Articles by Dennis Cozzalio

The Nitrate Picture Show at The Eastman House

If you’re in or anywhere near Rochester, New York, your weekend activity should be set, because something big is happening at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. It’s The Nitrate Picture Show, the world’s very first festival devoted entirely to film conservation. The weekend will be filled with feature films, book…

10 YEARS OF CINEMACADEMIC SLIFR MOVIE QUIZZES

“You all know me… You know how I make my livin’…”  Quint (Robert Shaw), Jaws Well, the truth is, you probably don’t know me, although you may have an idea that I don’t earn my keep by sharkin’, like our very quotable friend above. I just like his dialogue, and the line seemed like a…

The Artemis Women in Action Film Festival

In the beginning there was Helen Gibson. Gibson was a rodeo star in the early days of the 20th century who moved to Hollywood to become a “cowboy extra” and ended up becoming one of the very first paid stunt women/actresses in the history of the movies when she was hired to perform stunts and…

FLOATING IN THE OCEAN OF HELENA LEE

In writer-director Jim Akin’s The Ocean of Helena Lee, the first thing you may notice about 12-year-old Helena Lee (and the young actress, Moriah Blonna, who plays her) is the diverting mole on the left side of her chin, the sort of punctuation which amplifies the beauty of the face which it interrupts– a face which…

Godard, 3D, Noir City and Goodbye to Stan Freberg

Every time I step into a warehouse discount store I can see about 11 different reasons to not get excited about the prospect of buying a 3D big-screen TV. Display monitor after display monitor blasts out images from the latest superhero franchise or frenetic animated epic to have made its bow on Blu-ray, each of…

SHORT ENDS FROM TCM FEST 2015

Another year, my sixth at the TCM Classic Film Festival, is in the books, and I’m exhausted! Fourteen movies over four days sounds like a lot, and it is– though compared to past years, when I saw as many as 17 and 18, it was a relatively laid-back schedule. But you don’t just sit in…

STARING DOWN THE 2015 TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

Starting today, it’s down the rabbit hole once again to revel in Hollywood’s past glories (and international cinema’s too) at the 2015 TCM Classic Film Festival, unspooling March 26-29. This is the sixth incarnation of the festival, and I have been honored– and downright lucky– to have been able to attend each of those, thanks…

At the Devil’s Door

Sometimes getting there is more than half the fun. When it comes to genre storytelling, the buildup toward a presumably satisfying conclusion can create so much anticipation that the big reveal can’t help but end up something of a letdown. You can see the fingerprints of this dilemma in the way the recent sequel/remake of…

Wild Tales

Anthology films, by their very nature, suggest a mixed bag of experience, perspective and, sometimes, even thematic concern, and their history is, like the form itself, all over the place. Alberto Cavalcanti’s Dead of Night (1945) helped cement the anthology approach as a tradition of the horror genre, and the British production company Amicus continually…

The Boys From Brazil

In 1978 I was a college student majoring in film studies, as well as a mid-lapse Catholic, so the ripples of flabbergasted embarrassment I could conjure over the enjoyment of mainstream studio-sanctioned trash, to say nothing of the nagging sense that I should have instead been watching a Truffaut or a Fassbinder movie, or poring…

Chainsaw Confidential & An Oscar Postscript

Another movie-mad installment from Dennis Cozzalio, this week tackling Gunnar Hansen’s memoir on the making of that out-of-control horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. To dig deeper into Dennis’s brain visit his terrific site, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.   The true story of the making of one of the most influential horror…

The Oscars

The first Oscar show I ever saw was the 42nd annual gala, honoring the movies of 1969. Of course I hadn’t seen any of them—even True Grit hadn’t made it to our local “show house” yet, and the likes of Midnight Cowboy and Z never would. But I was aware of all of them, thanks…

Introducing… Fear of the Velvet Curtain

We’re excited to announce a new feature here at TFH, a weekly column from one of our favorite writers on film, Dennis Cozzalio. Dennis has been delighting movie fans for years over at his own blog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule and now he’s settling in for a weekly gig here on our…

Live From Delta House – Belushi and Me

One of our favorite writers, Dennis Cozzalio, is with us again for today’s Saturday Matinee. Dennis, not coincidentally, presides over one of our favorite film blogs, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. The occasion is the premiere of Allan Arkush’s commentary for John Landis’ Animal House which will run this coming Monday. Dennis happened to be an extra on…

The Green Slime

“It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.” Frank Zappa For most people nostalgia is just another way of packaging the point of view that, surprise, surprise, the times we lived in were less complicated, better when we…