Every year, the Australian-based online quarterly, Senses of Cinema, invites writers from all over the globe to submit their selections for the best movies of the year—including those seen for the first time regardless of the year of release. As I … Continue reading SENSES OF CINEMA: 2021 World Cinema Poll
1984’s Dune is a mess. Universal Pictures released it, Dino De Laurentiis produced it, and David Lynch directed it based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel. It was supposed to be a mega-hit, a blockbuster to rival Star Wars with multiple installments. But it … Continue reading DUNE
It should have been a classic. Major Dundee, a new kind of western with Charlton Heston as the titular major. This was the 1960s, and Heston had already played Moses and Judah Ben-Hur (he won an Oscar for that one). Box … Continue reading MAJOR DUNDEE
Every moment he felt that … he was drawing nearer and nearer to what terrified him. —Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich Ivan Beckman (Danny Huston) is one of those Hollywood agents that earn enough to afford a home in the … Continue reading IVANSXTC.
Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. That’s the line that opens the story Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The story of Billy Pilgrim, World War II, sexual desire, post-war suburban malaise, the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, free will vs. fate, and … Continue reading SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
Michael J. Cinema 