Listen, it’s simple, Buster Keaton’s The General is one of the greatest movies of all time. And the best way to see a movie — especially a comedy — is with a big crowd. And outside? On one of the best days of 2014? Forget it. There is absolutely no way… Continue reading
Nearly every Guinness film we’ve shown in this series has been a comedy. But the films that likely turned Alec Guinness into Sir Alec Guinness were his dramas. His big dramas — Kwai, Zhivago, Twist, Arabia — are widely known by film fans. But the lesser seen Tunes of Glory is another stand out that we’re… Continue reading
Before our Alec Guinness series gets all serious with Tunes of Glory, we feature one of his finest comedies The Ladykillers? How fine is it? Fine enough that Greatest American Filmmakers (to some), Joel & Ethan Coen chose it for the first film they every tried to remake. Of course, their remake… Continue reading
Alfred Hitchcock defined himself in 1934-1935. Although he was an established director with specialty in tense filmmaking, these years saw him go from being a director to the Alfred Hitchcock. In 1934 his original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much established one of Hitch’s main career touchstones: the… Continue reading
Our month of Kurosawa Sans Samurai ends tonight with High and Low, his classic film of crime, kidnapping, greed and society. One of a long line of adaptations directed by Kurosawa, High and Low‘s plot comes from the police thriller King’s Ransom. But like The Bad Sleep Well or Yojimbo, Kurosawa again transforms the non-Japanese source into… Continue reading
The birth of hip hop is a curious thing. It’s both hotly disputed (which borough ‘created’ it, who really invented scratching, etc.) and remarkably well documented. The creation of an entirely new culture inside the cultural capitol of, well, the world, created a weird feeding frenzy of lovers and opportunists… Continue reading
In 1978, Minnesota native John Hanson, along with collaborator Rob Nilsson, wrote, produced, edited this stark, humanist portrayal of farm life and the leftist agrarian history of North Dakota. This debut film won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Starring non-professional actors and shot in a winter even colder than the… Continue reading
Lancastic rolls on this weekend and Burt finds himself trapped in two very different situations. In Birdman of Alcatraz, he’s trapped by prison walls. In The Train, he’s trapped between the French resistance and a Nazi train laden with stolen art. Both are directed by John Frankenheimer, whose career was given a… Continue reading
It was early in my days with the Trylon when I feel in love with Lancaster when we showed The Sweet Smell of Success, a movie so dark, so mean, so grim that it’s hard to believe it was ever made. Shortly thereafter I went on a noir bender and… Continue reading
The Trylon microcinema offers up a rare treat this Halloween — the classic grandfather of the modern zombie genre, Night of the Living Dead, with a brand new soundtrack, played live by frequent Trylon collaborators The Poor Nobodys. The film won’t be completely silent, so you’ll still be able to hear… Continue reading
