Last week, I wrote about Chicago’s role in the birth of the mainstream film industry, which is most often treated as a footnote in text books and film histories. Even less known is the city’s importance to the development of an African American cinema in which black entrepreneurs made movies for black audiences. While there [...]

This past week a bright and charming grade-schooler interviewed me about Chicago’s place in film history. He was knee deep in producing a documentary for his school’s history fair, and I was one of the people he interviewed on camera. I am always thrilled when young people exhibit an interest in the cinema of the [...]

I love to watch documentaries in a theater on the big screen, where the camerawork can be seen in all its glory and any subtleties of technique are more noticeable. According to some documentary websites, the popularity of this mode of filmmaking has increased, and the advent of DVD has made it more financially viable.
Despite [...]

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Academy Awards are just around the corner, and this week the Movie Morlocks are focusing our sites once again on Oscar lore, legends, and lunacy. Beginning today and concluding next Sunday, we offer our comments, gripes, and insights for your edification and entertainment. Stick with us throughout the week, [...]

No one can dispute that contemporary Hollywood has little room for movies with leading roles for female movie stars.  And, those few that do exist are treated as anomalies, as though it is completely strange for a film with a woman protagonist to be of interest to any movie-goer. Most of the time, female stars [...]

My colleagues at Facets Multi-Media and I are gearing up for another session of Night School, our truly unique and downright odd midnight movie series that is unlike any other alternative film series in the city. The next session starts this coming Saturday, February 6, at midnight and runs through March 27.

Douglas Sirk directed a series of melodramas during the 1950s in which a lavish visual style and careful mise-en-scene telegraphed a subtle criticism of middle-class social conventions beneath the emotion-driven storylines.  With their rich Technicolor surfaces and highly charged performances, Sirk’s melodramas are distinctive and easily recognizable as the work of this respected director. Much [...]

I am always curious and frequently surprised at which movie stars, films, and Hollywood events survive the decades to become meaningful to modern-day audiences. Despite the efforts of film historians and scholars to discover and research important figures and then explain their contributions to the art and evolution of American cinema, movie buffs tend to [...]

Over the holidays, celebrated film scholar Robin Wood died of leukemia at age 78. I did not realize he had passed away until I saw his obituary on the Internet early last week, and I was saddened by the loss. Of all the historians, scholars, and critics I have studied and read over the years, [...]