When it comes to a particular genre of narrative storytelling, science fiction remains my favorite genre, but I will be honest- over the past several years, documentaries have just started to hit differently for me. I think it’s due to my starting to cover film festivals in 2019; while yes, seeing some narrative films before the general public has been exciting, there have typically been 2-3 documentaries from festivals like […]
The past few months have been a bit more of an emotional roller coaster for me than I’ve had in awhile. It hasn’t been tied to a particular life event; it just feels as though something shifted with my social media circle, and it’s been something to work through. The saying is “social media isn’t real life,” but the more time you spend on it, the less true that becomes, […]
As we wrap up the horror month this year, Phil Fasso and I dig back into three absolute classics that turned 50 this year. The subject is horror of 1974, and the films are Brian De Palma’s “Phantom of the Paradise”, Larry Cohen’s “It’s Alive” before concluding with Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. I hope you enjoy! The track at the end of this episode is “Symphonic Guitar Dread” […]
It’s October, and that means a double dose of Phil Fasso this year. In our first discussion, Phil and I review Gary Dauberman’s recently-released ”Salem’s Lot”. We discuss the previous adaptations of Stephen King’s novel, why a feature film may not be the best format for this story, and what engaged us in this film. I hope you enjoy! The track at the end of this episode is “Fear: The […]
If you love film, you likely have been to a repertory screening at some point in your life. The chance to watch an older movie, on the big screen, with a crowd as in love with the opportunity to watch a movie in theatres, maybe for the first time, or maybe to recapture that sense of wonder of when you first saw it. The idea of repertory showings of movies […]
This is the fourth year of “Repertory Revues,” and the 15th year since I started to watch older films over the month in an attempt to both broaden my cinematic horizons, as well as rewatching older favorites I wanted to write about, and it’s been increasingly difficult to keep up in the way I originally intended when I started in 2009. This year, I made a fairly big dent in […]
One of my favorite things in movies is when they show why a piece of music matters to a character. While a great soundtrack can help us figure out who a character is, when we see characters actively engage with music onscreen, that is a special thing for me. There are plenty of great examples of this- Max Cherry discovering The Delfonics in “Jackie Brown”; “As Time Goes By” being […]
**Author’s Note: The following essay includes scenes from “Touch of Evil” to illustrate my words. These scenes not only include spoilers to the film, but one involves implied sexual assault. Orson Welles never stopped pushing cinema form forward after “Citizen Kane”– the problem was his resources got more and more scant, and his freedom more and more bowled over by studio interference as he went along. But watch films like […]
Sonic Cinema Quick Thoughts
