CineRagMovieMag

Arts and Entertainment Magazine

Letter from the editor

Dear Reader, We would like to take this opportunity to the genuinely offer a thank you from everyone at the Cinerag magazine. We had so much fun working together to come up with our lists of the greatest horror movies of all time. This has personally been a dream come true for me. I remember being in my early twenties and coming upon the fall season and instinctively looking to the internet and various publications around town for lists of horror movies to track down those I had not seen. Now it warms my little black heart to know a list I contributed to will forever be in the ether and unerasable depths of the web. This was also a major challenge because I wanted this list to reflect the personality of this publication, and not necessarily a definitive list everyone would agree on for years to come. The decision to leave out some popular favorites and include lesser-known films in the hope we could elevate the notoriety of some of those films was a difficult one because we knew going into the list discussion, there would always be push back and vocal differences of opinion. In the end we decided it was more important to us as a magazine to spread the horror and fun from the films we enjoyed the most.

It was also such a pleasure to host the revisited series and look back at some amazing but sadly forgotten films some out hardly be exposed to outside of an obscure film school course. Seeing Body Double again through the lens of Brian De-Palma as a formalist filmmaker to be an awesome experience which will no doubt be at

the top of my list of favorite essays, I’ve ever had a chance to write about. Then on the whole other spectrum of cinema to look at Bicycle Thieves as the high point of Italian Neo-Realist cinema as also an awesome experience.

One of the things I’ve love the most about editing this magazine is the diverse look at films from all genres and popularity levels. From the biggest blockbusters of all time like Jaws, to forgotten indie gems like Body Double, we have supported each other through every decision to explore what the power of cinema really means.

So, thank you, the reader for taking an interest in what we do. And just by reading this you should consider yourself to be a part of the Cinerag family. We look to you to figure out what we should explore. So, I implore you to reach out to us and tell us what you want to see and read about. An old movie you haven’t heard about in a long time you think didn’t get the attention it deserved? Let us know ad we’ll revisit it.

Till next time, enjoy reading and watching cinema, the love that keeps us all together.

Watch on, Thom Denton

Greatest horror-comedy movies of all time

By thom Denton

To kick this segment off, we are first going to examine the fun niest of the horror subgenres, Horror Comedy. With exam ples dating back to Edgar Allan Poe and his take on literary horror pranksters, there is a long tradition of mixing humor with terror. From Abbott and Costello to Sam Ramey to Edgar Wright, visual auteurs have long enjoyed confusing audiences into not knowing whether to run for the nearest trash can or laugh out loud. This subgenre offers something for everyone, from family-friendly films like Gremlins or Hocus Pocus to gorefest splatterfests like Re-Animator or Dead Alive to fun trope exploitations like What We Do in the Shadows.

These films can be watched alone late at night or with friends on a movie night, but they are most enjoyable in the cinema with a large audience. Sometimes, the best laughs come from seeing how others react to the over-the-top violence or blackas-night humor. We feed off the rest of the audience and breathe a sigh of relief when howls of laughter swell around us as a character gets his head blown off on screen in the most over-the-top fashion. As much as I’d like to add something like Dr. Stranglove to the mix, watching that film right now feels like taking a first date to a snuff film. What we can offer is a mix of hilarious genre deconstructions, playfully scattered mishmashes of the familiar and unfamiliar, as well as bizarre and indul gent homages to classic archetypes. This list has something for everyone.

5. (Tie) Abbott and Costello

Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

One wonders if Mary Shelly had any idea her dark and serious account of a mad scientist who meddles with nature would be such prime fodder for laughs?! While Abbott and Costello hit paydirt on their decline by making the genius deci

sion to blend the genres, even Quenten Tarantino has listed it among his favorite horror films saying, “When it was sup posed to be funny, it was really funny, and when it was supposed to be scary, it was really scary!” The legendary Mel Brooks deconstructed the monster for his ironic take, featuring hilarious perfor mances by everyone from Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle to Cloris Leachman and Gene Hackman, who steals the show in his very limited but outrageously funny screen time.

Both films are considered alltime classics and contributed to the pop ularity of genre mashing. Want to put on a movie the whole family will love this Halloween season? You cannot go wrong with either of these uproarious films.

4. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Here’s a team that brings every audi ence to its knees with laughter no matter what genre they choose to lampoon. Filmmaking trio Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost brought comedy horror to new heights in the early 2000s. Audiences welcomed this classic with open arms as they kicked off their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. Each film is a classic in its own right and takes on a different film genre to make its own. Shaun of the Dead delivers in scares and laughs, doing what Kevin Smith never could by taking his slacker heroes out of their comfort zones and forcing them to care about something. Pegg and Frost tear up the screen as Wright masterfully

anticipates the reaction of the audience to every bit, prompting a combination of jump scares, gorefest imagery, and hilar ious exchanges that could only be deliv ered by true best friends Pegg and Frost, the scene in particular when the pair are deciding which LPs to hurl at the undead is an all-time great!

3. Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Here we have another of the great genre-mixing team with this Joss Whedon (whom we’d rather forget had a hand in this film at this point) and Drew God dard, making his directorial debut with staggering assurance as he leads a cast of seemingly predictable college students, nicknamed “The Virgin,”“The Athlete,” “The Whore,” “The Fool’’ and “The Scholar’’ into this brilliant deconstruction of horror which spends its first half lead ing the audience along with one chuckle after the other with gags like pharemon releasing plants which ensure every trope is perfectly hit by the engineers. While the cast is hilarious all around as the students hilariously look around from time to time, meta-wondering if they are, in fact, in a horror film, the true stars of this show are Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford as the underground engineers whose job it is

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chainsaw (one of the most hilarious moments, hands down) which also counts among the many callbacks to classic horror. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil mixes genre, nostalgia, and creativity in an unbeliev ably hilarious, heartfelt masterpiece in expectation subversion.

1. Evil Dead II (1987)

Everyone knows this category belongs to Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell. They defined it and pushed it beyond any boundaries that existed before 1987. This hilarious and terrifying jaunt pushes the camp, gore and violence past the brink. Nothing which has come before or since can stand anywhere but on the shoulders of this giant. While technically a remake (or maybe a sequel starring the same actor in a different role?) Rami and Campbell are having the most fun here, which is more than obvious on screen. And while Rami would push his talents to new heights (Spider-man 2, anyone?) Campbell would continue to stick to what he knows best, writing hilarious books (the brilliantly titled If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor) even reprising his most iconic character as late as 2018, but his talents do not end there. Camp bell is beyond hilarious in everything he has done from his many cameos to Bubba Ho-Tep (where he and Ossie Davis play nursing home-bound Elvis and the Black John “they dyed my skin!” Ken nedy to fight a resurrected mummy) to Cars 2, all while allowing his image to define his persona in ways few actors could.

to anticipate every movement of the young students as they are led to certain death. They spice up the work day monotony with an office pool to see who can predict which cliched monster is awakened by the kids. Sigourny Weaver shows up in a surprise roll towards the climax of the film as the joke (and plot) go deep er than any casual viewer would have imagined.

2. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

Keeping the setting while showcasing a very different decon struction of the genre, this 2010 film from Eli Craig stars the un believably hilarious duo of Tyler Labine and effortlessly reliable Alan Tudyk. The two play a couple of self-described hillbillies who have made their dreams come true by buying a, forgive the cliche, cabin in the woods where they can spend their days drink ing cold beer and fishing. Tucker (Tudyk) is intent on helping Dale (Labine) improve his self-confidence as the two realize their dream “vacation home” is right across the lake from a popular camping spot for college students. The students predictably sneer at Tucker and Dale, while making up their minds before talking to the Steinbeckian pair. However, when the young Allison (Katrina Bowden) knocks herself out in the lake, it’s Tucker and Dale who dive in to save her from drowning. A series of hilar ious misunderstandings follow. The bumbling duo attempt to return Allison to her friends. In retrospect, they would probably go about it differently. Shouting “we’ve got your friend!” in the woods may not be the best way to get them to come. The gags are all hilarious: from Dale mistaking Allison’s screams for a dislike of pancakes to Tucker’s ill-timed attempt at cutting a tree with a

Evil Dead II shines in the seamless blend of terror and howling laughter in nearly every scene. And more than anything, everyone involved seemed to be having a blast, knowing what would come of the devious brilliance they had cooked up. And while its 1992 sequel, Army of Darkness, has a place in the oeuvre, Evil Dead II is the pentacle of splatterfest hilarity. Now over 35 years since its release, the film continues to allow newer generations to twist in repulsion and laugh hysterically within moments of each other in ways no other film has. Add in the innovative camera work and focus on prosthetics and makeup over com puter effects and what you get is the definitive take of a groundbreaking juggernaut which continues to set the standard for what has come before and since. It will forever be impossible for audiences to consider horror comedy without thinking of a chainsaw-armed Ash grinning at the screen with the iconic line, “Come get some.”

Greatest horror films of the

2000sby

thom denton

Something happened at the turn of the century. The audience became tired of the tried and true Slasher films which dominated the ‘80s and ‘90s and were on the lookout for terrifying films with more substance. With films like EXistenZ and Fight Club setting the stage for subversive cinema in the last gasp of the 1900s, and those who took the baton and pushed fear-mining into new territory as audiences were often more inspired to consider the stories philosophically at night, rather than lay awake in terror (though sometimes both!).

And while there would be slews of remakes and reimaginings of classic horror films in the ‘00s, almost none would resonate with audiences as little more than a weekend box office statistic during a random weekend in October. What these films proved is horror’s ability to last in the zeitgeist with critical and cult appeal.

What follows is a list of films that broke new ground and set new standards for genre films, often allowing filmmakers to add more honesty and passion to horror than came in the decades before.

5. Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele announced himself to the world of cinema with this way better than an expected foray into horror. By making his directorial debut an allegory for modern racism, Peele hits all the appropriate horror tropes in the most unexpected ways. Luring the audience into a sense of calm until an explosive climax exposes who the true monsters of modern American culture are: white liberals. Daniel Kaluuya is riveting as both an audience proxy into every minority’s worst nightmare and the central protagonist who uncovers the dark secrets hiding under the floorboards of polite society.

While Peele has continued to polish his style with Us and Nope, he has yet to achieve the heights of this brilliant takedown of the bourgeoisie. Peele, along with others like Danny Glover and Flying

Lotus, hasve allowed broad audiences a glimpse into the Black experience of America by using afro-surrealism to show how the fear of what is around every corner is just another part of life for marginalized groups.

4. Saw (2004)

This is how you start a craze. James Wan pushed the tension to 11 with this low-budget blend of exploitative tourture porn and puzzle-box suspense. While the plot is well known enough now, the thought of waking up in a dingy backroom somewhere with a stranger chained to a radiator and a corpse in between you and being punished for unremembered sins, was beyond terrifying. The most important aspect of the first in this series, with eight movies currently and another scheduled for 2023, was how fresh it felt at the time, something that will always make a genre film stand out.

And while Wan has gone onto other horror tentpoles, Saw deserves the credit for allowing him to show a new century what can be capable with a low budget, gallons of gore, and a vivid imagination.

3. Tie Hereditary (2018)/

The VVitch (2015)

Both Ari Aster and Robert Eggers exploded onto the horror circuit with their respective debuts, in what we now call “elevated horror.” What these films did, other than introduce the world to their unbelievable talents, was to allow audiences to take horror

seriously again. Drawing from the works of Roman Polanski and William Friedken, these filmmakers seldom rely on jump scares, while shocking audiences by making them leave the theater with malignant fear.

In The Witch, Eggers is obsessive in his attention to detail, making sure the 17th- century clothes, houses, and fears are all ripe for the setting. Introducing the world to the powerhouse that is Ana Taylor-Joy by showcasing her committed performance is enough to justify its impact. Taylor-Joy digs her teeth into every nuance of the character, fully prepared to “live deliciously.”

With Hereditary, audiences are allowed into the darkest of dark family dramas. Asher’s ability to use settings as characters which are built with personality, he uses mise-en-scene to bring this horror-drama to life. Toni Collet is brilliant as a buoy for the audience to grasp onto as we follow the story as it takes us to places we would never expect, and even

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regret ending up at, a cornerstone of hard-core horror as a genre. One thing is for sure, the less you know about this film going into it, the better.

2. Let the Right One it (2008)

In this brilliant reimagining of the Vampire trope, director Tomas Alfredson masterfully subverts the bloodsucker theme by making the monster 12 years-old. In what might be the most humanized monster movie of the century so far, Alfredson maximizes his limited budget and resources to tell an equally compelling and terrifying story. The use of locations set against the cold, harsh Swedish winter and brilliantly nuanced sound design grip the viewer in ways few horror films ever have.

We first meet the young protagonist Oskar living alone with his mother in a cheap apartment. He is relentlessly bullied at school and collects news clippings of local murders. All the makings of antisocial behavior. One cold evening, a young girl named Eli and her caretaker move in next door. Eli takes a liking to Oskar and what follows is a beautiful exploration of teenage angst and the search for understanding set to the cold, unforgiving landscape and the brutality of the outside world.

The power of the film radiates from the young actors. Their honest and genuine curiosity sells the characters and motivations better than any adult could with similar material. The cinematography perfectly represents the shallow depth of field we have as young teenagers, alone and blind to what the periphery even means, or how it could help us or hurt us.

With a not-as-great American remake by future The Batman director Matt Reeves, this is a film which has solidified its contribution to this generation of horror, whether mass audiences know it or not.

1. American Psycho (2000)

This is the one that kicked it all off. Mary Harron’s take on the Brett Easton Ellis novel of the same name kept everything intact that was great about the book and left all the boring shit on the cutting room floor. Christian Bale was such an inspired casting choice for this role, it’s hard to believe we even got this version when Leonardo DiCaprio was the originally planned star.

The most important contribution of this movie is that we did not get a traditional horror movie. This was a scathing satire of obscene wealth and superficiality. Even author Brett Easton Ellis has praised the film saying, “it clarified the novel.”

Director Mary Harron knew what she was doing, once saying “it’ll be a really good film for the new millennium,” and she wasn’t wrong. What this film brought to the table was the ability for the film to have a clear message, while being aggressively ambiguous about the actual plot.

Probably the most inspired thing about this film, is that a woman helmed the project. Only a person who could truly understand the depths of Bateman’s evil could have ever truly brought this film to life.

Another interesting aspect of the movie is that only the key players were involved in the subversion. Willam DeFoe was asked to do his lines multiple ways, never knowing what was true in the film and what wasn’t, and we are positive Jared Leto was never in on the joke (has he ever been in on any joke?)This midnight black satire is well served by the surreal dedication of Ellis, Harron, and Bale.

The primary issue for the audience is to figure out which scenes are satire and which are honest, spoiler alert: There is no honesty in this film which does not come from a victim who is about to get chopped up by an ax, which adds to the film’s charm.

This film set the standard for subversive terror and pitch-black humor. Even 20 years later, audiences still understand the true villains of American Psycho are the silos provided by 1% wealth and a grotesque obsession with superficiality.

honorable mentions

by thom denton and adrian ortega

What a great time to be a horror fan. While there have been a plethora of remakes and reimaginings and ,oh, sequel after sequel in recent years. This Halloween season, we are treated to a ton of great new genre films. From Ti West’s 2/3rds finished Pearl trilogy and Smile and Barbarian to Jordan Peel’s Nope, even a few legacy horror films this year with new Hellraiser and Texas Chainsaw movies. But for this season, we decided to attempt the impossible: we wanted to try our hand at a definitive list ranking the greatest horror films we have ever seen.

How do you rank over a century’s worth of movies into a single list? Well, we decided you don’t. For this column, we decided to break down the many subgenres of horror and list our favorite films of each one. While there are an infinite number of subge nres to draw from (do you include David Lynch style surreal ism? What about realism horror a la Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or Faces of Death?)We kept it pretty broad to cast the widest and most inclusive net possible.

In the discussion of horror, so many factors could come into play when deciding which movie is better than the other, and at the end of the day, we understand all lists are more than a little subjective.That is not to say the classics don’t have their place. Everyone knows the best of the best, and will rightly be included in this list where we see fit. We also wanted to include some of our favorites that might not be on everyone’s radar this Hallow een.

So here are some of our favorites that don’t quite make the best of the best list. While there will always be some glaring omis sions from any list such as this, we hope you will take this list in good faith and allow us to cover those we feel are often over looked.

The Conjuring (2013)

Talk about a modern franchise with legs.James Wan initiated cinematic universe now has two direct sequels and two prequel series (The Nun and Annabelle) with sequels of their own and is currently the highest-grossing horror franchise to date. With Saw, Wan showed the world he could do psychological hor ror, then continued his reign of terror with Insidious, where he explored the supernatural. All the elements culminated into this haunted house juggernaut. Wan is a national treasure and almost 20 years into his career shows no signs of slowing down his contribution to horror.

Re-Animator (1985)

Ah, remember when all a good horror film needed was a founda tion laid by Lovecraft, bonkers performances from theater actors attempting to break into the big time, and buckets of blood and prosthetics? Those were the days. Well, if there was ever a film that encapsulated the schlocky/camp horror genre of the ‘80s, Re-Animator is it. All you need to know about the premise is it centers around wacky med-school students who are intent on bringing back the dead: horror and gore ensue. Re-Animator is the perfect film for a movie night in mid-October with a few friends and drinks, though you’ll want to make sure your gag reflex is in working order as the gore climaxes in the most vomit-inducing way imaginable.

Event Horizon (1997)

Don’t let anyone tell you Sam Neil’s career began and ended with Jurassic Park. Between this masterclass in grotesque space horror and the John Carpenter-directed Into the Mouth of Madness, Neil can do total insanity as well as anyone. The film centers around an abandoned spacecraft designed to create a rift in the space-time continuum only to be possessed by space demons. Thought Alien had a lock on interstellar horror? Think again.

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Child’s Play Franchise (1988present)

Chucky has cemented his place in the horror hall of fame. The killer doll who terrorizes children and parents alike has been running a franchise for over 30 years, and he shows no signs of slowing down with his current series on SyFy. Add this to his arsenal of eight films, and you have one of the most prolific killers in the genre. This doll has been inspiring nightmares longer than most YouTubers have been alive.

Friday the 13th (1980)

One can’t talk about slasher films without discussing Friday the 13th and the subsequent avalanche of cheapy-made slasher films it inspired. To capitalize on the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, Sean S. Cunningham managed to jumpstart a classic horror film series that boasts 10 sequels, a remake and a crossover in which the infamous star of the series, Jason Voorhees, faces off against the equally infamous Freddy Krueger in Freddy vs Jason (2003). What the movie lacks in substance, it makes up for in gory kills and gratuitous sex scenes, a statement that holds true for the entire genre. At their best, Friday the 13th and its successors are harmless low-brow films that aren’t meant to be taken too seriously and are best enjoyed with a group of friends who can find humor in the over-the-top kills and ridiculous tropes of the genre.

lands in a small-town indicative of Middle America, in which the blob engulfs and dissolves anything unfortunate enough to be in its path.

The movie is aware of exactly what it is and doesn’t strive to be anything more or less. It delivers a cast of fun, likable characters getting into all kinds of shenanigans and memorable

Alien (1979)

The Fly (1986) / Scanners (1981) / Videodrome (1983)

David Cronenberg will forever be at the top of the list of important contributions to the horror genre. The man single-handedly brought body horror to the cultural conversation in the ‘80s with a string of low-budget films beginning with Shivers in 1975 and culminating with Videodrome in 1983. Sprinkle in his now legendary films such as The Fly, The Brood, and Scanners, and it’s no wonder the conversation is incomplete without him. Here is one of the few filmmakers in history who has made the dramatic leap from low-budget arthouse horror to Oscar-nominated prestige drama (A History of Violence and Eastern Promises). Even this year, coming back into his body horror background with the excellent Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg (and now even his son Brandon) will forever be an integral part of the horror conversation.

The Blob (1988)

Of all the great 80s remakes of cheesy 50s sci-fi monster flicks, The Blob stands as one of the greats that, unfortunately, many people haven’t seen. Adapted from the 1958 movie with the same name, the plot follows an amoeba-like alien that crash

Ridley Scott changed the game in the late ‘70s with this heartstopping, blood-curdling terror fest. A group of low-level space cadets are on a mission lightyears away from earth in cryogenic sleep,when orders to explore a crashed ship awaken them. What they find is beyond wild. When an unfertilized egg attacks a crew member, he is foolishly brought back onto the ship. All seems normal until a dinner sequence no one who has seen could ever forget. Sigourney Weaver sets the standard for a strong and smart final girl who outwits the Xenomorph on her tail one turn after the other.

The best of the best

In the last segment for this column we are going to share our, and hopefully yours as well, best of the best. These are the films that defined, redefined, then deconstructed the genre. The reason Horror is so fun is because of the intoxicating blend of familiar tropes and shocking violence, sometimes mixing humor, sometimes drawing from real-life experiences, and almost always as a metaphor for the human experience.

For this top ten, we are not going to bore you with our recaps of why they deserve to be here, we all know these are the best.

10. Frankenstein

9. Scream

8.Texas chainsaw massacre

7. Jaws

Bicycle Theives as Italian Neo-Realism

by thom denton

One of the many reasons I am excited about taking this course is the opportunity to experience films and expressions of films I have long heard about, but never gotten around to exploring. One such film was Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 masterpiece Bicycle Thieves. While I had heard the term neo-realism before, I would have not been able to explain what it was or what it contrib uted to our modern understanding of cinema before read ing both Donal Foreman and Andre Bazin’s essays on the subject. In this essay, I will break down some of the charac teristics of neo-realism these writers show Bicycle Thieves embodies. To start we will explain how the drawbacks of living in an impoverished, war-torn country influenced the filmmaking processes, then will go into how the introduc tion of previously unexplored themes in cinema investi gated dark truths about humanity which contributed to the

evolution of the movement, and finally how the stylistic elements of the film epitomize what neo-realism is. The first characteristic which becomes obvious when discussing Bicycle Thieves in relation to the Ital ian Neo-Realism movement, is in the way the film was produced. In 1948, Italy had just come out of being on the wrong side of WWII, and as a result most of the pop ulation had been left to pick up the pieces for themselves. Foreman says in his essay, “These drawbacks not only did not prevent a new cinema from emerging, but actually instigated many of the hallmarks of the neo-realist style.” Foreman explains that these characteristics include the films having lower budgets and limited resources, result ing in a gritty aesthetic. While it would be easy to see the hardships as an obstruction to the process, filmmakers like De Sica embraced them to tell the story of the people living

“There is a cure for everything except death”

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lighting, as well as the use of non professional actors. This element was used to explore the actual world its subjects were living in and show the world the hardship of the people. On the editorial side, De Sica prefers to use long, wide shots of his characters moving through the real city as they search in desperation for something which will improve their circumstanc es. By using long takes, De Sica con tributes to the realism portrayed in the film. The audience is going with the characters in their search for meaning and a better life.

in that time. In Bicycle Thieves, the central character is doing everything in his power to keep a good paying job, only for one thing to get in the way of it after another. Even 75 years later, one can still watch the film and feel the desperation of the characters on screen, imagining what it was like for them to live through such a difficult time.

Another characteristic of neo-realism which the film wholly embodies is the embrace of dark and honest themes. Bazin explains, “the really important phenomenon of the years 1940-1950 is the introduction of… unexplored themes.” The realism of the film is in its harsh honesty about what happens to people left behind by society. The film is exploring more ambiguous, anti-escapist motivations. It was an attempt to show real peo ple going through hard times, and it never extenuates the picture. There is a beautiful scene when Antonio and his son Bruno have all but given up their search for the bicycle and decide to wash their troubles away with a good meal. Across from them in the restau rant is a wealthy family, viewers can feel the juxtaposition of their circum stances, evident by the differences in how they are clothed and carry them selves at the table. Antonio is attempt ing to drown his sorrows in a bottle of wine (we’ve all been there, brother), looks over to his young son and says, “There’s a cure for everything except death.” Antonio is looking for a way to

make his child feel better when noth ing seems to be going well and teach him about the inescapable pain of life in a way only a father ever could. The scene exudes realism because in fact, there is a true father and son at the table. There is a familiarity only a parent a child can understand, and the film capitalizes on this bond to show genuine emotion.

Finally, there are many stylis tic elements of the film which explore the neo-realist language. Foreman discusses how Ray Carney outlined three main innovations in the neo-real ist style: narrative, photographic, and editorial. In the narrative, as we’ve already discussed above, De Sica chose to focus on a dark subject matter which would be more powerful to au diences. For the photographic element, we can see how the film uses almost exclusively real locations and natural

There is no doubt De Sica’s film has cemented it place in cine matic history. Almost 75 years since its release it continues to remain a relevant conversation in the film world for its stylistic innovations, dark honest subject matter, and revolution ized the concept of a low budget film by taking elements which could bloat a production such as sound stages and expensive actors and devoted its limited resources to creating a gritty and realistic aesthetic for audiences, not just of the time, but in the decades since have been able to feel heard and understood in their darkest moments. Bicycle Thieves not only contributed to the evolution of Italian Neo-Real ism, but it also set the standard for it. And as BBC film critic Mark Kermode said about the film in 2018, “Bicycle Thieves has proven an unstoppable, freewheeling force in cinema.”

The masTer: revisiTed

known as an announcer on ABC TV, famous for saying things like, “On the Looooooove Boat ...”

Growing up, Anderson would go to the ABC studio and watch his father record.

“It was a step towards what I wanted to do — being in that world, being around techni cians, moving parts, and microphones, video rolling — I loved it,” he says.

Anderson also wrote and directed the widely acclaimed films Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Achievement in Directing and Best Original Screenplay.

For Paul Thomas Anderson, moviemaking is not just an art; it’s also about time management.

“At its best, a film set is when everybody knows what’s going on and everybody’s working together,” he tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “At its worst, [it’s] when something’s been lost in communication and an actor’s not sure how many shots are left or what’s going on, and the makeup department’s confused.”

Anderson wrote and directed the new film The Master, which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a cult leader and Joaquin Phoe nix as a troubled World War II veteran who makes his way into the group.

Navy veteran Freddie (Phoenix) falls under the influence of cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in Anderson’s film, which critic Ella Taylor describes as “one of the most twist ed father-son tales ever told.”

For the film, Anderson conducted research about Dianetics — a metaphysical theory created by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard — and its early followers, including one couple’s news letters about yoga, new diets and past-lives therapy. He says that poring over these writings was “the best way to try to hold hands with the past and get to know these people,” and that “there was a kind of wide-open feeling to a lot of things, reading, and a lot of investigation and openness to anything, which felt like a pre-hippie thinking.”

The Master is set in the 1950s; inspired by the look and color palette of movies from the period, Anderson decided to shoot in 65mm film. He also found looking at department-store portraits from that era to be helpful.

“Those somehow were the most candid and revealing, and helped you time travel — look at these faces, look at that period, look at that era — and try and imagine not just what was hap pening when the picture was taken, but what would happen right after,” he says.

Anderson has always loved the 1950s because of the era’s cars, outfits, hairdos, music — and also because of his father, Ernie Anderson. He was a World War II veteran who later became well-

On the first scene he wrote for The Master

“Well, it’s inspired by the actual questionnaire that’s out there as relates to Scientology, but I had changed it and switched it around. And I came to that many years ago, and actually found it was a great way to just start writing. Forget any implications of making a film or story about this — it was really just writer’s block and sitting around. The best way for me to start writing a story is to get two characters talking to each other. And if you got questions from one, you’re gonna have to get answers from the other, and you can start to find out who is coming out of you when you’re writing, if you know what I mean. “So I just started doing it as an exercise, and that’s probably one of the scenes that I wrote first in the movie ... working from the middle. But I wrote that years and years ago. [I] didn’t really know who these people were, so I just started discovering who they were by what their answers would be.”

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working with Joaquin Phoenix on his character’s physicality

On

“Kind of early on, Joaquin let me know that actually his shoulder — I think from birth, he has kind of a messy shoulder. And he’s probably spent a lot of time trying to hide it or stand up straight so that he can twist his body around. He said, ‘Do you think it’d be alright if I do this?’ And I said, ‘Sure, great.’

“But a couple days into the film, he was feeling more comfortable and just kept sliding into this skin, that he was doing these movements that were so incredible. I just didn’t want to jinx anything and say, ‘What are you doing?’ or ‘What’s going on?’ You’re in the mid dle of make-believe — you don’t want to break the spell. You just want to watch him do whatever he’s doing.

“I have my own theories about it, because [Phoenix’s character] puts his hands on his hips — sort of stuff about his kidneys being torn up from the war. Maybe something happened. Maybe it’s just easier. Maybe it’s comfortable for him to reach back and hold his kidneys and help him stand. But then again, yeah, there’s always that thing — the way someone holds himself is an exten sion of what’s going [on] with them on the inside. And I buy that too, for sure.”

On the war stories that inspired scenes in the film

“One of the stories in the film comes from Jason Robards, who famously

fought in the war, was in the Navy. ... I worked with him on Magnolia. And he told me the story of coming back. I don’t remember what boat he was on, but he was coming back, and V-J Day was announced, and they’d run out of booze. And they broke into the torpedoes and drank booze [i.e, fuel] out of there. And the way he tells it, he woke up the next morning on the mast of the ship, and an inch either way he would have fallen to his death. And that story just stuck with me as a great story ... something to get into the film.

“I think the idea with ethanol is, you put just a few drops and then squeeze as many coconuts or papaya or whatever you’ve taken back with you from the is land; sort of 99 percent juice and maybe 1 percent ethanol. You’ll get [a] pretty good buzz.”

On shooting on 65mm film

“It’s a different film, so it’s a differ ent feeling. It’s really that simple, but ultimately ... you know a 35mm camera, they’re small. I mean you can be as small as a little speaker that I’m looking at here, sort of no bigger than a laptop. Some of these cam eras are teeny. And with 65mm cameras you are limited, because they’re in credibly large, and they’re

loud, and you can’t fling them around or put them on a Steadicam. You can put them on your shoulder if have a really good chiropractor or masseuse.

“So they’re limiting in that way, but that was good for us. We were trying to be straightforward and simple and old-fash ioned. And loud — they’re very loud. You can hear bzzzzzzz.”

On loving the ocean

“I remember as a kid going to Pearl Har bor, and they have that monument you can go to, and it made such an impression on me. You sort of look down into the water. You see fishes moving around, and you have to think about what happened there and all those bodies ... and all these kinds of things that have gone in that water. It’s a thought that always sticks with me when I do go into the ocean when I go swimming — all that’s happened and all that’s beneath the surface, and things coming and going. I don’t know — it gets you in a good place of thinking about things in a wider way.”

the cinerag guide to chirstmas shoping for a cinephile

Christmas shopping for movie-lov ers can be a tricky proposition: do they already have this movie? Will they like this movie-related knick-knack? But have no fear, because you can’t go wrong by using our cinephile-approved list as a starting point for please your favorite snobby movie love on Christmas morning.

A Mondo Poster

Mondo, an art and collectable division of the Alamo Drafthouse, are one of the preeminent distrib utors of fan memorabilia and their artwork division is held in special esteem amongst cinephiles. A holy grail of movie collectors, a Mondo poster is a centerpiece to any col lection. What poster should you get your cinephille? Mondo always has a mix of blockbusters, arthouse and genre films in their current selection, so find the one that bests suits their taste and you’ll be their number one aunt/uncle/significant other ever.

roger ebert: the great movies iv

The final collection of essays by the late great Roger Ebert, The Great Movies IV is an excellent resource of the renowned critic musing on a pantheon of essential cinema. With a foreword by Matt Zoller Seitz, current editor of RogerEbert.com, and an introduction from Ebert’s wife and partner Chaz Ebert, this edition is a great supplement to a series on classic movie viewing.

Smaller than a TV and ready to set up in no time at all, this video projector gives HD quality picture for less than $200. Ideal for indoor use (sorry guys, no outdoor movie screenings), its a fan tastic way to recreate the theatrical experi ence without stepping foot outside.

Cinebody C6 for iPhone

If your cinephile has been mak ing allusions to making their own movie lately, show your support for them with this smartphone attachment from Cinebody, that adds advanced lenses, enhanced camera functionality and an easy grip body for stability and control. Sleek, smart, and professional-looking enough to inspire your film lover to get even more enthusiastic about their passion.

1001 Movies To See Before You Die

This exhaustive catalogue of classic, Hollywood, independent, and world cinema is an excellent jumping off point for building watch lists and find ing perspective on the history of film. For budding cinephiles wishing to expand their knowledge about what major titles they need to track down, as well as the older crowd looking to take a trip down memory lane through de cades of cinematic history and past experiences.

1/6th Scale Alfred Hitchcock

Mondo doesn’t just feature posters, they have various collectibles, toys and clothing options in their unique style. Our favorite current offering is this scale model of Alfred Hitchcock, featuring props in spired by some of his greatest hits, and a directors chair to allow him to oversee the production that is your life.

BesT Television of 2022

by thom denton

We truly are living through the golden age of television. In an era when long-form storytelling is at an all-time high, audiences have the pleasure of following characters and stories through several seasons of character development and story arcs. Though some, I’m looking at you, Disney, Marvel, and Amazon, have saturated the long-format to the extent of muddling, there are still plenty of great shows on television worth your while. For this list, I’m looking towards the most exciting and powerful episodic series, some of whom I’ve followed for the better part of a decade and some who have won me over in their very first seasons.

5. Ted Lasso

What’s more fun than an infinitely optimistic American coach trying to win over the whole of England’s “football” fanaticism? Jason Sudeikis and company have managed to win audiences over through the first two seasons of this hilarious show by not sugarcoating the optimism of the central character and never going for the low-hanging tropes prevalent in the fish out of water genre. Here we follow Lasso and his right-hand man, Coach Beard (Brenden Hunt), as they surprise the team members, fans, and even team owner Rebecca (Hannah Wad dingham), who is initially plotting against not only Lasso but the whole team, until they are won over by his charm and dedication to principle. Overall, the show is a rare instance of good writing being wholesome but never sappy, a tightrope walk these writers and actors manage with ease.

4. The Bear/Atlanta

Another tie, but what can I say? Sometimes there is just too much good entertainment for a list handle. These excellent shows both display the hardships of the modern world through an equally optimistic and cynical eye, though in very different ways.

Danny Glover’s Atlanta is a perfect example of Afro-Surreal ism: a phrase coined in effort to understand the experience of minori ties in an unforgiving world. While many episodes follow the plot of Glover’s Ernest, his rapper cousin Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), and the fan favorite hanger-on Darius (a phenomenal Lakeith Stanfield), as they rise the ranks of the Atlanta rap scene. The show may be at its best when it veers off course and decides to tackle themes bigger than those experienced by the central characters, such as the brilliant racial take downs in episodes like “Three Slaps” and “Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga” or, my personal favorite the reparations saga of “The Big Payback.” After a four-year absence, Atlanta returned in 2022 with not one but two full seasons, and it was more than worth the wait.

3. Severance

Ever wondered what it would be like to go to work but have no memory of it? Well, that is exactly what this Ben Stiller-helmed show attempts to explore. In a not-so-distant future, Adam Scott plays Mark S., a worker bee at Lumon by day and a depressed alchie by night, though the two have never met. When Mark is told by his omi nous superior Ms. Cobel (played with malevolent brilliance by Patricia Arquette) to lead the orientation of Helly R. (Britt Lower), the audience is thrown into the mix. Soon, it becomes clear Helly wants nothing to do with the process in which the social brain and work brain are “sev ered” from each other. This is a show which works on just about every level, as we get to know the central characters better, the plot thickens. Great writing, direction and acting all tiptoe neatly around the devious center of this surrealist workplace drama. Think Twin Peaks meets The Office, and you might be close.

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2. Succession

If you want to know how the one percent live, check out White Lotus, but if you want to know about the one percent of the one percent, this is the show which dives deep into their world. Doing for television what Orson Welles did for movies; this show bings the most powerful people we would never know about front and center in order to expose how they manipulate a public who listen and those who read the news. Brian Cox is perfect as the Rupert Murdoch inspired Logan Roy, as he leads his family of uber-privileged adult children through the most vile opulence imaginable. These kids don’t know much, but they know what comes with this upbringing. Some times you get to help pick the next president, but mostly they are pitted against everything and everyone around them (family included) as Cox’s patriarch divides and conquers his way to the top while he maintains his status as one of the most powerful men on the planet. One of the best shows since The Sopranos, Succession is not to be missed.

1. Better Call Saul

When it came to its conclusion almost ten years ago, everyone thought the idea of a Breaking Bad spinoff about “criminal” lawyer Saul Goodman would only tarnish the reputation of the former, and boy, were they way off. Not only has this impeccable piece of television history proved showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould can top perfection, but it has also added new depths to characters whose story we thought we already knew. When we first met Jimmy (a pitch-perfect Bob Odenkirk having a blast in the role of a lifetime) 7 years ago, he was a struggling two-bit ambulance chaser trying to scrape up a single client. It all seemed standard enough. But then the layers began to peel back, season after sea son we learn more about each one and where they fall in the BB timeline. By the time the final season aired over the summer, there were aspects of Saul’s life we could have never imagined, including his controlling older brother (a fantastic Micheal McKean) and the relationship of his lifetime in the equally eager to rise Kim Wexler (Rhea Seahorn in a performance

which was as captivating as it was emotional.) Rounded out by the return of BB favorites Mike (Jonathan Banks) and Gus Fring (Gi ancarlo Esposito), who took their characters to new heights, and the addition of new characters on the cartel side in the ever-conflicted Nacho Varga (Micheal Mando) and the terrifyingly charming sicario Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton). Lets not forget about the bumbling high priced lawyer Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian).

The audience can only gasp for air as we get closer to the heart of each character as they one-by-one get in over their heads, while we know what is waiting for them, even when we don’t realize it. What BCS showed was a solace we didn’t know we needed, brevity we didn’t realize was just under the surface of the most tense scenes we could imagine. Equal parts laugh-out-loud funny, white knuckle intensity and powerfully dramatic endings for all involved, this was a show that made us hold our breaths and beg for relief, only to be happier with every second we couldn’t reach it.

revisiting brian de palma’s

body double as a pentacle of formalist cienma

by thom denton

Through the discussion of how cinematic styles and techniques relate to form, we as an audience can dissect what we are being shown and relate it to our own experience by examining how they either explore our lives in either a realistic or constructed way. In the realist tradition, audiences are asked to investigate the lives of ordinary characters typically to make a political state ment. On the other end of the spectrum, is formalism. The formalist is they kind of director who looks to take an audience outside of their everyday life and present a series of unpredictable circumstances to unbelievable charac ters to get a point across. This is the difference, we are told, between a political message and an artistic one. This essay will examine the elements used by Brian De Palma in his 1985 thriller, Body Double, and how they relate to a formalist style. One of the most obvious formalist elements De Palma employees is his use of montage editing. Particularly in the scenes where Jake is looking through the telescope at the woman in another house: we first see Jake looking, then a cut to the woman he is looking at, then back to Jake looking more intently, then back to the woman. This goes on for some time and draws the audience in. Be cause of the montage editing, we can feel something other than what we are seeing, something not shown. Sergei Eisenstein explains the power of the montage: “in my viewing montage is not an idea composed of successive shots stuck together but an idea that DERIVES from the collision between two shots that are independent of one

another.” (266) What Eisenstein is describing is the audience’s ability to intellectually connect with the filmmaking process and what the director is trying to communicate. We as viewers can understand what is being implied from two very different shots being shown. This of course is a technique De Pal ma uses repeatedly in his films. However, it is not just his editing technique which displays elements of formalism, but how he uses the camera in a self-conscious way. Many times, throughout Body Double, we become aware of the fact that we are watching a movie. De Palma does this in a few ways: by showing the filmmaking process in the film (once even blending the story the audience is watching with the film being made inside the movie in a very meta way), as well as the way he allows his camera to follow characters

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through complex set-pieces in a self-conscious way. This is clear in the mall chase scene: we, the audience, are following a character follow another character through an elaborate set-piece, who is being followed by another character. By lingering on the characters following each other for extended periods of time, the audience begins to feel like a voyeur into a situation they may not wholly be comfortable with. Then, when De Palma does finally cut, the audience is shaken right back into their reality, almost as if they have been hypnotized by the extended scene. Tony McKibbin describes this in his essay Formalist Theory:

“… the filmmaker manipulates through elaborate block ing, as the camera moves around the cinematic space to create an elaborate weave that mesmerizes the viewer. In each instance we feel the weight of the cut… This is the long take not necessarily to reveal reality better… more to play up the nature of film form, even suggest links to painting over reality.” (3)

McKibbin alludes to the concept of formalism being more closely related to a painting in its construction and design over the more realist aspects of film which are closer in relation to a stage play at a theater. The formalists, such as Hitchcock, De Palma, and Tarantino, are far more inter ested in how they can manipulate the audience, rather than showing the audience something real. This leads nicely into the final point: De Palma is intent on making art. Of the differences between realist and for malist filmmaking, perhaps the most prominent is how the former seeks to achieve a political message whereas the latter attempts an artistic message. De Palma uses artis tic techniques to achieve a picture which is constructed, therefore taking the audience outside of their reality. He achieves this by using what Vsevolod Pudovkin calls “ed iting as an instrument of impression.” (11) In his 1926 es say From Film Technique, Pudovkin explains that “editing is not merely a method of the junction of separate scenes or pieces, but is a method that controls the ‘psychological

guidance’ of the spectator.” (11) This provides the viewer with a distorted version of reality, in which they are persuaded to interpret what they are shown on their own, as opposed to being told how to interpret it. This becomes clear towards the climax of the film when Jake is attempting to save Holly from Sam as he digs a shallow grave for her. Suddenly, when the tension is at an all time high, we hear “cut!”, the camera pulls back to show we are on a film set with a director and actors. Jake, both the character in the film we are watching and an actor in the film being made; to this point he has not been able to bring himself to be a hero. In the moment, he is being coached by the in-film director, he finally brings himself to save the day. There are layers-upon-layers of subtext and allegory at play in this scene, but for our purposes, it perfectly displays De Palma’s intention for the film: he is making a film about making film. We are shown all the elements and instructed to figure it out in a way which makes sense to us.

Quinten Tarantino once said, “De Palma was a student of Hitchcock’s cinematic vocabulary,” and anyone with even a passing knowledge of film history could see the parallels between De Palma and Hitchcock’s work. In Body Double, De Palma pays homage to two of Hitchcock’s most famous pieces of cinema: how his main characters’ fear (in Vertigo it was vertigo, Body Double in its claustrophobia) hinders them until they finally overcome it, and voyeurism, our innate desire to see something we are a not sup posed to see. By being so obvious in his tribute, De Palma is showcasing his style and how it differs from Hitchcock’s. De Palma brings old ideas into a new generation, bringing obsession from the cheap hotels of the 1950’s to the shop ping malls of the 1980’s, while losing none of the intrigue of the original.