In Praise of the Artifice in George Cukor’s ‘Sylvia Scarlett’
George Cukor's gender-bending Sylvia Scarlett proposes a heroine who learns nothing from her cross-gendered ordeal.
george cukor
32 Films That Begin With Leaving a Mental Institution
"Crazy" movies for crazy times. These 32 films make the case for the recently-escaped-or-released-mental-patient narrative as its own subgenre, replete with a language of recurring themes, plot devices, and character archetypes.
‘What Price Hollywood?’ and the Birth of the ‘Star Is Born’ Films
The A Star is Born films have been born, re-born, and born again for almost a century, making them part of America's cultural fabric. Here's a look at how it all started.
For a Comedy of Manners, ‘The Philadelphia Story’ Is Awfully Screwball
Often screwball comedies feature sharp contrasts between social classes, with not-so-subtle commentaries on the idle rich, and that's here in triplicate.
Ten Cases of Sacked Directors
With Paramount announcing Roberto Orci's replacement as director of the upcoming Star Trek 3, we look back at ten other times when studios and suits played musical chairs with their filmmakers.