Going back to the old masters, going back to the classics is always illuminating. Someone like Alfred Hitchcock knew how to frame a film. He knew where he was putting his camera, and why it was there. As in North by Northwest he achieved one of the great visual representations of sex. Cary Grant lifts Eva Marie Saint up to bed, and then a train enters a tunnel. Not exactly subtle, but undeniably brilliant. My review after the jump.

Costa-Gavras’s Z is the ultimate political thriller. Much like the earlier Battle of Algiers (1968)  it takes a real event, and uses it as fodder for cinema. And as a paranoia piece, 1969’s Z is a masterpiece.  It’s an angry film, spurned by the events of 1963, where a Greek politician was assassinated, and was murdered partly by the police, and the regime at the time. It’s a film that can make you angry about events of nearly a half century ago, and yet the echoes of the actions are still resonant. My review after the jump.

When you walk into Natural Born Killers, you wonder what drugs the makers were taking. And maybe for a little bit you might want to partake as well, but it’s probably best to not. Regardless of one’s sobriety whilst watching Natural Born Killers, there is no denying that is both a trip and a ride, which is fair enough as much of it is a road picture. My review after the jump.

Gary Shandling: 2 for 2. Two TV shows, two masterpieces. But where more people are familiar with his later Larry Sanders Show, It’s Gary Shandling’s Show has not received the same posthumous praise or attention, partly because it was a Showtime show in the mid to late 80’s, and then began playing on the just-starting Fox network. The show aired for four seasons, and then was out. And to be fair, it ran out of steam, but when it was on, it was one of the most dazzling formalist TV shows to ever air. My review after the jump.

To American audiences, the late producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory are best known for their trio of E.M. Forster adaptations - which is telling for careers spanning 40 years and nearly 30 films together (almost all with writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), making their Forster output roughly ten percent of their body of work. But then again, the names “Merchant and Ivory” are a sort of cinematic shorthand used to denote British films about boring people. My review of Howard’s End after the jump.

There are two things it’s hard to get away from when discussing Woody Allen: the first is that his output is so constant, there’s going to be winners mixed with losers. Over the last couple years, Allen’s talent has been scattershot to say the least, but then he might surprise you with a film like Match Point, or Vicki Christina Barcelona. Even his early funny period had some misfires, but that leads into the second point, which is that Allen has not been strong for a long time. You can never count him out, but the 21^st century is easily his weakest period of cinema. Whatever Works, however, was written a very long time ago, and it shows, so it combines early funny with later Woody. My review after the jump.

South Park is now an institution. Something to take for granted. The show struggled early on after it became a breakout sensation, but now it’s there, always there. You know what Trey Parker and Matt Stone are going to do to a certain extent. Their comic rhythms are familiar, and they know how to tell a joke. The fun in revisiting the movie is that Trey Parker obviously loves musicals, and he made one with his film. My review of South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut after the jump.

I love Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Partly because of nostalgia. It’s shot like a TV movie. Painfully so at times. But the moral play works well enough, and Gene Wilder gives a hell of a performance. On the edge of malice and crazy, he walks it. On that level, I prefer it to Tim Burton’s over-stylized and otherwise empty remake. My Review after the jump.

The story behind Trick ‘r Treat is almost as interesting as the film itself. Finished in 2007, the film got caught up in some politicking and marketing concerns. Not a very expensive movie - after being sneaked in LA, and shown at Butt-Numb-a-Thon - it’s just now coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. Somewhat unfairly. My review after the jump.

I had a friend who had done some jail time. I was always very curious about this because I knew that it would be hugely unlikely I would ever see the inside of a cell (knock on wood). He told that one of the most beloved movies by prisoners was Wizard of Oz. This made all the sense in the world. Wizard of Oz is the ultimate escapist fantasy, which betrays the film’s original message. My thoughts after the jump.

Sam Raimi is a sadist. He has to be. Maybe he doesn’t have a whip collection at home, maybe he doesn’t have his own dungeon room, maybe he’s a pacifist in real life. When he gets behind the camera, he believes in torture. The exquisite pain of making both his main characters and his audience suffer. And that’s why Drag Me to Hell is a whole lot of fun. Because Sam Raimi is a master-class sadist, and he knows how to twist the screws in. My review after the jump.

Halloween brings out the ghosts, ghouls and reissues of Haloween favorites and “favorites.” Universal, one of the great studios for catalog Blu-ray releases has put out two cult-classics, and one film that might strain to be some day. My reviews of An America Werewolf in London, Army of Darkness and Van Helsing after the jump.

Universal has already issued their horror releases for Halloween, and I’ve already reviewed them, so I’m reviewing half of the 20^th Century Fox releases for Halloween. Child’s Play, and Wrong Turns one and two. At least two of these movies are pretty good. My reviews after the jump.

“Based on a play by Noel Coward.” That’s a statement that’s got some oomph. Coward’s long been held as a master of wit, with plays like Blithe Spirit, Design for Living and Private Lives still well known long after his death. The film Easy Virtue is based on a play by Coward, and takes some of the design of his play, but it’s obvious that this is a modern redress, which is both interesting and not. My review after the jump.

After having finished watching the entirety of season 3of 30 Rock, two things came to me. One is that 30 Rock - especially among its niche following - is the most quotable show around these days. From Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) doing her Muppet walk or saying “what the what?”to “I want to go there” to Baldwin paying homage to Malice, without having seen this season of 30 Rock at all, much of it was familiar by remembering tweets and things people said. My Review after the jump.

Concert films often work best when they’re about one band. The Last Waltz and Stop Making Sense are great, because you can either like the artist or not, but it’s about their moment, that moment, when they record the show they’re doing. The problem with gig shows, like Monterey Pop, is that not all musicians are created equal. So they have to be about the moment, and the experience. My review after the jump.