Hooptober 7.0, pt.36- Stella by Starlight

14/6 Countries- USA, Italy, Japan, Canada, UK, Norway, Spain, Greece, Mexico, Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Russia, China
11/6 Decades- 1980s, 1970s, 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1950s, 1960s, 1920s, 1910s, 1930s, 1940s

1st Lewis Allen

It's another Long Review!

And so, with this, the circle closes and all of the decades have been completed. I do have one more film technically on the docket before I go freeform, but there's something quite nice about wrapping things…

1st Kurt Neumann

Another long read for the thesis!

The Fly may not be an entirely engaging film, but it's a coherent and interesting text that blends science fiction and horror together to elucidate many of the fears experienced by 1950s America towards concepts of disability and difference. Based on a short story, takes the form of an extended flashback that tells of a scientist's attempts to perfect a matter transporter, only to find that his cells have been combined…

4th Joris Ivens (after A Tale of Wind, The Bridge and Indonesia Calling), 1st Mannus Franken

I'm gradually working a rough shape of Ivens interests and how his art and themes developed. He's an interesting followup to the conversations i was having in my review of Passenger, as Ivens was someone who held a great deal of authority over his own films by working in the low-budget atmosphere of the documentary. True, he was gradually more and more bound to…

1st Andrzej Munk, 1st Witold Lesiewicz

Can we review a film if it was never finished? Munk died in a car crash midway through production of this feature, and what footage was left behind was edited into this, the only form we'll ever see it in. It is permanently unfinished, an aborted text. Yet to me, that adds to the fascination and mystique of the film. There is an air of mystery, a 'what could have been', that is so…

1st Toshio Matsumoto

I watched this in preparation for a quiz tournament on Queer and Female films that took place on Sunday and didn't get around to reviewing it until now. Of course, despite watching it and it coming up in the quiz, I still got outbuzzed on it. Well done Ethan. Great job. But that does probably suggest my lack of enthusiasm for this film, which is a relative term considering the incredible amount of support for this film…

1st Peter Sasdy

From one evocation of the natural world to a far more depressing and boring one, Doomwatch squanders an interesting narrative concept with meagre writing and dreary performances. Based on a hit TV show, Doomwatch tells of a government scientist's discovery of a chemical spill at a remote Cornish island that is gradually mutating the islanders. Thus begins the struggle to find out what is happening, why and how to stop it. While the idea at its centre…