The Magnificent Ambersons [50 Films Older Than Me #19]

Over six months ago, it was my birthday! And to add to all the real life goals and challenges that that brings, I’ve created at least one as it relates to movies and this blog–watch a film I’ve never seen before which came out in each year of the fifty years before I was born, and then write a bit about it.  This is Post #19. So, that’s 19 movies out of 50 in somewhat over 50% of the year, which just goes to show how far behind I am with all this.

Spoilers ahead.  

The War of the Worlds in Doctor Who – Leveraging Mass Hysteria

On October 30, 1938 (83 years ago today), Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on Air broadcast an infamous adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which according to some reports caused mass hysteria across the United States.

(Daily Doctor Who #341)

101 Movies That I Love the Most – Part One [101-76]

So lately I made a Youtube video, for the first time (I’ve made films before, and put them on Youtube, but I never made a video specifically to just say stuff on Youtube) in which I share my 101 Films That I Love the Most. You can see the video and read all about it here.

In addition to making this video, I thought I’d also share it in writing—for easy reference in case you or I don’t feel like listening to me talk about this over 40 minutes of real time.

100 Years, 100 Creators – Part 2

Over a few posts, I’m choosing different creators or creative teams–novelist, composer, scriptwriter, comic book artist, etc–who have influenced or inspired me, and in most cases brought me a lot of enjoyment.

Doctor Who: Invaders from Mars [Big Finish]

Invaders from Mars was the first of a new “season” of Big Finish audio adventures featuring Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor and India Fisher as his companion Charley, produced back in the early days of the company (2002).  It features guest appearances by Simon Pegg (famous for lots of things, including being Scotty in the recent Star Trek movies, and the Editor in the 9th Doctor story The Long Game) and Jessica Stevenson (aka Jessica Hynes, who played Joan Redfern in the 10th Doctor stories Human Nature and The Family of Blood).  It was also written and directed by Mart Gatiss, who is well known for writing a bunch of modern Doctor Who episodes, as well as co-creating Sherlock.

47 Great Movie Moments #30 – Citizen Kane

Continuing with this series of 47 moments in film that I love (Why 47?), today, for #30, we look at Citizen Kane. I know it’s sort of cinematic sacrilege to talk about War of the Worlds in one breath, and Citizen Kane in the next, but that’s what just the way we role here.

Citizen Kane (1941)

47 Movie Blogs #12 – Eight Movies with Interesting Fake Deaths

So, actually the topic as presented to me (taken from a list that I had originally suggested) was “Suicide Fake-Outs”, though my friend wasn’t sure what that actually meant.  I’ll explain that in a moment, but since I could only think of two examples, I thought I’d expand the topic to just “fake deaths” in films in general. 

Ten Interesting Non-Linear Movies

Like my post a while ago about time travel stories here, the idea isn’t to list the ten greatest non-linear stories.  Who could claim such a thing?  Especially when I’ve never even seen Rashomon, or Pulp Fiction?  But I’m interested in film and storytelling, and recently I’ve been pondering a bit about the idea of non-linear storytelling. This is a phrase that has a broad range of meaning and an equally diverse selection of potential examples.

Image courtesy of posterize / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Actually, almost every film is non-linear, in the sense that they don’t take place in a continuous uninterrupted flow of time and space.  If we take that a super-strict definition, than you have to go to something like Rope (presented in what is supposedly in one continuous take) or High Noon (which has edits, but takes place in real time) to find something that’s not non-linear.

But usually, that’s not what we mean. 

Citizen Kane vs. Speed Racer

To a certain degree, the movies Citizen Kane (1941) and Speed Racer (2008) sit on the opposite ends of some sort of spectrum for me.  One is a movie I acknowledge as one of the greatest movies ever made, but which I don’t particularly enjoy watching.  The other one is the film that I’ve described as “the worst movie that I ever thoroughly enjoyed”.  Guess which is which?  And which one shall I actually write about in this post?