Foster on Film

So, with the number of bad war films I’ve complained about in the last few days, in honor of Memorial Day, I’ve made a list of must see ones. These are my favorite war films (with the caveats that I’ve stuck with real wars, wars that include guns, and ones where the war is front

Today’s list: The Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies, ranked in order from weakest to strongest (see also my ranking of MCU Villains and The Worst of Marvel). Normally I end up discussing some reasonably terrible films on the low end of a list, but that’s less true here. The lesser MCU films are better than most

When I was a child in the ‘60s, Stanwyck was known primarily as a television Western star. But time is not kind to TV shows in general and particularly not to Westerns, so that work is fading from cultural memory, which is for the best in this case as she should be remembered first as

It’s hard to add a tradition. Traditions take time and have to be something really special to jump the cue. The yearly Doctor Who Christmas episode has become a tradition in record time and one of my favorites. The best of these is magnificent television. The worst is…  Well, up through #8 should be watched

His background was in set design, but he learned directing quickly and had his own style that elevated him above the other directors of the time. He looked at the world as a gothic playground, filled with the strange and wonderful and terrible. Even when the material was less then brilliant (silly melodramas were the

Unusual both on and off screen, Elsa Lanchester was a skilled and artistic actress, and Hollywood never figured out what to do with her. She could have made a great leading lady, with her unconventional beauty and dancer’s body, but was only given leading parts twice (both mentioned below). Most often she was relegated to

Sandrich didn’t have the time to create a great number of master works as he died at 44 from a heart attack generally attributed to overwork. And he was stuck with the likes of the unfunny vaudeville-like team of Wheeler and Woolsey for several films. But in his brief career, Sandrich made his mark. His

Marvel is on a roll, with the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) being both wildly successful and consistently good. But Marvel has had its share of artistic failings, always when someone else’s hands were in the pie. So, to celebrate the release of Civil War, I’m going to dwell for a moment on the worst Marvel,

Nominees for Worst Feature Film Hercules Left Behind Noah Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Winner) Transformers: Age of Extinction   Nominees for Most Painful Performance Johnny Depp as Napping Guy in Transcendence Kelsey Grammer as Guy Just Getting a Paycheck in Transformers: Age of Extinction Mark Wahlberg as Overacting Abusive Father in Transformers: Age of Extinction

In “honor” of Tom Cruise staring in The Mummy, I came up with my favorite, and least favorite, films of Cruise. You see, Tom Cruise is not a good actor. That’s not something to debate. He’s horrendous. Now that alone isn’t a problem. You just need to be clever enough to choose films that fit

It’s time for my 10 Worst Fantasy and Science Fiction Films of 2017. I’ve been ranking the films all year as I see them, and this won’t quite match that list as I want an apples to apples comparison, so I’m only including wide releases or big budget pictures. Sure, some micro-budget VOD films would

Wilder started as a writer, first in Berlin, then in the US where he worked on the masterpiece Ninotchka before he added directing to his resume. He is probably the finest writer/director of all time. The thing that people sometime miss with Wilder is that he always made comedies, just sometimes those comedies pretended to