When Patricia Highsmith left the theater after seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of her debut novel Strangers on a Train, several thoughts flew thr…
The Film Canon
A series of articles and reviews of older movies that have entered, well, the film canon, for being creatively or culturally important. Everything from Citizen Kane to The Breakfast Club to Fargo to The Dark Knight. So we can all create a diverse list of essential movies for the young folk cinephiles to watch
Film Canon: Moi, Un Noir (1958)
“These young people are torn between tradition and mechanization, between Islam and alcohol. They are faithful to their beliefs, but idolize modern st…
The Film Canon: Lucía (1968)
Alongside Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964), Humberto Solás’ Lucía (1968) was one of the formative texts of the new Cuban cinema established in the…
80 Years Later, Frank Capra’s naively idealistic You Can’t Take It With You seems more timely than ever
If Frank Capra’s cherubically bright and sunny screwball comedy You Can’t Take it With You seems hopelessly naive today a full eighty years after its …
The Film Canon: Matinee (1993)
By 1960 close to 90% of American households owned a television set. This little bit of trivia plays a significant role in Joe Dante’s period comedy, s…
The Film Canon: Unbreakable (2000)
With San Diego Comic Con only days away, it’s somewhat obligatory to discuss the comic book movie genre. For nearly two decades now, the genre h…
The Film Canon: The Great Silence (1968)
At first glance there is little to distinguish between Jean-Louis Trintignant’s spaghetti western protagonist ‘Silence’ and Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man with…