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
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
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
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
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
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?
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
Momentary Cinema 