Story and You

(image via secretsofstory.com) This is my second post for the Food in Film Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings, this time focusing on the Doris Day and Rock Hudson film Lover Come Back .

(image via IMDB) I had a lot of plans this month. Last October was the first year where I really delved into horror in the lead-up to Halloween, and it was the discovery of some particularly excellent films— The Haunting , House , Cat People —that motivated me to start writing about film again after a period of feeling burned out and dissatisfied with my work. I had hoped to discover another batch of great horror classics this year, and write about as many of them as possible, this time utilizing this blog. Unfortunately, a number of assignment deadlines, a couple of midterms, and my work scheduling me for way more hours than usual halted these plans in their tracks. I’ve still watched some good movies this month, but I just haven’t had the time or inspiration to write about any of them. This brings us to Willard and Ben , a pair of horror movies that have successfully gotten my creative juices flowing for the first time this month, and which I've act...

(image via IMDB) Our society has a problem when it comes to child stars. We've all seen it: young kids rise up from nowhere, become cultural icons, and then as they grow up they fall from grace in highly-publicized, humiliating ways. Macaulay Culkin is lucky enough to be the rare exception; he disappeared from the scene almost as soon as he appeared, and has avoided the negative media attention that usually follows someone with his career trajectory--while there are rumors of some personal problems, he's managed to retain an impressive amount of privacy over the decades. Even still, there is a special brand of derision aimed at his pictures--even Home Alone has started to fall victim to it--that I can't help wondering about. Would these films be viewed in this way if he had gone on to a successful adult career? Is it the lack of followup that inspires bad feelings towards them or is it a more general cultural disdain for fluffy children's entertainment? I beg...

Even as I delve deeper and deeper into classic cinema, my love of modern films has not waned; what has changed is that I'm increasingly partial to films that are, as I call it, cinematic . What does that mean? To me, it means films that are conscious of film history, that know they're building off of a long-standing tradition of film-making, and not only pay homage to that but also actively try to improve on what came before rather than just stick to the status quo. 2017 is a great year for film because it's full of pictures that do exactly this, but none does it better than Baby Driver .

  These are both films from this year that didn't get a lot of positive attention (or in 5 to 7's case, any attention?), but their premises intrigued me enough to check them out when I saw they were on Netflix. They're both far more charming and enjoyable than they have any right to be, but they each fall into traps-some different, some the same, all tired and cliche-that keeps them from being something truly special. Keep in mind I'll be discussing the endings of both films, so proceed with caution if you haven't seen them yet!