Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 667 )

• Sebastian

  

  By the late '60s the spy film was already overplayed, forcing filmmakers to stand out among endless James Bond clones. David Greene's Sebastian (1968) grafts Mo... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Casino

  

  Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995) lives in the shadow of Goodfellas, understandable if not entirely fair. After all, both films are sprawling gangland epics... Read more

  Posted on 15 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Lives of Others

  

  Communist East Germany provides the setting for The Lives of Others (2006), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's remarkable debut. Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Valachi Papers

  

  Dino De Laurentiis had been developing The Valachi Papers (1972) for several years before The Godfather scooped him. After that film's success, Valachi proved... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Rain People

  

  Despite mainstream success, Francis Ford Coppola has always been an experimental director at heart. His fourth feature, The Rain People (1969), is a... Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Godfather, Part III

  

  Few people have much good to say about The Godfather Part III (1990). Despite generally positive reviews and several Oscar nominations, it became an instant... Read more

  Posted on 02 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Southpaw

  

  No subgenre's more predictable than the boxing movie, and Southpaw (2015) has no surprises. Antoine Fuqua's latest is an R-rated Rocky, revisiting old clichés... Read more

  Posted on 02 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• State of Siege

  

  Costa-Gavras is an equal-opportunity antiauthoritarian. After Z (1969) attacked Greece's slide into reactionary dictatorship, he excoriated Communist... Read more

  Posted on 01 August 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Terminator

  

  James Cameron scored his breakthrough hit with The Terminator (1984). Besides putting Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map, it remains one of the... Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• New Article: On Herbert Selpin and Joachim Gottschalk

  

  New Sound on Sight piece, a coda to our previous Nazi viewings. Here you'll read the stories of Joachim Gottschalk and Herbert Selpin, two German film artists... Read more

  Posted on 28 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Paper Towns

  

  Besides Taylor Swift, young adult novel adaptations are the closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure. This summer features another John Green weepy, not... Read more

  Posted on 27 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Firm

  

  (1993) was the first of the Nineties' innumerable John Grisham adaptations. Thanks to an excellent cast and Sydney Pollack's slick direction, it's one of the... Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Jew Suss: Rise and Fall

  

  Critics generally trashed Jew Suss: Rise and Fall (2010), Oskar Roehler's fictionalized telling of Nazi Germany's notorious propaganda epic, Jud Suss. Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Virgin Suicides

  

  Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (1999) ranks high on the list of that year's 5,000 suburban angst dramas. Coppola's stylish, evocative direction makes a... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Groggy Writes: Leni Riefenstahl and Tiefland

  

  Perhaps you're wondering why I've been watching so many Nazi-era flicks recently. Mainly because I've been preparing an article on Leni Riefenstahl's Tiefland... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Jud Suss (1940)

  

  "We can give money so we can take and take and take!"Before Jud Suss (1940), Veit Harlan was a modestly successful melodrama director. Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Great King

  

  "I stand alone."Nazi cinema naturally plumbed German history for Adolf Hitler's forbearers. Hence Herbert Selpin's Carl Peters (1941), idolizing German East... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Inside Out (2015)

  

  Usually I don't feel qualified discussing animation, but it's hard to avoid praising Inside Out (2015). Pixar's new feature is their best since Finding Nemo, a... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Kolberg

  

  "Death is overcome by victory... It is the greatest thing of all."Joseph Goebbels often confused cinema and reality, as Kolberg (1945) demonstrates. Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Jurassic Park III

  

  I saw Jurassic Park III (2001) in theaters and once or twice on video, but barely remembered it. A rewatch showed why. The least ambitious Jurassic Park entry i... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES