Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 667 )

• The Blue Light

  

  Leni Riefenstahl moved from B-list actress to director with The Blue Light (1932), a fairytale of temptation and tragedy. Like all of Riefenstahl films it's... Read more

  Posted on 30 June 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• A Time to Kill

  

  John Grisham's legal novels inspired countless '90s films, most entertaining, disposable thrillers (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, etc.). Joel Schumacher's A... Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Tiefland

  

  Some films are more interesting to read about than to watch. Leni Riefenstahl's Tiefland is a prime example: shot intermittently between 1934 and 1945,... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Jurassic World

  

  After a decade of false starts, the latest Jurassic Park entry came roaring into theaters this year. Jurassic World (2015) replaces the original's mix of awe an... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Dirty Harry Article

  

  I apologize for my recent absence. Sound on Sight is doing an Action Movie Month, and I've been working on several articles on the Dirty Harry franchise. Read more

  Posted on 28 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Cleopatra (1963)

  

  The granddaddy of box office bombs, Cleopatra (1963) plays even worse now than it did fifty years ago. This overblown sword-and-sandal flick is gaudy, talky... Read more

  Posted on 17 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Spy in Black

  

  Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger first collaborated on this wartime melodrama. The Spy in Black (1939) shows the future Archers' penchant for humanizing... Read more

  Posted on 14 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Other Side of the Wind

  My Citizen Kane piece for Sound on Sight's doing well; I've received several friendly comments, re-posts by the fine folks at Wellesnet and The Projection Booth... Read more

  Posted on 12 May 2015 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• 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