Now available at a bookstore (or website) near you: Tough Ain’t Enough: New Perspectives on the Films of Clint Eastwood, edited by Lester Friedman and David Desser. We have a chapter in this volume – “A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations”: The Cop Films from Nixon through Reagan – which considers eight of Eastwood’s…
Agnes Varda, one of the most distinct voices of postwar French cinema, turns ninety on May 30. Associated with the French New Wave, Varda’s career exemplifies, more than any other filmmaker, the New Wave ambition to blur the distinction between “documentary” and “fiction” films. (The argument in brief: documentaries follow narrative threads, reflect the choices…
William Holden would have turned one hundred on April 17 2018, and we thought a few words were in order to mark his centennial. Holden, a product of the studio system, is one of the few actors who made enduring contributions to both the Old Hollywood and the New. And in a handful of those…
The ever-dedicated staff here at Mid Century Cinema has been revisiting some of the films of Claude Chabrol for a forthcoming essay about his “second wave” of films—a remarkable dozen releases between 1968 and 1975. One of our favorite directors, and, although of course (following the Dylan rules), we didn’t know him, we nevertheless have an…
As faithful readers can attest, we have something of a Nixon obsession here at Mid Century Cinema. And, kind of like one of Jerry’s girlfriends speaking of George—we don’t like him. (Don’t care much for that Henry Kissinger, either, but that’s another matter.) Thus the following “programing note”—we have an article in the new (Spring…
In a recent essay in The New York Times A. O. Scott asks the question, “Is Woody Allen a Great Filmmaker?” Scott is a critic for whom we at Mid Century Cinema have enormous appreciation—his reviews are thoughtful and well written; his longer-form thought pieces and video essays are almost invariably valuable and insightful. We…
The hardworking staff at Mid Century Cinema recently had reason to revisit the New Hollywood films of Peter Yates. Of the nine features he directed from 1967 to 1977, two stand out as landmarks of the movement: Bullitt (1968) and The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973). We will consider the under-appreciated Bullitt later this year for…
Despite decades of dedication to the films of Stanley Kubrick, the hard working staff here at Mid Century Cinema had never before screened Spartacus. So now we have really seen them all. How could we possibly have waited this long? Two reasons. First, Spartacus is an epic – a giant, important, purposeful enterprise – and…
Jane Fonda turns 80 on December 21, which makes perfect sense, but nevertheless comes as something of a surprise. Fonda has been in the public eye for so long – and in so many guises (trailblazing video exercise guru in the eighties, the Ted Turner 1990s, most recently an art-house television star) – that one…
‘Tis the season for year-end “best of” lists, so we thought we’d play along with a focus on our favorite home video releases of 2017. A few ground rules – we’re valuing the merits of the release, not simply the movie, so there is an emphasis on discs that offer valuable extras and those that…