After an initial phase of experimentation, Hollywood expanded into a major money-making business centred around entertainment for the masses. The Studio System that formed around it dictated it to be thus. When talkies replaced silent pictures after 1929, the Golden Age of Hollywood was in full swing and arguably, Hollywood became the primary thing that … Continue reading American Nostalgia, Part 3 – Hollywood
MemoriesLight the corners of my mindMisty water-colored memoriesOf the way we were'The Way We Were’ by Barbra Streisand The Golden Age in the US is generally regarded to be from 1950 until the mid-1970s. It was a time when the instabilities of the earlier decades of the 20th Century (World War I, The Great Depression … Continue reading American Nostalgia, Part 2 – The Golden Age
Here we are, a first for Momentary Cinema: ranking movies of a director. Well, the thing is that I absolutely adore the work of Hayao Miyazaki - the legendary artist, animator, writer and director from Japan - so it is not an easy task to rank his 12 feature films from worst to best. Anyway, … Continue reading Hayao Miyazaki’s Movies Ranked
I have been wondering a lot about what makes the quintessential ‘American movie.’ God knows, they have been trying to hammer something home to us for as long as I have been on this earth watching movies...and I think it has something to do with the so-called ‘American Dream.’ I am aware that movies do … Continue reading American Nostalgia, Part 1 – Sports Movies
You said it would last, but I guess we enrolled in 1984 ‘1984’ by David Bowie The year 1984 was peak ‘eighties’ in terms of pop culture (the second season of Stranger Things certainly embellishes this notion). Rolling Stone consider it ‘Pop’s Greatest Year,’ with endless radio plays now guaranteed for classic tunes such as … Continue reading 1984 – A Very Good Year for Film
Running around banging your drum like it's 1973 'This is the Sea' by The Waterboys At the risk of raising the ire of those of you born around or before 1973, I do need to point out for the purposes of this post that it was 50 years ago! But on the plus side, I … Continue reading 1973 – A Great Year for Film
As mentioned in Part 1, Quentin Tarantino takes us on an entertaining journey through the New Hollywood era of filmmaking in his latest book, Cinema Speculation. Unsurprisingly, he focuses on his favourite directors – all tough and macho like Don Siegel and John Flynn – but he does offer an interesting critique of their works. … Continue reading Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation Reviewed, Part 2
In his latest book Cinema Speculation, his first non-fiction work, Quentin Tarantino discusses a number of movies he saw in the late sixties, throughout the seventies and into the early eighties. He delves into the era of New Hollywood and delivers a comprehensive and entertaining commentary on films that had the most effect on him … Continue reading Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation Reviewed, Part 1
Towards the end of Planet of the Apes (the original 1968 version) the borderline grotesque human George Taylor (Charlton Heston) commands his two ape saviours, Cornelius and Zira, and his ape captive, Dr. Zaius, to show him the ancient remains of pre-simian creatures in a cave located in the so-called 'Forbidden Zone'. The remains had … Continue reading Archaeologists on Screen: Heroes, Villains or Somewhere in Between?
And we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time Dialogue from Roger Corman’s 1960s counterculture classic The Wild Angels was an interesting choice for the opening of Primal Scream’s ‘Loaded’, a seminal indie-dance anthem released in February 1990, but it did resonate with the moment – a new decade, a new direction, … Continue reading Travelling Through Time: The Best Films of the 1990s
Momentary Cinema 