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, at the Los Angeles International Film Exposition (the now-defunct FILMEX), I watched him introduce with his characteristic charisma and grace a three-day marathon of epic ... read more »

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 in which Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) confesses his innermost feelings to his purported half-brother, Henry Brands (Kevin J. O’Connor). “I have a competition in me,” ... read more »

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 just been announced here.) Hollywood loves its biopics and its big-budget musicals, but if you really want to make sure your film gets those nominations, ... read more »

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 Cable Hogue The five films Paul Thomas Anderson has made to date fall neatly into two categories. On the one hand, there are the Altmanesque ... read more »

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 of Fritz Lang’s 1924 fantasy classic, Die Nibelungen, Part 1: Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried’s Death), and Part 2: Kriemhilds Rache (Kriemhild’s Revenge). Unlike Tarantino’s Bride, Lang’s ... read more »

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 Wikipedia for the hint.) Produced by Francis Coppola (among others) and directed by Robert De Niro, The Good Shepherd is an epic history of the ... read more »