Journalist cum filmmaker Mark Cousins has done just a little bit of everything. He’s made documentaries (The Eyes of Orson Welles), city symphonies (What Is This Film Called Love?), narratives (Stockholm, My Love), even an alternative film school in the … Continue reading THE STORY OF FILM
On this week’s After Image, I chat with Veronica Straight-Lingo about Blow the Man Down (available on Amazon Prime), and recommend a couple of from Alfred Hitchcock, specifically Frenzy, The 39 Steps, and Shadow of a Doubt. Listen to After Image, Fridays at … Continue reading
Alfred Hitchcock may not have invented the moving image, but he defined what it was capable of. The son of a London grocer, Hitchcock’s career began in the silent era, at Germany’s famed UFA studios, before returning to England as … Continue reading Home Viewing: Alfred Hitchcock
The rocky, seaside village of Easter Cove, Maine, does not look like the kind of place you’d want to spend a winter. The snow piles up in great heaps, and the wind coming off the water will send an icicle … Continue reading BLOW THE MAN DOWN
The shadow of Alfred Hitchcock looms large in cinema. So much so that it’s hard to divorce his stylistic innovations from movies that may or may not have been influenced by him. Take Blow the Man Down, a recent release currently … Continue reading Two for the Master
On Sept. 26, 1991, eight scientists donned space-age jumpsuits, waved goodbye to a cheering audience and a bullpen loaded with news cameras, and entered Biosphere 2—3.14 acres of enclosed space designed to mimic the Earth’s environment. Their mission: Test humanity’s … Continue reading SPACESHIP EARTH
The second installment in Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s unofficial trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence) is by far the best. Pastor Tomas (Gunnar Björnstrand) has misplaced his faith. He’s not sure where, and he’s not sure he wants to … Continue reading WINTER LIGHT (NATTVARDSGÄSTERNA)
Comfort watching comes in all shapes in sizes. Sometimes it’s a chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff. Other times it’s Gene Kelly dancing with an umbrella and splashing around in puddles. Diversion, you could call it: A moment of … Continue reading Home Viewing: Existential Cinema
Based on a novel by Franz Kafka, The Trail is filmmaker Orson Welles at his most Wellesian. Anthony Perkins stars as K, a man accused of a crime he neither committed nor comprehends. K can ask all the questions he wants, but … Continue reading THE TRIAL
Michael J. Cinema 
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