Cinema Paradiso Poignantly Reaffirms The Emotional Power of Movies

Unless you’re Paul Schrader, chances are you have fond childhood memories connected to cinema if you’re an adult devotee of movies. For me, it’s my faint memories of being an expert in inserting and ejecting VHS tapes in my families VCR player before I even learned how to talk! That kind of childhood connection to cinema can have long term effects that are felt well into adulthood and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar-winning feature Cinema Paradiso isn’t just aware of this, it’s the foundation on which the entire story is built. Unlike sand, the experience of youthful love for cinema turns out to be a great foundation on which to build something.

My Neighbor Totoro Is Irresitbly Pleasant Hayao Miyazaki Fare

You know how some movies tend to stuff their movies too full of extraneous conflict when their central premise has enough tension? My Neighbor Totoro is the exact opposite type of film, this is a feature film that runs entirely away from the traditional concepts of creating tension or danger in a movie. No villains are found here, there's no apocalyptic plot to foil. You don't need tension to make a good movie and My Neighbor Totoro is proof positive of that. It's just about two sisters enjoying the company of some fantasy creatures. It's a gentle hug of a motion picture, Hayao Miyazaki's love for the natural world at its most serene.

The Last Temptation of Christ's Compelling Humanity Makes It One of the Best Scorsese Movies

   

Martin Scorsese is known for his gangster movies and for good reason, he's made one of the all-time great gangster movies with Goodfellas. But that's not all he's delivered as a filmmaker, in fact, looking over his filmography, one is impressed with the variety of genres and aesthetics he's explored. The dude's dabbled in musicals, screwball comedies, family movies, Scorsese's love for cinema has been translated into him trying his hand at so many different avenues of creative cinematic expression. Such exploration has also led him to make religious-minded affair like Silence or The Last Temptation of Christ that stand out to me, as a Christian, as actually thoughtful Christan-based cinema, a perfect counter to all of that dreadful PureFlix drivel.

Women on the Verge of a Breakdown Makes For A Great Introduction To Pedro Almodovar Cinema

And in the newest edition of Iconic Filmmakers Douglas Laman Has Somehow Never Watched Before Now, let's turn to Pedro Almodovar. One of the most iconic Spanish filmmakers of all-time, Almodovar has had a steady string of successes as a director for nearly four decades now across a multitude of genres and early acclaim for his newest movie, Pain and Glory, indicates his successful creative streak is in no danger of ending anytime soon. However, his 1988 motion picture Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was the movie that brought him to a whole new level of worldwide prominence as a filmmaker and in retrospect, it's neat to see that this feature was able to resonate so deeply with worldwide audiences. Not just because it's a good movie (which it is, for the record) but also because it's such a unique creation, it's not a conventional feature by any stretch of the imagination and to see audiences respond to it with such positivity is wonderful to see.

Torch Song Trilogy Hits Countless High Notes

The 1990s saw an unprecedented resurgence for American Queer cinema in both indie and mainstream circles thanks to the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s and high-profile major studio releases with LGBTQA+ lead characters like Philadelphia and The Birdcage. In retrospect, a number of queer films released in the latter half of the 1980s used more forward-thinking storytelling and polished filmmaking to serve as harbingers of the increased profile LGBTQA+ American cinema would have in the following decade. One key example of these harbingers was Torch Song Trilogy, a film adaptation of a trio of Harvey Fierstein plays directed by Paul Bogart and starring Fierstein himself in the role of Arnold Beckoff.

The 1988 Hairspray Feature Is A Groovy Time Full of Brilliantly Unique Humor

I've grown up with the 2007 version of Hairspray, meaning the version of Hairspray I'm so familiar with is full of musical numbers and James Marsden. Having watched that feature countless times over the years, it was fascinating to watch the original Hairspray and see how it compared to the 2007 remake. For the first half of this 1988 take on Hairspray, directed by incomparable icon John Waters, the plot remains similar to the musical remake, it's still the story of Tracy Turnblad (here played by Ricki Lake), a girl living in 1960's Baltimore who loves The Corny Collins Show. She eventually gets a chance to audition for the program and manages to surprise everyone, including her mother Edna (Divine) by actually getting onto the show.

Beetlejuice Was Early Tim Burton That Went Full-On Strange To Mostly Endearing Results

We all know the tricks of the trade of Tim Burton movies at this point. Until recently, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter were guaranteed to show up in some capacity and the majority of his 21st-century output consists of remakes of already existing movies. And of course, the visual aesthetic that lands somewhere between gothic and quirky that's seen in nearly all of his work is perhaps his most defining trait as a filmmaker. But back in 1988, Burton had only directed one movie (as well as a slew of short films), so I'm sure seeing his morbid sensibilities very much front and center in the film Beetlejuice was very much a shock to many. Burton was coming out of the gate swinging and not putting aside any of his idiosyncrasies, that was for sure.

Scrooged Gives Charles Dickens A Bill Murray Twist

Why do storytellers love A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens so much to the point that it's appeared in countless pieces of media for over a century now? Well, it being in the public domain certainly doesn't hurt, but the narrative allows one to easily plug in characters into the well-known roles of the multiple ghosts, Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, etc. Plus, the lead character, Ebenezer Scrooge, stands out amongst other Christmas tales in that he's crotchety and cruel, though his unique (among Christmas-related tales) personality does get resolved just in time for an emotionally fulfilling climax. It's basically a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario with Scrooge on a thematic level.

They Live Review (Classic Write-Up)

They Live seems like a B-side, if you will, to fellow 1980's sci-fi/action satire RoboCop. Both weave in heavy duty science-fiction elements (robots in RoboCop, aliens in They Live) while diving in head first into satirizing the massive amount of influence big businesses carried then (and, in many cases, still do). They Live doesn't find nearly as much success as an individual movie as RoboCop, but it's still a gonzo trip into an appropriately unsubtle caricature of our world.