Or maybe, “You can’t go home again.”  Whenever someone finds out I write about movies, they inevitably ask, “What’s your favorite movie?”  I’m not sure if there’s a memo about this that went out to everyone on earth who isn’t a film buff (“MEMO: What to do when encountering a film buff:  Ask for favorite [...]

When you grow up with a love of film in an age before cable and videotapes (and decades before DVDs and streaming) like me, you get to know a lot of movies by their money shots long before you ever see the actual film itself.   The money shot refers to the big, expensive set [...]

In early 1973, The Godfather took home the Oscar for Best Picture of the year 1972.   The story, in both the novel and the movie, revolves around “good son” Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) as he goes from war hero to head of the family.  Michael drives the entire story.  He is the [...]

With the release of the Oscar nominations for 2011, I’m once again forced to acknowledge my utterly pointless, irritating and relentless love-hate relationship with the Academy Awards.  First of all, Academy?  Har, har, give me a break!  Here’s why the “prestigious” Academy formed (from Wikipedia): “The notion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and [...]

Since the beginning of the movies, romance has played a central role.  Going back to 1896 and The Kiss, two people expressing their love on camera was something the movies exploited and well (the hilarious tagline for the 47 second long The Kiss: “They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss and kiss and [...]

Last week I was watching the excellent documentary, These Amazing Shadows: The Movies that Make America.  It’s about the National Film Registry, how it came about and how films are selected for enshrinement.  It contains great clips, great stories and expert testimony from one actor, director, curator or writer (including the illustrious Self-Styled Siren herself, [...]

People love demarcation points, a specific time or place they can point to and say, “Here!  This is where it changed.”  It’s important to have markers if only to help organize that which is, essentially, resistant to all forms of organization: life.  It provides a sense of security, of nostalgia, of a longing for a [...]

Most of us have phones.   They’re convenient.  They’ve been convenient for well over a hundred years.  We use them to keep in touch with, and gather important information from, people who are otherwise inaccessible.  This is their primary charm.  Another one of their charms is that they have never, thankfully, destroyed the planet earth and [...]

Taking in a great movie can be a thoroughly rewarding experience.   A great film can enrich the mind and bolster the spirit in ways that few other things can, even if they’re not perfect.  Of course, those imperfections can be distracting, but in a great film,  only momentarily.   Sometimes, however, the imperfection is [...]