i luv cinema

By Leave a Comment

Loving Movies in the Time of COVID

Part One of a Two-Part Series

It’s a weird thing. Generally, I consider myself rather introverted and balk at most opportunities to go out and socialize … and yet, during this near 9 month stretch of lockdown/isolation, I have found myself reflecting pretty hard on that idea. Especially when it comes to going to the movies – which, in the time of COVID, is not a thing.

The last film I saw in the cinema was Birds of Prey. And looking ahead at the 2020 movie calendar, I was looking forward to Wonder Woman 84, Mulan and Tenet, to name a few. And then there are the festivals. The plan was to attend another TCM Classic Film Festival, followed by Tribeca in the spring and the New York Film Festival in the fall.

Movies in the Time of COVID; Cinema Closure
[Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

Rebecca (2020) Equals Meh For Me

For Starters …

My history with Rebecca (in print and on screen) goes back … way back to the early 1990s when my academic and cinematic worlds collided. You see, I was in the early days of my classic movie journey/obsession and was immediately drawn to the works of the Master of Suspense himself, one Alfred Hitchcock.

From early on, I was determined to go through his entire filmography in chronological order – well except for some of his early silent films, which at the time were not widely available. Eventually, I arrived at his award-winning 1940 adaptation of the Daphne Du Maurier 1938 bestseller of the same name.

At the same time, I was in the midst of my junior year, looking for a subject of my semester term paper in English Lit. Once I found out Rebecca the film was based on the book, I made a beeline to the local library and over the next couple of weeks became completely consumed by the marital tale which had echoes of previous romantic stories I previously read, such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I was also drawn to the traces of the Gothic in the novel. In fact, I centered part of my paper’s thesis on Rebecca as a Gothic work of literature.

When I reflect, composing the paper was an exciting journey of in-depth literary research infused with my earnest investigative nature. The result was a top mark on the paper and an increasing driving enthusiasm for seeing the text come alive on the silver screen.

[Read more…]

By Leave a Comment

A Movie Lover’s Look at “Women Make Film” (TCM, 2020)

Introduction

From the earliest days of cinema, women were present, and often front and center. Filmmakers such as Alice Guy Blaché and Lois Webber were recognized as artists worthy of praise in their own right, even in the face of discrimination. Eventually and unsurprisingly, the inequities they faced in society and in the industry took greater hold, leaving theirs and countless other names as nothing more than the most obscure footnotes in film studies. As a result, the majority of these auteurs and the stories they told have been lost and forgotten to time.

Women Make Film: Alice Guy Blaché
Pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy Blaché

Often when we think about the world of cinema and its history, we assess the lives and careers of the “moguls,” those who made the movies or the “creator,” the ingenious talent behind the camera. Overwhelmingly, these biographies are male. Recent years have heightened anew the constant struggle to recognize women’s varied and extensive contributions to the field.

Rarely do we take full stock of the role women have and continue to play in the shaping of our cinematic literacy. We continue to challenge ourselves and shift our perspective to view the past and present (and future) of cinema “through the female gaze.”

[Read more…]
totalfilm600movieblogs