Foster on Film

Star Trek is a cultural phenomenon, with five, soon to be six, TV series, more than a hundred books, plus an uncountable number of collectables. Considering that, and the quality of many of the Original Series episodes, the films often fail to raise to the level of their history. But there are some gems in

With the Nebula Awards coming up in a week(ish), all things are science fiction. So, here is my list of the top 15 SF-related songs. Just so one or two groups/artists didn’t dominate, I’ve restricted it to one song per group. And I’ve given a little nudge to songs that truly show their love of

In old Hollywood, that sold the appearance of sophistication, Powell was the sophisticate’s sophisticate. No one was smoother. He was class personified. I like him in any movie, even when the movie is not so good. No matter the part, Powell made it better. Powell’s breakout role was as detective Philo Vance in a series

An actor with both one of the most distinctive profiles and most distinctive voices in Hollywood, Basil Rathbone became identified with Sherlock Holmes to his dismay. He should have taken more joy in the connection as few of his other lead roles have been remembered. He was in a large number of classic films, but,

Her stage role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream led to the movie of the same name, and by the same director, and that led her to a contract with Warner Bros. Her later conflict with the studio resulted in a court case that gave all actors more freedom. Her most frequent co-star was Errol Flynn.

Since I already have a page describing Godzilla’s film career, as well as reviews of each of these films (click on the titles to get to the reviews), I can just dig in. There are 33 films: 29 Japanese live-action, 1 three-part anime, and 3 American remakes. So here we go, starting with the worst:

An exceptionally poor “greatest horror of the ’80s” list that made its way around Facebook inspired me to make a correct listing. So here is the list of the best of ’80s cinematic horror. The lowest ten or so are a bit rough but once you hit the halfway point everything is gold.   #50.

The Marvel One-Shots were a fantastic idea in a long list of fantastic ideas from the Marvel Cinematic Universe team: shorts films that could tell smaller stories, expand on concepts from the features, introduce or flesh out characters, and fill in missing pieces. This brilliant idea was followed by a horrible one: stop making the

I’ve written before that Humphrey Bogart is the greatest film star of all time. That makes Cary Grant the second greatest. This ultimate romantic leading-man doesn’t have the insane number of masterpieces under his belt that Bogart does, but he has multiple. And as far as generally good films go, he’s got more than Bogart,

The best film stars are defined by their voices and none had a finer voice than Ronald Colman; I would bet it has been imitated more often than any other. His good looks got him parts in silent cinema, but when the talkies came along, he really bloomed—the man with the mellifluous voice. But even with

The greatest director of the studio age and by my account, the greatest director of all time, Curtiz was a master of the craft, and exercised his skills across genres. He helmed melodramas, adventure films, Noirs, comedies, romances, musicals, mysteries, horror pictures, histories, war films, literary movies, westerns, and whatever else there is. This put

The third of the Big Three icons of classic horror (Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr.), Chaney may have come on the scene last, but he was born for it. Lon Chaney Sr. had been the lone icon of silent horror and Creighton Chaney spent much of his career chasing his father’s star, though