Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 667 )

• The State of the Blog, December 2016

  

  2016 has been as bad a year for me as everyone else, perhaps even more so, considering that I've lost my job and been struggling with severe depression ever... Read more

  Posted on 14 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Hitler's Madman

  

  This lurid wartime potboiler offered Douglas Sirk's Hollywood debut. Hitler's Madman (1943) dramatized a real Nazi atrocity months after it occurred; produced b... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• History: Philadelphia's Bible Battles, 1844

  

  Rebecca Reed's scandalous revelations (and the violence they inspired) triggered a slew of imitators. Perhaps the most absurd was Rosalind, a pseudo-memoir... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Lonely Are the Brave

  

  "I don't need a card to figure out who I am. I already know." Kirk Douglas considers Lonely Are the Brave (1962) his best movie, even though it flopped upon... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Lust for Life

  

  "If it's one thing I despise, it's emotionalism in painting." John Wayne enjoyed ribbing Kirk Douglas for playing Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), as i... Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• History: The Charlestown Convent and the Birth of American Hate

  

  Anti-Catholic sentiment came deeply engrained in the American psyche. Primarily English and overwhelmingly Protestant, America's earliest settlers carried racia... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• On Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris and Separating Art From Artist

  

  When the Internet started buzzing with outrage over Bernardo Bertolucci's conduct while making Last Tango in Paris this weekend, I was inclined to ignore it. Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Cape Fear (1962)

  

  "I got something planned for your wife and kid that they ain't never gonna forget." Cape Fear (1962) reteams J. Lee Thompson and Gregory Peck, a year after thei... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Christmas in Connecticut

  

  Christmas movies don't come much cozier than Christmas in Connecticut (1945). Endearingly sweet, it spins a silly storyline into an enjoyable Hollywood... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Spider's Stratagem

  

  "Wine is like a man: it can have flaws and still be pleasing."Bernardo Bertolucci made The Spider's Stratagem (1970) just after completing The Conformist, thoug... Read more

  Posted on 03 December 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Zabriskie Point

  

  What happens when Italy's most pretentious director makes a movie about American counterculture? Try Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970), whose... Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Big Sky

  

  Few critics rank The Big Sky (1952) among Howard Hawks' best movies. One of that director's most expansive films, it places that director's preoccupations withi... Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Paper Chase

  

  "Speak louder, Mr. Hart! Fill the room with your intelligence!"Imagine trying to sell The Paper Chase (1973) to any studio, then or now: two hours of harried... Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing

  

  Richard Fleischer directed several worthwhile true crime dramas (The Boston Strangler, 10 Rillington Place) but The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) isn't on... Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Soylent Green

  

  The Seventies inspired a glut of dystopian science fiction, most of it overwrought and forgettable. Soylent Green (1973) ranks among the better ones, memorable... Read more

  Posted on 25 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• History: Henry Clay Keeps America in Suspense, 1824

  

  "I would rather be right than be president!" Henry Clay (1777-1852) thundered near the end of his life. The record suggests otherwise. Read more

  Posted on 23 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Rebel Without a Cause

  

  "You can wake up now, the universe has ended." More than any other work, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) cemented our image of cinematic teenagers: confused but... Read more

  Posted on 22 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Lady Eve

  

  "Let us be crooked, but never common!"Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941) plays beautifully with screwball comedy tropes. At first glance a typically... Read more

  Posted on 20 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

  

  (1932) is a bleak, uncompromising treatment of systemic injustice. Mervyn LeRoy boldly exposes the prison system's cruelty, daring to posit that such aren't... Read more

  Posted on 19 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Woman of the Year

  

  Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn remained a Hollywood power couple onscreen and off for a quarter century. Their union began with Woman of the Year (1942),... Read more

  Posted on 19 November 2016 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES