Blazing Saddles was a cheeky take on westerns and helped define the parody for years to come. Even though it takes place in a western setting with horses and guns, critics debate if it is a considered a hybrid or a full-fledged western itself. When we look at the movie poster, it seems like it…
Young Frankenstein
Young Frankenstein is a 1974 American comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks. This movie is about a young neurosurgeon (Gene Wilder) inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor Von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback called Igor, a pretty lab assistant named Inga and the old housekeeper,…
Quintet, The Worst Movie Ever Made?
Quintet, a film directed by Robert Altman, is a film that many think to be one of the worst films ver created. Quintet takes place on a frozen earth, set sometime in the distant future, with nothing left except ice, snow, and what little people are left. The film’s story follows a character named Essex,…
Blazing Saddles
The TCM film review of Blazing Saddles written by Emily Soares declares that “…whatever the opinion, Blazing Saddles has staked its claim in film history as a one-of-a-kind take on the American West.” The Philip Auter and Donald Davis research article titled “When Characters Speak Directly to Viewers: Breaking the Fourth Wall in Television” states that…
The Shining, Devil’s in the Details
If you have watched a few of Stanley Kubrick’s films you know that he is a perfectionist to the point of pain. Every aspect is controlled and with purpose, from the camera angles, to background decorations, and color scheme. There is much debate to this day surrounding the film and what Kubrick was trying to…
How Planet of the Apes Changed Film
Anyone who loves Sci-Fi like myself, knows Planet of the Apes kick started the Sci-Fi saga. Don’t get me wrong, there was War of the Worlds, The Blob, The Thing, etc. etc. The Planet of the Apes caught a lot of peoples fantasies, like my fathers. My father who grew up in the sixties, and…
The Shining: Kubrick Does it Again
Stanley Kubrick has often been hailed as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His visionary approach to the craft had reinvented practically every genre throughout the 1960’s and 70’s – from science fiction with 2001: A Space Odyssey, to romance in Lolita, and even comedy via Dr.Strangelove. So it should come as no surprise that he also…
Blazing Saddles
The historical question of how Blazing Saddles illustrated the style and social politics of the auteurs cinema movement is particularly relevant. In the auteurs movement, the directors were viewed as the major artistic influence behind the movie. This film is a strong example of a movie made during this movement, as Mel Brooks was highly…
An Influenced Woman, Under pressure from What, Who, and Why?
A Woman Under the Influence causes me to think about what the woman was influenced by. Was this her obvious mental affliction, or did it allude to the abuse of her husband? I am curious how much abuse society expected women to deserve versus how much abuse men were expected to deserve. Nora Sayre of…
Wild Strawberries, wildly thought provoking
Critics often talk about the striking styles Bergman uses because they launched his films to international success. For the 1950’s, open thinking and free thought hadn’t been necessarily encouraged. Bergman’s style definitely highlights and provokes the more reflective and inner thought processes. In a non-scholarly, journalistic interview with Woody Allen, the narrator, Mark Kermode, describes…
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