Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 659 )

• In Which Groggy Raises Citizen Kane

  

  I've spent the last two weeks preparing an article on Citizen Kane for Sound on Sight - specifically, on Pauline Kael's "Raising Kane" and the debate it... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Avengers: Age of Ultron

  

  I hadn't dipped into the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Iron Man 3, two years, four films and several TV series ago. Much as I liked earlier franchise... Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Rko 281

  

  There's no shortage of behind-the-scenes docudramas, chronicling the production of classic movies with cliched, predictable drama. Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Guest Article: For Love of the Game

  

  This week I received a generous offer to guest blog from correspondent Jacob Holtgraewe. Here he writes about Sam Raimi's For the Love of the Game. Thanks... Read more

  Posted on 02 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Madness of King George

  

  "I am the verb, sir, not the object!"Alan Bennett's play The Madness of George III arrived onscreen with its director (Nicholas Hytner), star (Nigel Hawthorne)... Read more

  Posted on 01 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Last Frontier

  

  (1955) doesn't rank high among Anthony Mann's Westerns. It's a B Movie blown to outsized proportions: lacking Mann's usual complexity, it only has nice scenery... Read more

  Posted on 30 April 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Ruby Sparks

  

  One knock against the "indie film" subgenre is the annoying female leads. Nathan Rabin dubbed these strange creatures "Manic Pixie Dream Girls"; I prefer twits. Read more

  Posted on 25 April 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Drum

  

  (1938) was one of the Korda Brothers' vehicles for Sabu, the Anglo-Indian child star who achieved fame with Elephant Boy (1937). Read more

  Posted on 24 April 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Lost World: Jurassic Park

  

  was everywhere the summer of 1997. Not the cultural phenomenon of its predecessor or the same year's Titanic, it was still a triumph of the Hollywood Hype... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• King Solomon's Mines (1950)

  

  H. Rider Haggard created the modern adventure with King Solomon's Mines, whose exotic excitement inspired fictional heroes from Tarzan to Indiana Jones. It's... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Groggy On Hiatus

  

  Groggy is going to take a break from blogging. I hate to do it, but there's too much going on right now: work is tough, I'm searching for a new apartment,... Read more

  Posted on 11 March 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• New Flashman Movie

  

  A long, obnoxious Monday capped with great news:Fox is going back to the 1830s and is developing “Flashman,” a movie based on the period novels by George... Read more

  Posted on 09 March 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Sound on Sight Article: John Osborne on Film

  

  Why no posts this week? I've been working on a new Sound on Sight piece, discussing John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. We've discussed that play and film here... Read more

  Posted on 07 March 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Hitler: The Last Ten Days

  

  An Anglo-Italian co-production, Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) is an uneven revisiting of Nazi Germany's destruction. Alec Guinness gives a good... Read more

  Posted on 01 March 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Cromwell

  

  One of the traditional epic's last gasps, Ken Hughes's Cromwell (1970) flattens a fantastic story. Alec Guinness and a game supporting cast struggle against an... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Theory of Everything

  

  To most people, Stephen Hawking is either an inscrutable genius or Lisa Simpson's robot buddy. The Theory of Everything (2014) reminds us that even scientists... Read more

  Posted on 26 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Nightcrawler

  

  (2014) was one of the Academy's notable exclusions last night (though let's face it, the right movie won). Dan Gilroy's thriller succeeds in its eerie... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• New Column: The Battle for Lawrence of Arabia

  

  Apologies for my absence! I just started writing for another film site, Sound on Sight, which published my inaugural piece today: The Battle for Lawrence of... Read more

  Posted on 17 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The King of Marvin Gardens

  

  Bob Rafelson followed Five Easy Pieces (1970) with this high-toned oddity. The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) is a fascinating miscalculation, its overbaked... Read more

  Posted on 12 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• American Sniper

  

  Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (2014) is this season's Gone Girl, an unassuming genre flick generating a thousand think pieces on its cultural significance. Read more

  Posted on 08 February 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES