The magnificent stranger rides in from nowhere and with no destination. He sports brown boots, shrunk-to-fit dark jeans, and a forest green serape with a white pattern. He’ll give the name “Joe” when asked, but names don’t really mean much … Continue reading A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
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
This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. That line from John Ford’s seminal 1962 western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, doesn’t just encapsulate the movie’s theme, Ford’s overall career, or even the entirety of the … Continue reading Print the Legend: Westerns at the Sie Film Center
…the eyes are the most important element to me. Everything can be read in them… Up to a certain time, westerns were more like children’s games, with people dying by falling forward—instead of being propelled backward. The lead bullet would … Continue reading Born On This Day — January 3, 1929
When I go to the cinema, I’m often frustrated because I can guess exactly what is going to happen about ten minutes into the screening. So, when I’m working on a subject, I’m always looking for the element of surprise. … Continue reading In Their Words — Monday, April 8, 2013
My life, my reading, everything about me revolves around the cinema. So for me, cinema is life, and vice-versa. —Sergio Leone Continue reading In Their Words — Thursday, January 3, 2013
Politics no longer make any sense in Italy! That’s why I make the films I do. We believed in mankind and mankind has let us down… As intellectuals, we have resigned ourselves, tired of the battle… Me, I live apart and don’t … Continue reading In Their Words — Monday, December 17, 2012
Michael J. Cinema 