The Miracle of Marcelino (1955)
The original Spanish title Marcelino pan y vino (Marcelino bread and wine) accurately conveys the spirit of Ladislao Vajda’s 1955 faith drama The Miracle of…
Author: Ernest Dempsey
Of Zodiac Signs and Movie Genres
Some of us keep an astronomical interest in movies. A recent article, however, that I came across proposed that the best movie genres for us…
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
Filming Richard Burton, still young enough, among a bunch of women of all ages and intentions would be the selling point of this movie if…
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express, directed by Sidney Lumet, is remembered for being a star-studded feature…
Buffalo Bill: Laying the Transphobia Noise to Rest
So a couple months back the familiar complaint about Buffalo Bill’s character in The Silence of the Lambs again made rounds on social media –…
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Robert Wise wasn’t just directing another potential pathogen disaster movie in The Andromeda Strain (1971); he was taking incorporation of scientific realism into a trending…
Children of Men (2006) – Sci-Fi or Simply Dystopian?
More than 10 years ago, when I first saw Children of Men (2006) in my sci-fi cinema class at the college, my first thought was…
Mackenna’s Gold (1969)
Mackenna’s Gold is beyond reach. Mackenna’s Gold goes beyond adventure. This tagline for J. Lee Thompson’s classical western Mackenna’s Gold (1969) fits neatly in its…
The White Tower (1950)
The good old adventure drama The White Tower, directed by Ted Tetzlaff, is a journey up the hill of a mountain as much as one…
Directorial Ethics: How Much Should Actors Take It?
Film directors can be friendly or bossy, even insensitive and outright cruel. But how far can they go to beat their desired performance out of…