Essays and reflections on movies, their impact and influence, and the people who created them.
Modern politics and media are so intertwined it’s hard to view one without the other. But hasn’t it always been this way? Where would the Framers be without the printing press? Franklin Roosevelt without radio? Trump without Twitter? And though … Continue reading Political Documentaries in a Partisan World
When it comes to the movies, sin never goes out of style. And on April 28, it’s back on your TV screen when TCM presents a three-film series looking back at Hollywood’s pre-Code era with three films: Little Caesar (1931), Red-Headed Woman (1932), and Baby Face (1933); all … Continue reading Now Playing on TCM: FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD
The legacy of Orson Welles looms large in the history of cinema. So large, even Welles himself fell into its blackness. “The word genius was whispered into my ear—the first thing I heard—while I was still mewling in my crib,” … Continue reading A Matter of Persistence: Orson Welles
For one week each spring, throngs of people overrun the University of Colorado’s picturesque campus seeking the pleasure of a good conversation at the Conference on World Affairs. Despite the highfaluting name, the Conference on World Affairs (CWA to regulars) … Continue reading The Pleasure of a Good Conversation: Previewing the 2019 Conference on World Affairs
It’s hard to overstate the significance of 1939 in American cinema. Even though the movies were nearly four decades old, a series of events and artistic developments conspired to bring Hollywood into maturity. Some of these advancements were technological: sound … Continue reading 1939: Hollywood’s Golden Year
All the best movies elicit our emotions—Roger Ebert famously called these movies “empathy machines”—but there is a fine line between an emotion earned and an emotion provoked. Movies that hopscotch across this line are what many dub “Oscar-bait” and the … Continue reading Big Emotions in Small Packages: 2019 Oscar Nominated Short Films
Every year is a great year for the movies, but when was the best? Was it 1939, the year Hollywood gave us The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? Or was it the great global year … Continue reading 2018: An Embarrassment of Riches
[F]ilm is the great adventure—the costly, exacting mistress. Ingmar Bergman’s legacy in the annals of cinematic history is secure. With over 60 films and documentaries to his name, Bergman brought Swedish cinema to the world stage while devising new ways … Continue reading Ingmar Bergman
Any filmmaker’s visit to CU-Boulder’s International Film Series is cause for celebration, but when the filmmaker in question is writer, director, actor, occasional stuntman, cinema scholar, and genial raconteur Brian Trenchard-Smith, attendance is requisite. Born with celluloid coursing through his … Continue reading Laughs & Gasps: The Cinema of Brian Trenchard-Smith
Michael J. Cinema 
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