In the introduction to his essential new book The Funny Parts (McFarland, 2011), writer Anthony Balducci relates an anecdote about Bill Cosby appropriating and improving on a routine first performed by George Carlin, and the lasting personal enmity that resulted from this “theft.” Balducci tells the story as a signpost for how attitudes about intellectual [...]

Last week we visisted with Fantomas, the Lord of Terror.  This week it’s his opposite number’s turn in the spotlight—the Gentleman Thief, Arsene Lupin.

Louis Feuillade was the Christopher Columbus of cinema—a pioneer explorer of newly uncovered lands, a touchstone to all who followed in his footsteps.  Generations of filmmakers after him called him out as an inspiration: Fritz Lang, Georges Franju, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard… French film auteur Alain Resnais said simply, “He is one of [...]

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been exploring competing claims on the creation of movies.  The Lumière brothers hold a sizeable claim, for having pioneered the exhibition model that became the norm–and even if modern trends are moving back towards the Edison-style intimacy of one-movie-one-viewer, the bulk of film history belongs to the Lumière tradition.  [...]

The inventor steps aboard the train, and loads the packing crates that contain his most wondrous device.  It will revolutionize the world.  It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is the very birth of the modern age.  The inventor takes his seat—it will be a few hours from Leeds to Paris, his [...]

Last week, we paid tribute to the origin of movies.  It’s put me in a frame of mind I can’t quite shake–so I’m going to linger in these early days of cinema, in the nineteenth century, for a while longer.  There are things of great beauty and mind-shattering complexity here in these primitive relics of [...]

Yes that’s me in the picture above–it was taken back in 2004, back when I was a bottle blonde.  I was standing in front of the Grand Café at 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, posing awkwardly as my wife took a photo.  There were no other tourists, just Parisians going about their business as [...]

“I didn’t know you could mix Santa Claus and horror movies,” my son Max told me this morning (y’all met him last week when he guest blogged on my behalf). He was referring specifically to his and my current obsession, a movie that has been inaugurated as a holiday viewing tradition in our home: Jalmari [...]

This week I’m asking my son Max to join me in talking about a peculiar genre of movies I was unfamiliar with until he became obsessed with them last year. I wanted him to have the chance to share his passion with you, to help you find the joy he finds in these movies–consider it [...]