Paul Leni’s Haunting ‘Waxworks’ Comes to Life in This Restoration
Paul Leni’s silent film Waxworks (1924) is a brilliantly acted, engaging, and exhilarating example of German Expressionism on film.
Lee Broughton
Lee Broughton is a freelance writer, critic, film programmer and educator. His work on film and the media has appeared in an assortment of edited collections, trade publications and journals. His books include 'The Euro-Western: Reframing Gender, Race and the Other in Film' (I.B. Tauris, 2016), 'Critical Perspectives on the Western: From A Fistful of Dollars to Django Unchained' (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) and 'Reframing Cult Westerns: From The Magnificent Seven to The Hateful Eight' (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). You can find Lee on Twitter @LeeVanBee
Exploring the Sci-fi Worlds of Ishirō Honda in Three Films
The devastating power of the atomic bomb casts a long shadow over Ishiro Honda’s The H-Man, Battle in Outer Space, and Mothra.
Paul Leni’s Silent Film ‘The Man Who Laughs’ Is Serious Cinema
There's so much tragedy present, so many skullduggeries afoot, and so many cruel and vindictive characters in attendance that a sad and heartbreaking ending seems to be an obvious given in Paul Leni's silent film, The Man Who Laughs.
Edgar Allan Poe Drives Bela Lugosi Mad in These 3 Horror Films
1930s-era horror films Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat. and The Raven see Edgar Allan Poe’s dark heart driving the menacing Bela Lugosi mad.
Masaki Kobayashi’s ‘Kwaidan’ Horror Films Are Horrifically Beautiful
The four haunting tales of Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan are human and relatable, as well as impressive at a formal and a technical level.
Bang for Your Buck: Sergio Leone’s ‘A Fistful of Dynamite’
A Fistful of Dynamite finds Sergio Leone working on a massive canvas of intricately choreographed scenes that telegraph the chaos and the brutality of the Mexican Revolution.
‘The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot’ Will, Like ‘Donnie Darko’, Surprise
The title suggests that this would be a schlocky B movie with a '70s-style grindhouse aesthetic, but The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot is, in fact, a finely crafted and emotionally charged drama about ageing, loneliness, and lost love.
Rivette’s ‘Paris nous appartient’ Nods to McCarthyism, Communist Witch Hunts, and Cold War Paranoia in the USA
Jacques Rivette's first French New Wave film, Paris nous appartient, is infused with the look and feel of Hollywood's more paranoid, conspiratorial and apocalyptic films noir.
Nihilistic ‘Jubilee’ Sought Fit to Celebrate Nothing
Much like his former colleague Ken Russell, Derek Jarman knew which buttons to press when seeking to outrage the UK's moral majority.
‘Woodfall: A Revolution in British Cinema’ Captures the Changes in Britain’s Fortunes
Social realist films would spearhead the so-called British New Wave and Woodfall Films produced some of the New Wave's best and most enduring examples of the form.
‘They Came to a City’ for a Vision of Utopia
J. B. Priestley's sense of social conscience permeates every frame of They Came to a City.