“Melville’s Paris is a poetically insomniac version, one that I’m not sure ever really existed. The City of Light has been written about and filmed so much that one has long since forgotten what is real and what is urban legend.”
“Kubrick was in many ways the embodiment of a new Hollywood — brilliant, creative and perhaps a bit ruthless, words that could also be used to describe his first great film, ‘The Killing.'”
“‘Pickup on South Street’ is perhaps the quintessential New York noir.”
“Holliday’s persona is one of shrewdness in the face of unrelenting condescension; she perfected the art of playing the outwardly ditzy blonde who lulls those around her into taking her lightly.”
“Given Araya’s small-scale origins in a country without a major film industry, it remains a fascinating testament to both the lives of the peninsula’s inhabitants and the film’s own creation.”
Raymond Rea Interview: Greg Carlson and the filmmaker/educator discuss movie collecting.
“Hugo Fregonese is a director ripe for rediscovery.”
‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ Interview: Andrew Wyatt discusses the 1957 Ed Wood movie with author Katharine Coldiron.
“The generation that had fought the war was confronting the generation that had overseen it, staging a sub-rosa assault on entrenched power.” – D.M. Palmer on ‘Patterns,’ ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ and ‘The Apartment’
“If ‘Gauguin’ and ‘Guernica’ shine a light on their respective subjects, they also present a key part of Resnais’ own development as an artist.”
“In ‘Orquil Burn,’ an internalised inquiry meets external spaces with a quiet yet insistent beauty.”
“Otto Preminger’s ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ and Nicholas Ray’s ‘On Dangerous Ground’ gesture towards the difficult conditions under which police labor while turning a critical eye on the brutally violent detectives who abuse their power.”
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”
“A sense of restlessness began to be addressed tentatively, and was confronted with increasing boldness as the decade progressed. Battles were being waged on multiple fronts of this unacknowledged war, claims were being sought from historically neglected constituents.”
“Spaces are key to Lumet’s vision of the justice system; the ideas that bind it together must play out in physical spaces, and in them, Lumet finds the embodiment of all its flaws and virtues.”
“The gritty and hard-nosed film noir genre is rife with actors and directors that helped to not only change conversations about American cinema, but also the nation’s consciousness.”
“‘The Searchers’ has moments of low-brow comedy and moments of penetrating tension, its interconnected themes involve love and guilt, and its visual and spiritual essence falls somewhere in the realm of poetic melancholy.”
“‘Sweet Smell of Success’ seems to exist somewhere beyond auteurist canonization or even the traditional Hollywood studio stock.”
“Just because ‘The Wages of Fear’ is dire and pessimistic, that doesn’t make it any less perceptive or accurate. Quite the contrary: the virulent truth only makes it that much more engrossing…”
“In ‘Human Desire,’ the train tracks carry its hero into the sunny paradise of the American Dream, not the depths of noir’s endless night.”
