Fear of the Velvet Curtain
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT OSCAR PREDICTIONS v.2017
God bless Bonnie and Clyde. One year ago, the already well-blessed Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty found themselves onstage at the Academy…
Articles by Dennis Cozzalio
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
FACES PLACES and THE 2017 MURIEL AWARDS
“Art should surprise us.” – worker at a salt processing plant upon leaving his shift and discovering a giant photographed mural of…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
EXIT, STAGE LEFT: THE VALEDICTORY FILMS OF ARTHUR PENN AND ROBERT ALTMAN (FOR TOM BLOCK)
“Sunset at Monument Valley–the only place I’ve ever seen where night rises instead of falls. The stagecoach stop where Shirley Temple catches…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
NOTES ON THE 2017 OSCAR NOMINATIONS (and PHANTOM THREAD!)
Okay, okay, I’ll go see DARKEST HOUR! Jeez! The first thing that struck me as I mused in the glow of the…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
FACEBOOK POSTS I NEVER MADE
Last week I made my way out of the Facebook forest and decided to take a brief hiatus from the constant barrage…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE COLLECTION
When I was a kid I was lucky enough to have a few friends who shared many of my interests– in movies,…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
SINGING THE PRAISES OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2017
I don’t get out as much as I used to, and notice of that fact is certainly meant to include the frequency…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
A LETTER TO RIAN JOHNSON
It feels a little bit like Christmas morning around the house this morning, even though we’ve still got a week and change…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
NOTES ON THE LANDLORD AND LEE GRANT
Hal Ashby’s The Landlord, made in 1970, is probably the best movie of the 1970s not to be widely known by younger…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
GIVING MOVIE THANKS (2017 EDITION)
I’d imagine every one of us, despite our individual life situations, however privileged or difficult they may be, wouldn’t have too much…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
FOR HALLOWEEN: MEMORIES OF FEAR
Last night, at the tail end of a long and weird day, after all the rest of the folks who live with…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
HALLOWEEN HAUNTED HAUSU PARTY!
How often have you heard someone (usually a blurb whore, but sometimes someone you actually know) describe a movie as being “indescribable”…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
FOR THE POSTSEASON: JOE E. BROWN AS ALIBI IKE
If you’re a baseball fan, particularly if you’re a Dodgers, Astros, Cubs or Yankees fan, the real baseball season started this past…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
GOOD GUYS FINISH FIRST: DON MANCINI’S DURABLY DERANGED KILLER DOLL RETURNS IN CULT OF CHUCKY
Let’s talk memorable movie killers for a second. Since Mrs. Bates first slashed her way through the shower curtain in Room 1…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE: JEANNE DIELMAN…
WARNING: The following piece was written without regard to the presence of “spoilers.” We see the interior of a quiet apartment. It…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
TOHO DREAMS
Is it possible, in the grand age of visual and storytelling sophistication in which we live (the sarcasm is coming through, isn’t…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
1941: A GREAT COMEDY FOR SLIM PICKENS DAY
On Monday, August 28, 2017, Turner Classic Movies will devote an entire day of their “Summer Under the Stars” series to the…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE 2017 MURIELS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
The history of the Muriel Awards stretches aaaalllll the way back to 2006, which means that this coming season will be a…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
Séance on a Wet Afternoon
It was only recently that I saw, for the very first time, Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of Mark McShane’s novel Séance on a…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
OPENING WEDNESDAY AT A THEATER OR DRIVE-IN NEAR YOU: THE SHADOW CINEMA OF THE AMERICAN ‘70S
“All the films in this book share an air of disreputability… I have tried to avoid using the word art about the…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
WILD, DANGEROUS, IMPERFECT, WOUNDED GRANDEUR: 18 DOUBLE FEATURES ABOUT AMERICA
The United States is “my country, right or wrong,” of course, and I consider myself a patriotic person, but I’ve never felt…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
REST IN PEACE, BROTHER FLOUNDER: STEPHEN FURST (1955 – 2017)
“This is Kent Dorfman. He’s a legacy from Harrisburg…” Like we all must, Stephen Furst, the actor who brought Kent Dorfman, a.k.a.…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
GOOD-BYE, ADAM WEST / UNINHIBITED REVENGE: WALTER HILL’S THE ASSIGNMENT
It’s kind of hard for me to undersell the impact Batman and Adam West had on me as a boy. I was…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
MAD MAX: BEYOND FURIOUS
A couple weeks ago I was musing on the 2017 summer movie road ahead and found myself coming up somewhat disappointed in…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
NOTES ON THE BREAKING POINT, ALIEN: COVENANT AND THE RETURN OF TWIN PEAKS
God bless the Criterion Collection for their forthcoming Blu-ray of a nifty 2K restoration of The Breaking Point (1950), the second swipe…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
SUPERNATURAL? PERHAPS. BALONEY? PERHAPS NOT: DARK SHADOWS (2012)
Five years ago this weekend Tim Burton’s updating of Dark Shadows, the gothic/horror-themed soap opera which ran from 1966 to 1971 on…