Film Studies

Clinton Olsasky: Remembering Sidney Poitier in Five Legendary Performances

Trailblazer. Icon. Legend.   Those are just some of the words that have been used to describe Sidney Poitier since his passing at the age of 94 last month.   But truth be told, words alone could never fully convey the sheer impact that Poitier had on the American film industry and, more importantly, on American culture at large.   Often starring in movies that either directly or indirectly addressed race relations in America, Poitier was the only regularly cast Black...

Read More

100 Years Later: ‘The Phantom Carriage’ Is Still the Greatest New Year’s Movie

On New Year’s Day 1921, the world of cinema changed forever.   That was the day that “The Phantom Carriage,” one of the great masterworks of the silent era, was released. Now, exactly 100 years later, the film continues to transfix viewers through its sheer artistry and thought-provoking, life-affirming story.   The movie, directed by pioneering Swedish filmmaker Victor Sjöström, broke new ground on several cinematic fronts. In terms of visual effects, Sjöström made innovative use of double exposure,...

Read More

Clinton Olsasky: Remembering Kirk Douglas: Five Legendary Performances

Last month, the red-hot glow of one of the film industry’s brightest (and longest) burning stars was extinguished.   That star was the incomparable Kirk Douglas, who, at the age of 103, became one of the oldest living and last surviving icons of the Golden Age of Hollywood.   The fact that Douglas’ life burned so bright and so long is appropriate, as many of the screen legend’s best performances were marked with a fiery intensity that was rarely...

Read More

Music in the Movies of Quentin Tarantino

This summer, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film (tenth, if we’re counting the two “Kill Bill” installments as separate entities), splashed onto cinema screens. The poignant ode to the end of Hollywood’s golden age proved to be as joyously indulgent as any of Tarantino’s other films — many of which resemble a collage of the director’s most cherished cultural artifacts.   The most obvious of these artifacts is, of course, film. Tarantino’s love...

Read More

Blaxploitation Films: Sticking It to the Man!

Few film movements elicit a sly smile from one’s lips as quickly as that of the blaxploitation films of the 70s. In a reversal of the standard cliché, the whole often proved greater than the sum of its parts. These films were not the typical glossy, seamless, high production value fare of mainstream Hollywood, but usually the flip side: down-and-dirty, in-your-face, doing-the-best-we-can-on-a-limited-budget product designed for a demographic that had been all but ignored to that...

Read More

50 Years Later: Three Films from 1969 that Changed America

From the Apollo 11 moon landing to the birth of the gay liberation movement, 1969 was a year that brought historic change to America.    The cinema, it turned out, was no different.    Merely a year after the new Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating system marked the official death knell for Hays Code-era censorship, American moviegoers were more eager than ever to explore radical, new stories at the theater in 1969.   From Sam Peckinpah’s ultra-bloody western “The...

Read More

There’s More to Kurosawa Than Samurai Films

Recently, thanks to Turner Classic Movies (and my DVR), along with an assist from the Des Moines Public Library, I was able to view several films by Akira Kurosawa for the first time. Not only is Kurosawa in the group of Japanese directors known as The Big Three (along with Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirô Ozu) he is, without question, in the international pantheon of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Known primarily for his talent...

Read More