Tag: African American filmmakers

Ten Great African American Classic Films

February 17, 2023May 28, 2023Shawn Hall2 Comments

Anyone with experience watching classic films has undoubtedly been taken out of an otherwise engaging, entertaining viewing experience when a film swerves into a heavy dose of racism against African Americans. Even well-made and still remembered Hollywood films like The Lost World (1925), Swing Time …

Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity—Book Review

July 13, 2020May 14, 2023Shawn Hall2 Comments

Jacqueline Najuma Stewart’s Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity is a great starting place for anyone interested in learning about African American experiences with and in silent film. In the book, Stewart examines how “the urban and northern immigration of African Americans …

Clara Bow: The Life and Career of Hollywood’s IT Girl Video
2 days ago
Not every day do silent film stars of yesteryear find their way back into the limelight. The namesake of the final title track on Taylor Swift’s upcoming album Tortured Poets’ …
Edmund Lowe: The Wisecracking Wonder
4 weeks ago
Fame is a fickle thing. Many of the biggest stars of yesteryear are now mere footnotes in pop culture history and remain largely unknown even to us classic film fanatics. …
The Saphead—Buster Keaton’s First Starring Vehicle
1 month ago
I recently finished Buster Keaton’s silent filmography—or so I thought. Focused on watching all Keaton’s appearances in Arbuckle shorts, the 21 shorts he directed, and his silent feature comedies, I …
Top Ten and 2023 Year in Review
3 months ago
2023 was a great year for cinema. It’s the first time in several years it felt like there was always something worth checking out at my local theater each month. …
The Animated Fantasies of Lotte Reiniger
3 months ago
Lotte Reiniger etched her name in cinematic history with her groundbreaking animated feature film The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). Beyond creating the earliest surviving animated feature film, Lotte Reiniger …

Street Scene, 1931 - ★★★★½
Visor really knew how to portray the everyday Joe stuck in the Lowe classes yearning for something more. Not a fake note to be found […]
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966 - ★★★★½
Ow this is how you adapt a play into a movie. Great performances made such much more effecting and personal with Nichol’s tight, careening direction.
Ten Minutes to Live, 1932 - ★★★½
The first half is mostly filler with plenty of interspersed musical numbers but the second half really picks up. Even with the shoestring budget Micheaux […]
Blonde Venus, 1932 - ★★★½
The story jumps around a lot and is another 'mother will do anything for her' type of story that remained popular through the early years […]
The Lost Patrol, 1934 - ★★★★
A lot of people equate Pre-Code films solely with scantily clad women and double entendres. There is plenty of that of course but this blind […]