|Andrew Neill| I’m in a hotel room in Appleton, Wisconsin, and turn on the TV. It’s on CNN, but instead of some talking head feeding the news cycle, there’s a man I recognize but haven’t seen in a long time. He’s sauntering down a narrow street between ancient, eroding buildings and… Continue reading
|Ben Jarman| Up until his death, Stan Lee showed up in a cameo role for every movie that’s part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Even general audiences loved finding him pop up as a postman or security guard. Appearances like this quickly made Stan Lee a household… Continue reading
|John Costello| Two-thirds of the way through Casablanca (1942), the action pauses in Rick’s Café Américain to dwell on three minor characters seated at one of the tables. Instead of another scene involving a pickpocket or a musical number advancing the story, the camera lingers on an elderly couple, the Leuchtags. Carl, a waiter… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| Things are not quite as you remember in Casablanca. Consider before anything else the film’s hellish yet also somewhat corny setting. Here we have the city of Casablanca on the coast of Morrocco only days before Pearl Harbor, December 1941. None of the film’s characters know the fateful Japanese Continue reading
|Chris Ryba-Tures| As I grimly plod into my forties, movie nostalgia has…not so much become a heady escapist drug, so much as an increasingly out-of-body point of fascination. Obviously, because childhood is generally just so easy to wax nostalgic about, but moreover because the… Continue reading
|Bob Aulert| Up in the air, Junior Birdman The Rocketeer (1991) blends nostalgia, adventure, romance, and patriotism into a classic superhero narrative. Set in the golden age of aviation during the late 1930s, it’s an adaptation of Dave Stevens’s comic book series of the same name… Continue reading
|Reid Lemker| What was the first “adult” movie you saw as a kid? For me, the first movie that comes to mind is Where Eagles Dare. I was probably ten or eleven when my dad first showed it to me, and it quickly became a favorite of ours to watch on… Continue reading
|Devin Bee| Where Eagles Dare is a film of clashes. The story sounds simple enough: during World War II, an American general is held captive by Nazis in a Bavarian castle. An elite squad of Allied soldiers—six British and one American—are tasked with infiltrating the castle and saving the… Continue reading
|Penny Folger| Hitler stands in a town square in Poland while dumbfounded townspeople encircle him, looking as though they’re witnessing a talking polar bear, or perhaps something much more absurd and dangerous. A small girl in the crowd suddenly pipes up, “May I have… Continue reading
|Chris Ryba-Tures| It’s taken me a long, long time to admit this to myself: hating stuff isn’t very cool. Hating something, especially when you make that hate part of your personality, a talking point at parties, a fulcrum to get a rise out of folks, is pretty tedious, exhausting, and boring, isn’t it? Continue reading
