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
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
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
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
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
Momentary Cinema 