usher on the aisle

To fail with nobility in today’s success obsessed culture is a sin not easily forgiven. The jealous jeering of spectators and critics can have a lasting detrimental effect on an artist’s professional life. Filmmakers are uniquely vulnerable to this wounding attitude given the very public sphere in which they must develop their art. Many factors [...]

In North America we are smothered by the Hollywood star system. Films are sold to the movie consumer using techniques perfected a century ago by an American industry ravenous to maintain its share of the entertainment dollar. In their zeal to control the market, Hollywood has consistently prevented cinemas in Canada and the U.S. from [...]

Wit and charm are now commodities in short supply. During Hollywood’s golden age actors like Cary Grant and Ronald Colman exuded these prized traits in films that demanded courtly as well as heroic behaviour. Sir Roger Moore came to Hollywood a generation after these English gentlemen and managed to continue the tradition of the sophisticated [...]

Now that Blu-ray has been established as the new home video format of choice, it is becoming increasingly likely that 2008 will be remembered as the year that marked the eventual demise of DVD. With Blu-ray’s emphasis on releasing new theatrical films and the repackaging of prestige classics, the flow of further obscure library titles [...]

John Carpenter once made this famous statement. “In France I’m an auteur, in Germany I’m a filmmaker, in the U.K. I’m a horror director, and in the U.S. I’m a bum.” Having been responsible for the classic independent horror film Halloween, the influential dystopian sci-fi actioner Escape from New York, as well as the terminally [...]