#35 — The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) William Friedkin often insisted, and perhaps still maintains, that The Exorcist isn’t a horror movie. It’s perhaps understandable that the director would prefer avoiding having any sort of reductive label attached to a … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Thirty-Five
Popular taste has finally converged with the oeuvre of Joss Whedon. The writer-director has been a feverishly beloved cult hero since at least the point very early in the run of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it … Continue reading Though nothing will keep us together, we could steal time just for one day
The vast majority of the time, the reviewers at Spectrum Culture choose the material we write on, which means we sometimes build our own trends as writers. For example, I’ve already regularly claimed Vivian Girls and associated acts (including writing about the new Best Coast soon). Turns out I’ve also inadvertently developed a specialty for writing about movies centered on French prostitutes. Last fall, extremely positive festival buzz led me to ask for Bertrand Bonello’s House of Pleasures. Now my willingness to follow Juliette Binoche just about anywhere led to a more modern exploration of that particular European subculture. The … Continue reading Spectrum Check
#36 — Harold & Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971) Engaging in an exercise like this countdown naturally inspires the generation of all sorts of half-baked theories, trying to condense disparate ranges of films made by wildly different and unique directors into … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Thirty-Six
Adam’s Rib (George Cukor, 1949). Probably the apex of the onscreen collaborations between Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, largely because the storyline involving married attorneys facing off against one another in a high-profile trial allowed for the sort of warm, frightfully intelligent banter that served the duo best. For most of the film, the interplay is infectiously delightful, especially as presented by the sure lens of George Cukor, who demonstrates an unerring sense of timing, including knowing when to just lean back and let his stars cut back and forth across the frame. The screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson … Continue reading Campbell, Cukor, Curtiz, Gluck, von Donnersmarck
#37 — Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1973) Auteur theory was first posited in the mid-nineteen-fifties in the pages of Cahiers du cinéma, advocated most persuasively by a young French film critic named François Truffaut. Suggesting the director should be … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Thirty-Seven
Cabin in the Woods, the new collaboration between Buffyverse compatriots Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, positions itself as a cheeky deconstruction of the horror movie. At it’s very best moments, and they are plentiful, it achieves something more: it becomes … Continue reading Deep in the woods a funeral is swinging
Given that this is Trivia weekend, I tried to take a little bit less for Spectrum Culture this week. However, I couldn’t quite resist a documentary about the drummer from Hole. It’s too bad it wasn’t as good as it could have been. I also pitched in on this week’s List Inconsequential feature, which gave me a chance to throw a few darts at an old Robert Zemeckis film. Continue reading Spectrum Check
I contributed a couple of pieces this week at Spectrum Culture. On the film side, I reviewed a French film based on a true story involving terrorists hijacking an airplane. While I didn’t expend much effort on this angle in the review, it’s sometimes very odd to see French filmmakers wrestle with the some of the established mechanics of action movies and thrillers without applying their deconstructionist tendencies. It really does wind up landing in some nether region between United 93 and Passenger 57. In the Music section, I reviewed the debut full-length effort from Alabama Shakes. From the editorial … Continue reading Spectrum Check
#38 — The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974) While it’s interesting to speculate on the various intricacies within the movie industry that led the American cinema of the nineteen-seventies to have a little more heft to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Thirty-Eight
Coffee for Two 