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, [...]

Elvis Presley would have been 75 years old on this Friday, January 8. During his lifetime, Elvis conquered many arenas of entertainment, from the recording industry to television to the movies; after his death, he became an icon of both the best and worst of 20th-century pop culture, from rock ‘n’ roll innovator to victim [...]

As my last post for the year 2009, I thought it might be fun to recount the last words of some of Hollywood’s illustrious, notorious, and even forgotten stars. And, I don’t mean their last spoken words, but the epitaphs on their gravestones. These are the thoughts, comments, and quips that they chose to be [...]

A friend and I have been mulling over cinematic portrayals of real-life historical figures, stars, and celebrities. We’re not particularly interested in historical or biographical accuracy but in which famous figures are most often depicted in the movies and by whom. Just as I was thinking about how to turn this idea into a blog [...]

I have always resisted making an end-of-the-year top-ten list of “best movies” as so many critics and bloggers do. There are just way too many of them, and they tend to include the same Hollywood movies and high-profile independent films. However, there are some notable exceptions, including the lists generated by my coworkers at Facets [...]

When I was a little girl, my father taught me about Pearl Harbor Day. He was a World War II army veteran and had served in the Philippines and New Guinea. Like many vets of that generation, he did not talk much about his experiences, which I am sure were as horrific as they are [...]