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Film 101: Evolution of the Car Chase

This January, TCM is shining a spotlight on car chases, and in this episode of Film 101, we're tracing the evolution of this particular set piece. Join us as we look at what Bullitt (1986), The French Connection (1971), and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) have to say about the characters behind the wheel.

Film 101: Ida Lupino

Learn more about director Ida Lupino and how her final film, The Trouble with Angels (1966), may seem like a departure, but fits it nicely with the themes of her previous features.

Film 101: Touch of Evil

Orson Welles' 1958 spellbinding noir 'Touch of Evil' has one of the most famous opening shots in cinema history. In this episode of Film 101, we breakdown the intricate continuous shot to point out how Welles lays the foundation for the rest of the movie in less than four minutes.

Film 101: The Blacklist

What was the Hollywood Blacklist? How did this dark chapter of Hollywood history unfold? In the first episode of our new YouTube series, Film 101, we take a look at who participated in blacklisting Hollywood talent, who fought back, and the lasting repercussions.

Liked reviews

MacGruber

MacGruber

★★★★★

It’s the Michael Bolton song at the wedding that really bumps it up a couple of stars for me.

The "World Without End" is a buffet of cheesy sci-fi charm delivered in glorious CinemaScope. Produced within the atomic age of film, this effort focuses on a retro-futuristic vision of the space travel, and its advantageous thought towards breaking the time/space barrier. As our astronauts blast off on their shiny metallic "Buck Rogers" spacecraft, they are spent hurdling through space, unknowingly landing on Earth in the year 2508. Once there they encounter giant rubber spiders, mutated cave men, and assorted…

World Without End stands out from much of its period genre peers by having relatively good production values. It was shot in CinemaScope, the "first science-fiction thriller." The Blu-Ray restoration I watched was so good the viewer could briefly make out some of the creatures' construction lines. Color was good, but not great, like several other movies of the time.

The story involves a crew of four American astronauts returning to Earth after completing the first expedition to Mars. They…

I'd never seen or heard of this one before- it was on a TCM "Sci-Fi Adventures" set I found at the library. A pleasant surprise, it turned out to be a solid sci-fi flick for the era with an able cast.

Starring Hugh Marlowe (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers) and Rod Taylor (The Time Machine).

What an eclectic crew too- Sam Peckinpah (as dialgoue director) and pin-up artist Alberto Vargas also worked on the…

Logan's Run

Logan's Run

★★★★

Wow this is the most 1976 thing to ever exist. Within the first 40 seconds you can tell this was made in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and seventy six. Full of dystopia jumpsuits, laser guns, and cats. Michael York is a weird looking dude, probably not leading man material but I guess it works.

There were elements of Logan's Run that reminded me of Spielbergs classic sci-fi Minority Report. A man escaping his doomed destiny, turning friends into foes and wrongs into rights.

The futuristic setting has dated, but for the most part we get a strong series of action set pieces that like the aformentioned film - thrill and excite, whilst telling an intriguing story that constantly drives forward.

A couple of pacing issues present themselves toward the end but Logan's Run is a thought provoking, pleasant work from all involved.

My late grandmother only had a handful of English novels in her library - she rather read Dutch, her language. Many, many moons ago, I asked her why she had an English copy of On the Beach by Nevil Shute and she told me it belonged to my grandfather (whose most favorite book in the English language was a book with collected speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt). My grandfather always said the novel terrified him, according to my grandmother. I…

On the Beach

On the Beach

★★★★½

"No time to love, and nothing to remember. Nothing worth remembering."

Well, that's my heart in a million pieces on the floor.

So far, all of the "end of the world" films I've seen have been about characters who mourned their lives being cut short as they were aware of all they had to live for. Never had I seen a character shrug their shoulders and go, "well, it's all a bit shit anyway, right, this is hardly a surprise"…