Ari Aster Delivers Another Slow-Burn Horror Winner With Midsommar

Much like how Jordan Peele made quite a different beast with Us compared to his directorial debut Get Out, director Ari Aster has similarly taken great pains to ensure that his second directorial effort, Midsommar, is different from his initial directorial debut, last years Hereditary. Whereas that 2018 Toni Collette horror film was a grim contemplation of the cycle of abuse that oozed dread in every frame, Midsommar is a more loosey-goosey laidback horror comedy set in Sweden that utilizes the broad plot outline and character types of The Wizard of Oz. Aster's penchant for not just resting on his laurels is already admirable and it only helps matters that, when just taken as its own horror movie, Midsommar is a chilling and unique feature.

The Broadway Melody Made Cinematic History By Being The First Subpar Movie to Win Best Picture

Do you hear that? It's the sound of how much impact introducing sound into motion pictures had on the artform of cinema as a whole. So influential was this technological breakthrough that its widely speculated to be a key reason why The Broadway Melody managed to score a Best Picture win at the second Academy Awards ceremony, the first ever ceremony that saw non-silent films competing for Best Picture. In terms of its technological innovations, The Broadway Melody was a breakthrough (though it was far from the first movie to use sound) but unlike other films that pushed cinematic technology forward like The Wizard of Oz or Toy Story, The Broadway Melody as just a movie is pretty lackluster.

In Laman's Terms: It's Time For MGM To Get Back Into The Musical Game

In Laman's Terms is a new weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

After spending the 1980's and 1990's as an infrequent presence, the American musical came roaring back to life with the early 2000's double-whammy of Moulin Rouge! and Chicago. Since then, it's been common to get a new live-action musical adapting a famous Broadway musical (see: Nine, Les Miserables, Dreamgirls, Into The Woods, etc.) dropping around the holiday season in order to be a heavy presence around awards season. Though the American musical feature film has been far more common in the past 15 years compared to decades prior, the vast majority of them (save for Enchanted and Across The Universe) have been based on previously existing Broadway musicals or remakes of already existing musical movies.