Foster on Film

Nothing brings the glow of good will, candy canes, and mistletoe to a geek’s heart more than the annual Christmas appearance of Doctor Who. Since his return in 2005, no holiday season has lacked a visit by the Time Lord: some dark, some light. I could explain who The Doctor is, the history of the

The Oscars are tonight, and I’ve never cared less. There is nothing of interest nominated. This isn’t exactly new. The Oscars are wrong almost every year in almost every way. So, I needed something cinema-related that was about as far form The Oscars as I could go. But I wasn’t prepared for a nunsploitation essay,

Sure, I’m still doing these–and one I was working on required some re-watching, so I went with Hope for today. Bob Hope was such a dominant comedian when I was a kid that is is bizarre to see how he is slipping from public consciousness. He also wan’t a very good comic when I was

Edward G. Robinson was one of the kings of early gangster cinema (along with Jimmy Cagney, George Raft, and their second banana, Humphrey Bogart).Things changed in a decade, with old-style crime movies fading, replaced by war movies and Film Noir, and elevating Bogart over the other three. But most of Robinson’s best films came after

No man has personified a film genre like Errol Flynn. He is the icon of Swashbuckling. He was rarely acclaimed for his acting, which is unfortunate. He may have been limited both in his abilities and in his opportunities, but given the right part, no one was better. Who else could wear tights and project

Mad Scientists. You have to love them. I do. Where would our monsters come from without them? For my reviews of Mad Doctor/Scientist films, check out my full list here. This is a horror list, so I’m trying to stick to that arbitrary line. That means I won’t be counting any of the myriad evil

My bio for Michael Powell is a bit longer then usual as people who don’t breath cinema don’t seem to know him. Powell has been called the greatest British director by those more knowledgeable than I, and I wouldn’t argue the point. His films wrap me into other realities. More than any other director on

Yeah, I know. No one needed this any more than they needed my list of Top 10 Kate Bush songs. But here it is anyway. A few thoughts first. I think of art rock—as opposed to the larger category of prog rock—as a fusion of styles. It is rock and classical, with a touch of jazz

This is a ranking of modern Doctor Who, from 2005 (or NEW WHO). I’ll get around do ranking the seasons of Classic Who, but that’s for a different post. I’m looking at the seasons as a whole, so while that mostly means, “were the episodes in it better or worse?”, the structure of the season

This one is by request. Now Charlton Heston is not your typical actor. It isn’t that he is bad, but rather that he is limited, and works best where a very stylized performance is called for. If you are running a tent revival meeting, he is your man. Sometimes, an actor needs to speak to

I think of Rex Harrison as one of the great actors, yet “great” is not a word I use with his most famous films. Doctor Dolittle, Anna and the King of Siam, The Agony and the Ecstasy, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, and Cleopatra are all fine, watchable flicks, but no masterpieces, and I normally don’t even

O’Hara was a young stage beauty when Charles Laughton became captivated by her eyes, put her under contract, and changed her name to O’Hara. While starting off her film career as a maiden in distress and a gypsy girl, she is best known for a stream of Swashbucklers. In each she played a “fiery” red