The Great Cinematographers of Hollywood’s Golden Age
Hal Mohr** is the only person to have won a competitive Academy Award without being nominated for it. Mohr was allowed to keep his Oscar and won a second.
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Category: Favorites
Essay One (1/2). Queer Films Under the Hays Code (1934-1967).
Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Charles Laughton, and Laurence Harvey were all known to be gay throughout their careers. Their adoring public may have felt there was something.
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Essay One (1). 34 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code 1934-1956.
A sensibility that would bring movies like “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “The Women,” and “Auntie Mame” under the queer umbrella.
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Essay One (2). 31 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1957-1967).
Behind the camera were the gay directors James Whale, George Cukor, and Vincente Minnelli, who showed their gay sensibilities to variable degrees
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Essay One. Table. 65 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967)
Alec Guiness, Dennis Price, Charles Laughton, and Laurence Harvey were all known to be gay. Their adoring public may have felt there was something!
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Essay Two. Table. 50 Queer Films from 1967-1976: Queer Cinema Comes Out.
The early seventies saw the blending of Queer Cinema and the New German Cinema thanks to the genius of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
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Grey Gardens (1975) A+ to Feud (2024) A-. The Maysles Brothers.
Gradually, the film’s high campness, including some deliciously bitchy one-liners between Big and Little Edie, developed a significant gay following.
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Beyond Utopia (2023) is one of the Best Documentaries of Recent Years A+
Director/Editor Madeleine Gavin masterfully combines these two storylines with some astonishing insights into what it’s like to live in North Korea
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Last Call (2023): A Serial Killer Preys on Gay Men in New York A+
Caronna gives these five men back their dignity, something they were stripped of when they became victims of a horrific crime.
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Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol (2023): Citizens Under Fire A+
Mstyslav Chernov’s masterful documentary chronicles the period he spent in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol when Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces attacked it.
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The Staircase (2022) Limited Series Review A+
The result: compulsive viewing for seven out of the eight episodes. Colin Firth is spellbinding. Toni Collette is equally superb.
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The White Lotus (2021) – Limited Series Review A+
The action then unfolds in flashback…. Olivia and Paula instantly become the series’ Greek Chorus; the best-friend-duo from hell.
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Mrs. America (2020) – Mini Series Review A+
Blanchett then slowly hangs up the phone and returns, defeated, to the kitchen. In un hommage à Akerman, the camera frames her in medium shot.
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Enlightened (2011) – TV Series Review A+
Laura Dern is a card-carrying liberal from Riverside. who wants to do good in this world but gets sidetracked by some deep personality flaws
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Beef (2023) The Netflix/A24 Production is Worth Savoring A
Created by Lee Sung Jin, the series boasts a wonderful script and spectacular turns by Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as the central characters.
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Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) A
Evan Peters, Josh Braaten (young Jeffrey), Niecy Nash as nest-door-neighbor Glenda and a magnificent Richard Jenkins as Dahmer’s Father, all give stellar performances.
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Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Prequel (2023) A-
It’s all just as delicious as the original two series with the two Lady Danbury’s taking all of the acting honors in their respective time periods.
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Fellow Travelers (2023) The Way We Were with a Queer Twist B+
“Fellow Travelers” is “The Way We Were,” with Jewish being replaced by Queer, Redford by Bomer and Barbra by Bailey. It’s compulsively watchable, just not a classic.
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What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018) B-
The greatest movie critic of her generation. Pauline wrote the most incisive and respectful response. It was a gorgeous review of “Blade Runner”…
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La Nouvelle Vague (The French New Wave)
Included are my favorite thirteen films. Four are directed by Godard, three by Truffaut, two by Renais, and one each by Chabrol, Demy, Malle, and Varda.
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The Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz
All twenty JLM films rated to coincide with a retrospective at the Criterion Collection. This includes his masterpiece “All About Eve”.
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The Films of Sidney Lumet
Why did a great director make so many bad movies? How could the man who made “Dog Day Afternoon” make 24 unwatchable films?
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Woody Allen’s Oscar-Nominated Works
This is a good time to take a look at what is truly an incredible list: Woody Allen’s record-breaking sixteen Oscar Nominations for Best Original Screenplay.
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Ranking Martin Scorsese’s 27 Feature Films
One masterpiece (“Taxi Driver”). Seven near masterpieces including “Raging Bull”, “Innocence” and “Irishman”. Let’s hope he never stops.
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The Films of Elia Kazan
Because of his naming names at the HUAC, what you think of Elia Kazan’s oeuvre depends on whether you can separate the artist from the art.
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The Films of Edmund Goulding
For almost sixty years he was the ONLY director whose film WON Best Picture (Grand Hotel 1932) but he was NOT nominated for Best Director.
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Which 7 Films Did Hitchcock Make That Were “Perfect”?
Seven films in which every shot, every camera move, every editing sequence is perfect. Four of the seven movies star either Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart.
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The 42 Most Honored Directors in Cinema History
Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, John Ford, William Wyler, Billy Wilder, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese are listed.
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Best Final Movie Made by a Great Director
Although Charles Laughton made only one and, therefore, final film, based on this film alone, he is of the Great Directors.
Number One: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet: 2007). Number Five: Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock: 1976).
My 50 All-Time Favorite Horror Movies
Here are my 50 all-time favorite horror movies from 1934 to the present.1. Psycho | 2. Midsommar | 3. The Exorcist | 4. The Shining | 5. Alien…
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