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Othello (1951)
Orson Welles' magnificent screening of Shakespeare's immortal tragedy
Filmmaker(s): Orson Welles

When a secret marriage is planned between Othello, a Moorish general, and Desdemona, the daughter of Senator Brabantio, her old suitor Roderigo takes it hard. He allies himself with Iago, who has his own grudge against Othello, and the two conspire to bring Othello down. When their first plan, to have him accused of witchcraft, fails, they plant evidence intended to make him believe Desdemona is unfaithful.

Dimensional Filmmaking on Shakespeare films is rather like admiring Easter Eggs. First the inside: this was never a great play, relative to Shakespeare's other works. His great plays are about ideas, with characters as vectors to prod and activate them. This play is merely about characters,...


Published December 10, 2024
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Rear Window (1954)
It only takes one witness to spoil the perfect crime.
Filmmaker(s): Alfred Hitchcock

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

Copernican Cinema just don't like Hitchcock. I admit that he ‘delivered value' in his day, but as I review his films today, I find them trite, badly dated. The style of acting he used now looks ’actorly.' His camera framing is well considered but unimaginative...


Published December 10, 2024
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Rashomon (1950)
The husband, the wife… or the bandit?
Filmmaker(s): Akira Kurosawa

Brimming with action while incisively examining the nature of truth, "Rashomon" is perhaps the finest film ever to investigate the philosophy of justice. Through an ingenious use of camera and flashbacks, Kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.

Nested, Folded, Parallel Narrative about truth, this is more fundamentally about the nature of nested and floating narrative. Kurosawa is one of three men who invented film, and this is his most influential one. Much is made of the construction of the story, which you can...


Published December 10, 2024
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Forbidden Planet (1956)
Earthmen on a fabulous, peril-journey into outer space!
Filmmaker(s): Fred M. Wilcox

Starship C57D travels to planet Altair 4 in search of the crew of spaceship "Bellerophon," a scientific expedition that has been missing for 20 years, only to find themselves unwelcome by the expedition's lone survivor and warned of destruction by an invisible force if they don't turn back immediately.

Parallel Futures creating my own list of favourites, I put this at the top of my SciFi category. But that was based on viewing a long time ago. So I rented it recently and was shocked. Times have changed, and science fiction depends so much...


Published December 10, 2024
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Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957)
They're back... and up to no good!!!
Filmmaker(s): Frank Launder

With their headmistress under lock and key in her majesty's prison, the St Trinian's girls find themselves under the protection of the army. However, when the sixth form take a fancy to winning a trip to Italy through means fair or foul, the army discover this is one battle they can't win. Let loose in Europe, it is not long before St Trinian's have succeeded in endangering European relations.

Girls is remarkable stuff. It has the normal amount of silliness, but the discriminating thing with this series is the notion of the girls school. Its absolutely amazing, what they have done with this notion. The school is a girls’ school that destroys every location it...


Published February 1, 2024
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Toward the Unknown (1956)
Somewhere at a secluded U.S. Air Force Base lives a picked handful of very special men — the rocket pilots of outer space and the eerie experimental craft that rule the skies beyond the sky...
Filmmaker(s): Mervyn LeRoy

Tortured into a false confession while a POW in Korea, Major Lincoln Bond returns to active service as a test pilot. Determined to clear his name, Bond battles a hard-nosed base commander, prejudiced officers and his own insecurities.

Spam in a Jan things noteworthy about this movie, which though big in its day is almost completely forgotten now. It is one of a class of movies where the humans are second class citizens and the prime characters are machines. This class originated almost at...


Published January 24, 2024
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Blood of the Vampire (1958)
Nothing Like It This Side of Hell!
Filmmaker(s): Henry Cass

A man and wife are terrorized by Mad Scientist Dr. Callistratus who was executed but has returned to life with a heart transplant. Along with his crippled assistant Carl, the 'anemic' Mad Scientist, believed to be a vampire, conducts blood deficiency research on the inmates of a prison hospital for the criminally insane to sustain his return to life.

The Evil Eye each have the experiences that brought us to the way we dream, and the forms we use in wrangling the world. My cinematic maturity is pretty traceable because the films and the watching were so self-ware. Going back before well-formed notions of self,...


Published January 20, 2024
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The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Most Horror-Dripping TALE EVER WRITTEN!
Filmmaker(s): Terence Fisher

When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.

Mongrel was an invention of the times, following the new idea of evolution. The notion of pure reason being able to perceive and comprehend everything in life was especially novel. This was contrasted to the bumbling inductive logic of doctors like Watson. Handling Holmes is...


Published July 27, 2023
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The Band Wagon (1953)
Get Aboard!
Filmmaker(s): Vincente Minnelli

A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.

42nd Street in the Rain colour musical film is a strange beast. Hollywood explored many of its possibilities. And people did buy lots of tickets. But until very recently, musicals were all but dead. That’s because they were never able to create a self sustaining...


Published May 17, 2023
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The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
I took you out of the gutter... I can fling you back!
Filmmaker(s): Vincente Minnelli

Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.

Just Bad are an astonishing number of movies about the movie business. many of these interest me because they use the situation as a way of engaging the audience: we are tricked into being the audience IN the film. This is a common trick,...


Published May 17, 2023
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