Fear of the Velvet Curtain
Dennis Cozzalio’s Year End List
There’s no pretending on my part to have seen everything there was to see in 2021. I’ve still got a pretty long…
Articles by Dennis Cozzalio
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
Best of 2021 So Far
I haven’t seen much so far in 2021, and much of it has been either worthy, if flawed (Roadrunner: A Film About…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
RETURN TO FOREVER: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE PANDEMIC
So we went to the movies last Sunday night. 422 days previous, to celebrate Emma’s 20th birthday, we saw our last movie…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
2020 Best Of/End Of
A few days ago, I overheard a coworker on a Zoom call preparing to give 2020 the old heave-ho, and among his…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
HEROES: CLEESE, GILLIAM, IDLE, JONES, PALIN
HEROES: CLEESE, GILLIAM, IDLE, JONES, PALIN and THE MEANING OF MONTY PYTHON (2013); plus THOUGHTS ON ALEX WINTER’S ZAPPA (2020) As reunions…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE 2019 MURIEL AWARDS: BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR AND THE PAST DECADE
The Oscars were announced on February 9, almost a month ago, and yet awards season didn’t end until just this last week,…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
BIRDS OF PREY AND THE SECRET WEAPON WHO STEALS THE MOVIE FROM ONE HARLEY QUINN
The good-natured, yet hyper-violent Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is amusing enough to get by, a…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
SYBIL THE SOOTHSAYER’S OSCAR PREDIX
Well, the most wonderful time of the year is upon us yet again, and if you’re thinking I’m about 30-days-and-change late in…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS: THE FILMS OF 2019
Seems to me that only in a very good year for movies could the best film I saw all year and the…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
HEIST FOR THE HOLIDAYS: CASH ON DEMAND (1962)
One could be forgiven for not suspecting that Hammer Films, known for their comparatively lurid and bloody, sometimes pointedly lusty, and otherwise…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
SAD/GLAD TIDINGS: BILL FORSYTH’S COMFORT AND JOY (1984)
Scottish director Bill Forsyth has a strange way, one for which audiences should be eternally grateful, of delivering a symphony of melancholy…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
CINEMATIC GRATITUDE v. 2019
During a year in which the world finds itself increasingly in the throes of totalitarianism and corruption, when institutions, traditions and good…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
DOCTOR SLEEP AND SOME OTHER MOVIES YOU MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE HEARD ABOUT
I’ve spent the last 39 years trying to love, or even like, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film version of Stephen King’s The Shining,…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
MAURY THE MISERABLE VAMPIRE
“One of us! One of us!” That three-word mantra is, of course, the perversely welcoming chant offered by Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932)…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
ROBERT FORSTER 1941-2019
By all accounts, at least the ones I’ve heard, leading man/character actor Robert Forster, who passed away this weekend, was, despite his…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
Election
In times of political malfeasance, when corruption and self-aggrandizement is the rule of law, political satire can be a tonic or a…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
CENTRAL PARK (1932)
If they still made ‘em like the pre-Code drama Central Park (1932), I’d still be going to the movies every day instead…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE 2019 MURIEL AWARDS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Pop quiz: A science fiction landmark; a beloved classic rescued from obscurity by public television; two screwball comedies directed by the same…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
RANDOM THOUGHTS ON ONCE UPON A TIME IN… HOLLYWOOD – SPOILERS
(The following piece isn’t so much a review as a gathering of thoughts and observations about that new movie everyone is talking…
CineSavant
PHOENIX ON SOUTH F STREET: The Re-Emergence of the Alger Theater
“Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
RETROFITTING: YESTERDAY
Yesterday, “the feel-fantastic movie of the summer” (Billboard magazine), jumps off from an undeniably juicy premise—What if you woke up one day…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
NIGHTMARES IN SHADOWS AND SUNLIGHT
Here’s what happens when the need to see takes over and I start pulling DVDs off the shelf with only my dark…
CineSavant
FAN SERVICE: AVENGERS: ENDGAME AND SAD HILL UNEARTHED
Haters gonna hate, and yeah, some folks will take, and have taken, their devotion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to ridiculous lengths,…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
TEN YEARS OF THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL
The 10th annual TCM Classic Film Festival is finally in the books, yet another fabulous, frustrating and altogether marvelous gathering in the…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
MAD MOVIE LOVE: A 2019 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL PREVIEW
Well, here we are, just a few short days away from the kickoff of the 10th annual TCM Classic Film Festival. I…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL & THE HAUNTING OF SHARON TATE
Anthology films are almost by definition a mixed bag, and even when one of their sort garners strong critical acclaim, as the…