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3 items from 2012

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The Essentials: The Films Of John Milius

12 April 2012 7:04 AM, PDT | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »

All those who complain about the liberal domination of Hollywood have never come across John Milius. A film school pal of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, Milius had tried to join the Marine Corp, but was turned away due to his asthma. Instead, he channeled his frustrations into both a life-long obsession with firearms (he was paid for "Jeremiah Johnson" in antique weaponry, and has served on the NRA Board of Directors) and making some of the most masculine, testosterone-filled movies of all time, both as an acclaimed writer and as a director. The basis for both Paul Le Mat's character in "American Graffiti" and Walter in "The Big Lebowski" -- the Coens are friends of Milius, and offered him the part of Jack Lipnick in "Barton Fink" -- he's one of film history's most singular, colorful characters.

He might not have had the overwhelming success of Lucas or Spielberg, »

- Oliver Lyttelton

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5 Things You Might Not Know About Steven Spielberg's Game-Changing 'Jaws' As It Finally Heads To Blu-Ray

11 April 2012 8:23 AM, PDT | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »

You know what’s a fun task? Trying to convince anyone that Steven Spielberg’s 1975 “Jaws” is not an American classic and a nearly flawless film. It’s kind of impossible, and if you were to somehow take this position, you would either be painfully foolhardy, Armond White, or both.

The film is regarded as the first bonafide summer blockbuster, one that, along with subsequent seasonal smashes like "Star Wars," were part of the death of the 1970s silver-age era of indie American filmmaking. Its enormous box-office success made irrevocable changes to the the studio business model that has turned the months between April and September into a frenzy of special effects and explosions. But "Jaws" shouldn't be demonized for that, because unlike most of today’s blockbusters, it was and is much more than a spectacle-driven piece meant to lure audiences to the theaters.

In fact, for much of the maligned production of “Jaws, »

- The Playlist

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Nine Overlooked Classic Westerns

25 March 2012 6:57 PM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the boundless wastes of Monument Valley, the crackle of saddle leather, two men facing off in a dusty street under the noon sun connected with the free spirit in every kid.

The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where »

- Bill Mesce

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2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2000

3 items from 2012

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