I’ve written about my admiration for writer/director Damian McCarthy’s two previous films, Caveat and Oddity, in this column before. From the very beginning, his work had a personal style that separated it from the general horror film pack, combining a dark visual palette with a love for haunted-looking objects, all set in a modern Ireland…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we have a trio of films directed by the late, great Frank Capra. There is also a trio of wines for pairing. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a 1936 romantic…
Criterion takes on the anti-nuke horror film that hits closest to home. Lynne Littman’s harrowing film stays small-scale and Big Emotion, charting the slow extermination of an innocent family. A little California town loses contact with the rest of the world, and hope fades as the awful reality sinks in. Jane Alexander, Lukas Haas and William…
Former blacklistees Walter Bernstein and Martin Ritt turned their career experiences into a powerful picture; the bankability of star Woody Allen is surely what got it produced. Allen plays not his usual New York schlemiel but a clueless everyman who ‘fronts’ for a writer friend denied work by the blacklist. He ends up fronting for…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, we go to the dark side for a platter of film noir. Some wine pairings will help wash down the bitter little pills. In my younger days, oh so long ago,…
We finally caught up with this superb French crime thriller about a gang of cultured crooks that trip up on their own sense of sophistication. Kingpin Charles Vanel collects a fortune from four partners to initiate a drug deal; but one of the group is cheating with his ante and another intends to steal the…
Some movies appear to approach perfection. Ernst Lubitsch ditched operettas for saucy pre-Code romance with this winning, hilarious look at high class thievery and honest lust. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins are larcenous high-society outlaws, preying on continental swells that can afford to be bilked for millions. Kay Francis is the wealthy widow who teaches…
The FUN never stops in this pre-Code Paramount variety show, with a rudimentary plot, bizarre performers and plenty of risqué humor. It’s the 1933 equivalent of Wild and Crazy — with a sensational cast, some of whom need explaining: W.C. Fields, Rudy Vallee, Stuart Erwin, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Cab Calloway, Bela Lugosi, Baby…
Sebastián Silva’s domestic drama is Upstairs-Downstairs for the 21st century, a story that involves class difference and social isolation, yet doesn’t push the usual buttons of comedy or tragedy. When the exhausted maid of an upscale Chilean family begins behaving strangely, we fear that this beautifully-acted film may be turning into a horror picture. We…
