|Steve Rybin| Four years separate Michael Mann’s crime drama Heat (1995) and his next movie, The Insider (1999). While Heat’smonumental pairing of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro is considered by many to be the highlight of the director’s career, The Insider remains the Mann film… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| The Hollywood thrillers that Fritz Lang made after leaving Nazi Germany—and after making there such classics as Metropolis (1927) and M (1931)—tend to be likable because they’re unmoved by the tyrannical demand that films ought to make complete sense. Continue reading
|MH Rowe| On Dangerous Ground (1951) might appear at first to be one of the more unbearably melodramatic film noirs ever produced. Its ending, or really the ending of the ending—the film’s final scene—threatens especially to pull all that has preceded it down into the depths of pure… Continue reading
|Doug Carmoody| Content Warning: Discussion of sexual assault on screen. Ida Lupino’s Outrage has a concept ready-made for modern independent film glory. A famous actress writing and directing a blunt, socially aware film about sexual assault has been a recipe for several of the buzzier and better-received films of the… Continue reading
On the surface, Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker (1953) is a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller about a homicidal maniac who hitches a ride with two friends on their way to Mexicali as murder looms just around the corner. Even the onscreen title that opens the film indicates its true… Continue reading
|Rowan Smith| When I first started getting more seriously interested in movies, around age thirteen, it was when video stores were on the precipice of catastrophe, though we didn’t know it yet. The business had already largely homogenized, people mostly rented from large chains… Continue reading
|Matthew Christensen| A lot of what’s been written about Alfred Hitchock’s Shadow of a Doubt has to do with the use of doubles. As with Strangers on a Train (1951), these dichotomies invite us to look at the muddied line between good and evil, and in doing so expose “what lurks underneath… Continue reading
|Dylan Hawthron| Before we actually start the movie, though, we see the Warner Bros. logo, followed by a screen announcing the lead actors: Farley Granger Mr. Granger appears by arrangement with Samuel Goldwyn Ruth Roman Robert Walker The fine print sticks out in an otherwise… Continue reading
|Dylan Hawthorn| Spoiler alert for Shadow of a Doubt. About ten minutes into Shadow of a Doubt, Charlotte “Charlie” Newton (Teresa Wright) lies in her bed, hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling. The camera had been relishing in the domestic bliss of her hometown… Continue reading
| Dan Howard | The Lady Vanishes plays at the Heights Theater on Thursday, April 4th. Visit trylon.org for tickets and more information. For years, Alfred Hitchcock was simply a name and a face to me. Yes, he is one of the greatest directors of cinema, but his work had never resonated… Continue reading
