Live and Let Die (1973)

     You know what? I think I had James Bond pegged all wrong. My initial experiances and the way people seem to talk about the franchise led me to believe that Bond movies were all fairly typical action blockbusters lightly flavored with cold war era spy fiction and sci-fi with an unusually high level of racism and mysogyny due to the franchise's adhirance to tradition, and the power fantasy it was created to cater to. However, as we move further along the franchise into the seventies I can't help but get the sense that, while they are spy/sci fiction action blockbusters they aren't at all typical.

Cabaret (1972)

     10 months 2 jobs later in a year besotten by a pandemic I return to the old film blog. It's nice to know that no matter how often I abandon it I can always come back to post more musings. I've gone back to the old scratch off poster again fulfilling a promise I made just over a year ago that I'd muse on Cabaret (1972). So I done did a watch of the movie so lets do a talk about it.

The Great Dictator (1940)

Having done a bit of research on this film (actually just glancing at the wikipedia page) I learned that in his biography Charlie Chaplin stated that he would not have made The Great Dictator (1940) if he had known the true extent of the violence committed against the Jewish people in Germany. Perhaps this would have been the right decision in 1940 when Hitler was still in power and the threat he represented wasn't widely known. Trivializing dangerous people can give them power by disguising their threat, however in 2019, to quote Mel Brooks, "Of course it is impossible to take revenge for 6 million murdered Jews. But by using the medium of comedy, we can try to rob Hitler of his posthumous power and myths."

Gone With the Wind (1939)

It seems Tuseday's post about Frankenstein was the perfect prelude to this post. I mean talk about a cinematic institution. Gone With the Wind is, has been, and probably always will be THE highest grossing film of all time. Sure Avengers: Endgame may hold that title in raw unfiltered numbers (after a re-release with additional footage), but if you were to adjust for inflation Gone With the Wind has made over one trillion dollars. That's a lot of money, and if that weren't enough it's widely considered to be one of the greatest achievements in filmmaking. 4 hours of engrossing drama, searing romance, lush imagery etc... After watching it for myself...

Double Feature: Frankenstein (1931) & Dracula (1931)

So in an attempt to get through this scratch off poster of mine a little faster I've decided to double up on movies where time permits and doubling up is relevant, and there is no better pair of movies to start this with than Dracula and Frankenstein. Both films came out the same year, share an actor and producer, are based off classic horror literature framed as correspondence, and both Universal horror films. Its impossible to deny the influence both Frankenstein and Dracula had on the horror genre (having practically invented the mainstream perception of the genre) and on the broader industry.