It’s hard to pinpoint when a film becomes a family classic. For my family, like many others, what seems to connect all of our disparate tastes is humor. Some of my earliest memories are of us watching movies together and laughing uproariously at a joke we’re seeing for the first or even the fifth time…. Read more »
It’s hard to watch The Heroic Trio (1993) and not feel like you’re seeing one of the most entertaining movies ever made. Its collection of gonzo delights (some of which are best left unspoiled) and imaginative sense of worldbuilding make it a treat for fans of cinema that is a little off the beaten path…. Read more »
Why do some films seem to get endlessly parodied, referenced, and remade decades after their release? Like the sequence of the baby carriage rolling down the steps in 1925’s Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein) or the eponymous “red balloon” of The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse, 1956), we see iconography from certain films repeatedly ported into others…. Read more »
“The western is always the same, which gives the director tremendous freedom,” Jean Renoir, a director who never made a western, once opined. In this regard, the classical American western film, which reached its fullest peak of maturity and creativity in the 1950s, represents one of the greatest playgrounds that cinema was ever offered. Many… Read more »
It is an inescapable fact that we don’t deserve Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Separately, together, it doesn’t matter. They were just too beautiful, too miraculous, too good. By the time I laid eyes on their second collaboration, Bringing Up Baby, in high school, I was already head over heels for Kate and Cary, but… Read more »
Every month, Establishing Shot brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they… Read more »