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Movies echo movies. Sometimes in the minds of the filmmakers: Conversations in sound and image across time and space. Sometimes in the viewer’s minds: Stories ping-ponging their way through a couple of thousand years of recorded history. More often than … Continue reading AMERICAN BOY: A PROFILE OF STEVEN PRINCE
Every August TCM breaks from its regularly scheduled programming to honor the faces that make the great mechanical art form so enchanting. It’s Summer Under the Stars, 24 hours with a dozen or so movies from a single actor, 31 … Continue reading TCM’s Summer Under the Stars
For many, Citizen Kane, made when Orson Welles was 25 years old, is the greatest achievement of the filmmaker’s tempestuous career. The shadow of Kane is indeed long, and Welles never quite found his way out of it, but it … Continue reading CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT
Cinema isn’t about you; it’s about the world around you. Take the 1973 Senegalese film, Touki Bouki, from the great Djibril Diop Mambéty. Using an impressionistic editing style, Touki Bouki is a simple story of lovers on the run, told in a manner … Continue reading TOUKI BOUKI
On July 4, 1776, the United States of America declared independence from the monarchy of Britain (Congress officially voted on July 2, but the official declaration took 48 hours). On July 4, 1946, the Philippines were granted independence from the … Continue reading INSIANG
Thanks to the Blu-ray release of Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations, summer 2020 is getting a much-needed injection of comedy. Though the duo’s oeuvre is almost 100 years old, their comedic timing will never go out of style. And thanks … Continue reading BIG BUSINESS
Is it more important to be respected or liked? Most everyone wants to be both, but only a few achieve that goal. The rest of us scrap for one or the other. They’re not always mutually exclusive, but they often … Continue reading THE LAST DANCE
Spike Lee’s back, and he’s getting better with age. The first half of the 2010s found the filmmaker working in a different milieu with Red Hook Summer and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. Slightly atmosphere, quieter, lower budgets. Neither were duds, but nor did … Continue reading DA 5 BLOODS
Counted by many as the father of African cinema, Ousmane Sembène was a novelist before he picked up a camera. And when he did, all hell broke loose. His first work, the short film Borom sarret, was released in 1963, perfectly … Continue reading BLACK GIRL
Michael J. Cinema 
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