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
I saw a post on Reddit recently where someone gave an overview of 298 movies that they had watched at the cinema in 2024. Very impressive number, is it not? Sadly (or perhaps gladly), I don’t have the stamina for that level of picture-house visitation. I watched 46 new films this year (some arguably first … Continue reading 2024 – Another Year in 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
What a year it has been. I really feel like I need a long break. They said Covid was over, but it was not. It’s still here and it’s still not nice. Fuck Covid! But I guess one’s treatable Covid pales in comparison to whole countries ravaged by war, which seems to be the evil … Continue reading 2023 – Another Year in 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
The noughties marked my life’s maturing (ages 14-24) and by way of that, marked the ascendancy of my passion for film. It was during this time that I generally started to reject the mainstream and seek out more independent material. Whether because I was genuinely establishing my taste in art or because I just wanted … Continue reading Travelling Through Time: The Best Films of the 2000s
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
The first film I saw in the cinema was Honey I Shrunk the Kids, a Disney film penned (weirdly) by body horror masters Brian Yuzna (Society) and Stuart Gordon (Re-animator), and released in the summer of 1989. I was four, so the memory is a bit patchy but I do recall being very complimentary of … Continue reading Travelling Through Time: The Best Films of the 1980s
I think it is safe to say that the seventies bore witness to the greatest decade for cinema. The fifties saw a post-war stagnation, the sixties saw experimentation and a liberation of ideas, and the seventies saw expansion and, as was often the case, a reach for excess. The Hollywood elite lost all semblance of … Continue reading Travelling Through Time: The Best Films of the 1970s
Momentary Cinema 