Christopher Saunders

LATEST ARTICLES ( 659 )

• Young Cassidy

  

  "All the world's a stage, but some of us are desperately under-rehearsed." John Ford admired radical Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, even directing a fatally... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• State of the Union (1948)

  

  "The world needs honest men today more than it does presidents!"Frank Capra built his reputation on trans-ideological appeals to Man's better nature, arguing... Read more

  Posted on 20 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Blow-Up

  

  "Nothing like a little disaster for sorting things out."Blow-Up (1966) has been a seminal text for cineastes and filmmakers for 50 years. Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Race

  

  Stephen Hopkins' Race (2016) is slightly better than you'd expect it to be. An inspirational sports drama focusing on Jesse Owens, the American track star who... Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• American History X

  

  "Life's too short to be pissed off all the time."It seems timely to revisit American History X (1998) this weekend, a sad commentary on the state of America in... Read more

  Posted on 13 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Misfits

  

  "A man who's too afraid to die is too afraid to live."John Huston's The Misfits (1961) is a remarkably star-crossed film: between a difficult shoot in... Read more

  Posted on 12 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Detroit

  

  Few directors handle white-knuckle intensity better than Kathryn Bigelow, and Detroit (2017) delivers that in spades. The movie's second act, an hour of brutal... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• August Preview! Some Movies, More History

  

  "What is all this nonsense about Groggy posting history instead of film reviews? I want him murdered!"Welcome to August for all of my readers! Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Drowning Pool

  

  Nine years after Harper (1966), Paul Newman reprises his role as Ross Macdonald's snide, gum-chewing detective in The Drowning Pool (1975). Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Dunkirk (2017)

  

  Over time, Christopher Nolan's career evolved from modest art films (Memento, Following) to bombastic blockbusters (The Dark Knight, Inception, etc.) evincing... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Live by Night

  

  After a string of critical successes (Gone Baby Gone, The Town, the Oscar-winning Argo), Ben Affleck found his first flop with Live By Night (2016). Read more

  Posted on 26 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Birth of a Nation (2016)

  

  Few films rose and fell as quickly as The Birth of a Nation (2016), Nate Parker's troubled Nat Turner biopic. After a rapturous Sundance reception and... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Assassin (1961)

  

  Elio Petri's debut film, The Assassin (1961) offers a noir-inflected character study. Marcello Mastroianni plays a criminal who's caught, ironically, for... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Illustrious Corpses

  

  "One judge's murder is a crime, but four is political!"Francesco Rosi crafts a politically-charged whodunnit with Illustrious Corpses (1976). Read more

  Posted on 23 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Lost City of Z

  

  James Gray's The Lost City of Z (2017) breaks the mold of recent epics that are all spectacle and little depth. It's a remarkable movie, functioning both as an... Read more

  Posted on 19 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Founder

  

  (2016) seems like two separate stories vying for space in the same movie. One is a scathing indictment of unbridled capitalism, using McDonald's honcho Ray... Read more

  Posted on 18 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Get Out

  

  "Some people don't want strangers messing around with their head."In his wildest dreams, comedian Jordan Peele probably couldn't have imagined that his... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• RIP George Romero

  

  I would be remiss if I didn't note the passing of Pittsburgh's own George A. Romero. Mr. Romero, age 77, is the filmmaker behind Night of the Living Dead (1968)... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• History: Appointment at Veracruz, 1914

  

  Woodrow Wilson was a man of contradictory impulses. He enacted progressive economic and labor reforms while racially segregating the Federal government. Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• The Long Goodbye

  

  "I'm a born loser. I even lost my cat."Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) was initially among his least successful pictures. Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2017 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES