BOOK REVIEW – Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures

Robert Wise is one of my favorite American directors but (as I've noted in the past) he rarely receives the kind of critical attention that's heaped on his peers. Wise was a proud product of the Hollywood studio system and a very private man. Throughout his career, he purposefully avoided the spotlight and regularly praised …

GOING UNDER: REVISITING COMA (1978)

I spent Labor Day sick in bed. I was feverish, sore and incredibly cranky due to having my weekend plans derailed by a bad cold. On Monday night I began to feel slightly better after binging on Nyquil and homemade chicken soup so I curled up on the couch and turned on the TV. While …

Plucking the Petals of Masahiro Shinoda’s Pale Flower (1964)

“Tokyo… After three long years. It makes my head spin. Just look at it. Why so many people crammed into tiny cage-like boxes? People… Such strange animals. What keeps them all going? They look like they’re half dead. Making a frantic pretense of being alive. What was so wrong about killing one of these stupid …

BORIS KARLOFF IS THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)

Director Robert Wise is widely regarded as a journeyman filmmaker with no defining traits or distinct talents. In The American Cinema: Directors And Directions 1929-1968 critic Andrew Sarris famously labeled Wise’s output as “strained seriousness” asserting that the director’s “stylistic signature . . . is indistinct to the point of invisibility.” David Thompson parroted these claims in …

31 Films That Give Me the Willies

Top: House with Laughing Windows (1976), Deep Red (1975) Middle: The Seventh Victim (1942) Bottom: Black Sabbath (1963), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) I wasn't going to participate in Ed Hardy's 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies List due to suffering massive list-making burnout following the recent Favorite Foreign Language Film poll (which I …