Welcome to Pottersville

There is one thing that every big name director has in common– they all at one point made their first film. In some cases the directors were experimenting, seeing how they could push cinema to its edges, because they had everything to gain and nothing to lose. David Lynch’s Eraserhead is probably the definitive example. Other times, directors make their debut with something safe and mainstream, such as David Fincher’s Aliens 3 . The directorial debut can go on to define their careers, such as Kevin Smith’s Clerks , or these films can be completely forgotten- Stanley Kubrick’s Fear and Desire remains virtually unseen. What makes these films special is that their directors do not have a defined style to fall back on, they are usually not receiving funds from studios, and the director is filling more jobs than they would if they had the resources. This morning I watched Joel and Ethan Coen’s first feature film, Blood Simple . This was before the Best Picture Oscar for No Country for ...

Confession time: Robin Williams has always been one of my favorite actors. As a kid I could watch and rewatch his quick wit and crude manner in Popeye, Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, Flubber, and, my favorite, Aladdin. As I’ve grown up, his serious films have continued to impressed me, such as Good Morning Vietnam, The Fisher King, Insomnia, Death to Smoochy, One Hour Photo, Good Will Hunting, and his smaller roles in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or Deconstructing Harry. Williams largely avoids the hit or miss factor that plague so many other actors – if he’s in it, the films probably good, and probably because he is in it. So here is my homage to one of the best actors of all time. Robin Williams’ big acting debut was the character of Mork in Happy Days, and its spin off Mork and Mindy. His show ran for four seasons, and Williams earned a Golden Globe for his performance – his first of four. While Mork and Mindy was on the air, Williams starred as the titular character in Robert Altman’...

About a month ago I was watching Arsenic and Old Lace with a few friends when one of them had asked me if I had seen the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope. At the time I hadn’t seen much Hitchcock at all, but the film sounded intriguing – like Arsenic and Old Lace, it was a story about a dead man hidden in a box in the living room. A few days ago I found out that Jimmy Stewart starred in the movie and I was sold. There’s something about Jimmy Stewart that’s very approachable and familiar, kind of like an uncle or a neighbor, and I, as mentioned in a previous entry, am a huge fan of his work with Frank Capra. Hitchcock is, of course, legendary, so the combination of these two in the 1940’s film Rope makes it extremely appealing. What surprised me most was how experimental this film was. As I lay in bed watching the film this morning I noticed that although the camera was moving, the box containing the dead man was almost always in view, and the camera was focusing on pretty much one shot f...