Paul Haggis's Crash (2004) was well-received upon its release. It has a 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, was Roger Ebert's favorite film of the year, earned the SAG award for Best Ensemble, won several Best Original Screenplay awards (including the Writers Guild prize and Academy Award), and (most notoriously) won Best Picture at the 2005 Academy Awards. … Continue reading Oscars Controversies: In Defense of “Crash” (2004)
West Side Story. Singin' in the Rain. My Fair Lady. Ask any film fan for a classic example of the Hollywood musical, and these are the ideas that first come to mind. And they'd be absolutely correct; each of these classics, and more, helped define and refine the genre. The electrifying 1984 film Purple Rain thrust … Continue reading Purple Rain: A Traditional Musical with an Anti-Traditional Score
David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is a never-ending two-way street. The action on film has countless sets of onscreen pairs (two cars drag racing, two Castigliane brothers), plus a showstopping double narrative: midway through the film, we enter a new story altogether, with the same actors playing different characters in a hauntingly distorted mirror of what came before. One of … Continue reading There Never was a Woman Like Rita
Check out the Dual Roles Blogathon: One Actor ~ Multiple Roles — accepting submissions now!
There is something particularly riveting about watching a film where an actor plays more than one role. Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda, Hayley Mills in The Parent Trap, Michael J. Fox in the three Back to the Future films. Even Ginger Rogers in The Major and the Minor.
It is that combination of technical know-how, make-up, and the sheer skill of an individual actor that produces the peculiar exhilaration one can feel. Cinema is, after all, about role playing and the illusion of reality, an image of reality. What can typify this more than the concept of dual or multiple roles?
In that spirit, Ruth of Silver Screenings and I are so excited to announce the Dual Roles Blogathon: One Actor ~ Multiple Roles.
Time – Friday, Sept. 30th – Sunday, Oct. 2nd
Rules – Duplicate posts on the same film are most welcome (it seems…
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Remember me to one who lives there. Since I first watched it about ten years ago, The Graduate instantly flew into the swirl of my favorite films. Of course, late middle school / early high school age me didn't fully grasp the complex themes masked by uncomfortable comedy and moody ambivalence, but this classic still spoke to me in … Continue reading Finding Elaine: UC Berkeley in “The Graduate” (1967)
Meet the Robinsons is the story of a good scientist and budding inventor, who struggles to get his inventions right in a world without emotional support or room to experiment. Lewis lives in an orphanage, where his tinkering annoys his roommate Goob, and his ideas often scare off potential adoptive parents. Growing up friendless, and with no … Continue reading Meet the Robinsons (2007)
The glorious technicolor MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis brought future husband-and-wife Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland together. This collaboration became a six-year-marriage and their daughter Liza, but it was a landmark for the film industry in general, as a key success for the MGM musical as a genre, and for their careers specifically. Prior to St. Louis, Garland was … Continue reading The Girl Next Door: Garland & Minnelli in “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944)
