Life got ya down? Are you suffering from existential angst? Is “the horror” of existence becoming unendurable? Stop fretting, because I’ve got the solution to all your worries. Just watch these comedies and everything will be right with the world. It’s a NOFF guarantee. (But if it doesn’t work, then start drinking heavily).
Bottle Rocket (Wes […]
Posted on July 17th, 2010 by Mat Viola
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In this post I’d like to promote some films that deserve more recognition:
The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)
Rivaled only by The Passion of Joan of Arc in dramatic intensity among silent films, this bizarre thriller is the pinnacle of the Tod Browning/Lon Chaney collaborations. Chaney plays a circus knife thrower so obsessed with his beautiful but […]
Posted on June 12th, 2010 by Mat Viola
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Memorial Day provides a good excuse to make yet another top ten list. Here are my top ten war films (with apologies to John Wayne fans - I guess I’m not big on flag-waving jingoism):
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
Like Kubrick’s great Paths of Glory, […]
Posted on May 30th, 2010 by Mat Viola
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Like many film fanatics I love making Top Ten film lists, and what better excuse to do so than the end of a decade? Here are my Top Ten films of the 2000s:
1. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
Like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Lynch’s mesmerizing film occurs entirely in the mind of his dying […]
Posted on January 2nd, 2010 by Mat Viola
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Iain Stott is at it again over at his blog The One-Line Review. Several months ago he invited a select group of cineastes to participate in a poll the purpose of which was to find, consensusly, ”The 50 Greatest Films.” Unhappy with the fairly predictable results (Citizen Kane was #1, Vertigo #2, 2001 #3 etc.), Mr. Stott […]
Posted on December 6th, 2009 by Mat Viola
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2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) - Eschewing conventional storytelling techniques, Kubrick’s quasi-mystical tale of humankind’s evolution from primitive ape-man to angelic Star-Child (the final evolutionary leap of which hinges on man’s ability to harness the potentially destructive nature of his technology, here embodied by Hal, the all-too-human computer run amok) employs an elliptical, […]
Posted on March 22nd, 2009 by Mat Viola
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Sergio Leone: “For me the music is fundamental, especially in a Western where the dialogue is purely aphoristic. The films could just as well be silent; one would understand all the same. The music serves to emphasize states of mind, facts and situations more than the dialogue itself does. In short, for me the music […]
Posted on February 15th, 2009 by Mat Viola
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Note: Few films move me as profoundly as Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, and in this post I describe an overwhelmingly powerful scene that literally seizes me with a paralyzing sense of melancholy. This is the first in a planned series of posts on the film, the intent of which is, in […]
Posted on December 7th, 2008 by Mat Viola
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If you’re looking for an alternative to your usual Halloween horror movie viewing, here are a few fright flicks you might have missed:
Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1921) - Though creaky in parts, this seminal horror film remains visually impressive, particularly the way in which the vampire is shot from extreme low angles to emphasize his supernatural […]
Posted on October 31st, 2008 by Mat Viola
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