Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
"Can you tell me what the movie Greed is really about?" asked no one ever. I'm going to be honest, I hate the title Greed for this film. A film that could have been marketed as the story of the rise and fall of a man gets limited to just the most basic of thematic… Continue reading Greed
I do not hold it against the film, but Foolish Wives is almost the same story as Blind Husbands, just with fewer mountain peaks. There's a man dressed as a European officer who sets out to seduce the wife of an American in a small, European vacation spot that leads to the same lesson about… Continue reading Foolish Wives
Erich von Stroheim started his directing career with an adaptation of his own novel, The Pinnacle (a better title than Blind Husbands, I think), working with the original studio head of Universal, Carl Laemmle Sr. It was also the beginning of Stroheim's problems with producers since they cut him out of the editing bay at… Continue reading Blind Husbands
A friend of mine, Christopher DiGrazzia, suggested the work of noted perfectionist early filmmaker Erich von Stroheim a while back, and I've kept the option in my back pocket ever since. After the long run of forty films from Clint Eastwood, I was looking for a filmography both less imposing to handle as well as… Continue reading Erich von Stroheim: A Statement of Purpose
I'd happily be wrong if Clint Eastwood managed to find the money for one more film after Cry Macho, but I don't think it's going to happen. His last two films were box office disappointments, he's been on the wrong side of the political monoculture of Hollywood for too long, and the man is well… Continue reading Clint Eastwood: The Definitive Ranking
David Vining, Author 