Foster on Film

To mark the recent release of The Killing Joke, and the soon-to-be release of Suicide Squad, I’m going to rank the DC Animated films. But I’m keeping this to a top 13 instead of ranking them all as there’s a large number that come out as equally so-so, and not worth my time to rewatch

I ranked the MCU films, so I thought I’d dig a bit deeper. The quality of the villain can have as much to do with the quality of a film as the quality of the hero. Die Hard is often cited as an example of when a great villain makes a great movie. But for

If I’m doing a list for William Powell, then I should do one for Loy, and even more so as this is an easy list to make—it has a great deal of overlap with my Powell list (I’ll even keep some of the brief descriptions). Loy was as Northern European as they come, but her

Ranking the Star Wars films gives me a chance to rate them without writing full reviews. I’ve always wanted them listed on my site—to show where they fit with other F&SF films, but thought it was a bit silly to fully review the first six. The overlap between “People who do not already have a

Sometimes greatness comes from complicated technique, superior skill, and slow, methodical work. Sometimes it’s knowing when to get out of the way and just get things done. Van Dyke was in the second category. Nicknamed “One-take Woody,” Van Dyke was know for his quick work and keeping under budget. The studio loved him for his

(Opening to Friday night’s Creature Features, where I originally saw all of the classic Universal monsters) The one problem with making a Classic Horror list is that so much of it will be obvious. Half of my choices will be on any top 10 list and most will be on all. But Classic Horror contains

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