Politics and entertainment have always been entangled. Sometimes, it’s mockery with a message (Charlie Chaplin clowning on Adolph Hitler in The Great Dictator). Other times, it’s an attempt to expose a local cause to a larger public (the striking miners … Continue reading Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time
Maybe you were underwhelmed by the summer blockbuster season. A lot of them did feel somewhat unfinished and underdeveloped, didn’t they? Perhaps you felt the spring release slate was a little light, and the winter award season was a tad … Continue reading Here Comes Cinema: 2024 Fall Movie Preview
In The Story of Film, Mark Cousins traces the innovations and development of cinema’s first century. The book, published in 2004, spans roughly 400 pages with about as many photographs. Cousins’ 2011 documentary of the same name runs 15 hours and … Continue reading THE STORY OF FILM: A NEW GENERATION
As you read this, members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild of America (SAG) are currently pounding the pavement in New York and Los Angeles, raising signs and rhyming chants to anyone who will … Continue reading National Film Registry 2023 Nominations Ballot
How many times can you watch a movie before you discover its secrets? I’ve probably seen Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane more than any other movie. That’s not something I set out to do; it just sort of happened that way. Ten years ago, … Continue reading Fun with aspects ratios in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI
I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
McBride knows his Welles: he’s been writing about him since 1970. He watched Kane 60 times before approaching Welles for an interview. Not long after he did, Welles cast McBride in The Other Side of the Wind—Welles’ legendarily unfinished final film. Continue reading WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ORSON WELLES?
For many, it’s the greatest of all time. But when it was released 80 years ago, Citizen Kane was a death sentence. The movie’s director and star, Orson Welles, came to Hollywood by way of the stage and radio with a contract … Continue reading CITIZEN KANE
You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours,” Herman J. Mankiewicz says. “All you can hope is to leave the impression of one.” The movie Mankiewicz refers to is Citizen Kane—arguably one of the most well-known movies ever made—but … Continue reading MANK
Michael J. Cinema 
You must be logged in to post a comment.