Two Lists, Ten Favorites: Films of Martin Scorsese
by GEOFF GEIB, NIR SHALEV and HELEN GEIB
An occasional feature where the writers compare their five favorite films by some of the greats of world cinema.
Martin Scorsese (b. 1942)
GEOFF’S TOP FIVE
To be clear, this list is pointedly different than a list of my five best Scorsese films would be, and there is no better evidence to this than the omission of titles like Taxi Driver or The Last Temptation of Christ, which, while great, great films, are hardly ones that scream out for multiple viewings while distractedly typing away on the computer and trying not to overcook the penne. The following five I could stop, start in the middle, or watch endlessly on a loop and never want for more. Read more 
Top 10 Films of 2011 by Helen Geib
by HELEN GEIB
Alternate title: My 2011 Movie Year in Review. Tell us about your year at the movies in the comments. Read more
Top 10 Films of 2011 by Nir Shalev
by NIR SHALEV
I don’t like making top 10 lists because it makes me seem like a film snob, but I am a film snob, and somehow I still dislike making top 10 lists! Can’t win them all… So seeing that almost everyone else out there has compiled a top 10 (or 20) list, here is my list for the best 10 films of 2011:
10. Rango
Industrial Light and Magic’s first 3D animated film is hilarious, echoes Chinatown brilliantly, and is one of the most beautiful animated films that I’ve ever seen. It defeats many other live-action films that came out last year because it has real imagination, a lovable chameleon protagonist, and it’s a Western. That’s an automatic win. Read more
Desperado: My All-Time Favorite Guilty Pleasure
by GEOFF GEIB
Film critic Pauline Kael famously once wrote/said [1], “Movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.” One man’s treasure is another man’s Indiana Jones and the One with the Alien Ending, and so in honor of all the great trash that has splashed movie screens through the ages, I will spend a few words on my all-time favorite guilty pleasure, Desperado. Read more
There Will Never Be a Greater Film Than Citizen Kane
by NIR SHALEV
It all began in 1872, when a former California senator had a bet regarding whether all four of a horse’s hooves are off the ground at the same time during a trot. He hired English professor Eadweard Muybridge to use his latest invention, a type of motion camera to record the event. After that, with the advent of the moving pictures French “filmmakers” took over the process and motion pictures were in full swing. Then came the Russians; most notably and importantly Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, 1925), whose editing techniques are studied and fully utilized even today.
And then in 1941, came Orson Welles. He wrote, directed, and starred in his first full-length film Citizen Kane and history was made. What’s so important about his film is that it utilized everything that was used throughout the previous six decades’ worth of filmmaking techniques and various approaches to storytelling. Read more
They Made Me a Criminal: The Wellspring of My Cinemania
by HELEN GEIB
They Made Me a Criminal changed my life.
It’s because of They Made Me a Criminal that I blog. It’s why I can hold my own in a debate over the merits of the Hollywood studio system, and why I have movie posters on my walls and Photoplays on my bookshelves. It’s why I can pick the British male stars of the 1940s and ’50s out of a lineup. It’s the reason I read Japanese novels and the reason I know the Cantonese for “please,” “thank you,” “run away,” and “help!”
If not for They Made Me a Criminal, I would have gotten that political science minor in college instead of taking those not all that great film classes. I would have read the complete works of Anthony Trollope before I was 30 and hiked the Appalachian trail. I would have laughed, and cried, much less. I would never have met most of my friends.
Before They Made Me a Criminal I was a bookworm. After They Made Me a Criminal I was a movie addict. Read more
How Ghostbusters Shaped My View of Cinema
by RISHI AGRAWAL
I strongly feel that tastes, though they are refined later in life, are formulated in childhood. I think my love of postmodern and self-referential literature was sparked by the fact that my favorite book as a child was Sesame Street’s The Monster at the End of this Book, where lovable furry Grover warned the reader not to turn the page due to the book’s proclamation that there was a monster at the end of the book. The monster did, in fact, turn out to be Grover himself, but I still read the book multiple times, despite the fact that I knew the ending.
If I had to pick my favorite movie as a child, I would probably go with Ghostbusters (1984). I was a little young for the Star Wars phenomenon and even as a kid, I thought E.T.: The Extraterrestrial was sappy and manipulative. I love movies that show me something that I had never seen before, and although I am sure there are predecessors, Ghostbusters was one of the first times I recall something that effortlessly melded horror and comedy (discounting Scooby-Doo). Read more
Two Lists, Ten Favorites: Films of John Carpenter
by HELEN GEIB and NIR SHALEV
An occasional feature where Helen and Nir compare their five favorite films by some of the greats of world cinema.
John Carpenter (b. 1948)
Festival Report – Cinesation 2011, Part 3
by HELEN GEIB
Cinesation 2011 Day 3 – Sunday, September 25
Lord Jim (1925)
Lord Jim is a good movie taken on its own terms and a creditable adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel. Read more
Festival Report – Cinesation 2011, Part 2
by HELEN GEIB
Cinesation 2011 Day 2 – Saturday, September 24
White Oak (1921)
White Oak is a late William Hart Western with an 1850s St. Louis and Independence “gateway to the West” setting. If you’ve seen one Hart film, then you have a good idea of the story and characters of this one (which is NOT the same thing as “seen one, seen them all”- his films work a common theme without sliding into interchangeability). The balance here tilts in favor of action and away from morality play. Hart and his production team were in good form. The 1850s Missouri setting allows for a riverboat, wagon train, Hart in the outfit of a casino dealer and other costumes from a less-familiar Western era, and muzzle-loading rifles. Plus the heroine’s dog saves the day. Some continuity errors are the byproduct of lost footage that was cut for the film’s re-release; the abridged print is the only material known to survive for two of the reels. Read more
