Ever since the dawn of the medium, film has been borrowing from outside sources as inspiration for its cinematic endeavors. D.W. Griffith’s controversial Reconstruction epic, The Birth of a Nation, was based on Thomas Dixon’s racist ode to the Kkk, “The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan.” F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu was based on Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel, Dracula (although the film failed to receive permission from the Stoker estate to do so, which almost led to the complete obliteration of the film after a court ordered the destruction of every copy of the movie). Thomas Edison’s The Sneeze is said to have been influenced greatly by Fydor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground.
Okay, so this last one isn’t true, but nevertheless, you get the picture. Hollywood loves to borrow ideas for their films from other narrative-bound arts, always have and always will.
Okay, so this last one isn’t true, but nevertheless, you get the picture. Hollywood loves to borrow ideas for their films from other narrative-bound arts, always have and always will.
- 6/21/2013
- by Christopher Lominac
- Obsessed with Film
I come to praise Sword & Sandal movies -- not to bury them. But with Wrath of the Titans and the Sword & Sandal/sci-fi mash-up John Carter not exactly setting the world on fire -- along with recent disappointments like Immortals and Conan -- it's getting more difficult by the day to believe that the Sword & Sandal movie can survive the recent fumbling of this otherwise great genre. And that's a shame, because the Sword & Sandal movie -- known for its gladiatorial games, pagan orgies, depraved emperors, and the occasional snarling cyclops -- may represent the most colorful and enduring movie genre of all time. So for the uninitiated, what exactly is a Sword & Sandal movie? Like its cousin the Biblical epic, a Sword & Sandal movie -- or 'peplum,' named after a type of ancient Greek garment -- is typically set in the ancient Mediterranean world, and dramatizes the fight for freedom.
- 4/4/2012
- by Jason Apuzzo
- Moviefone
For the horror buff, Fall is the best time of the year. The air is crisp, the leaves are falling and a feeling of death hangs on the air. Here at Sound on Sight we have some of the biggest horror fans you can find. We are continually showcasing the best of genre cinema, so we’ve decided to put our horror knowledge and passion to the test in a horror watching contest. Each week in October, Ricky D, James Merolla and Justine Smith will post a list of the horror films they have watched. By the end of the month, the person who has seen the most films wins. Prize Tbd.
Justine Smith (11 viewings) Total of 31 viewings
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Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told
Directed by Jack Jill
This movie is very fun, not so much scary as gleefully depraved. The film revels in it’s childhood attitude,...
Justine Smith (11 viewings) Total of 31 viewings
Purchase
Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told
Directed by Jack Jill
This movie is very fun, not so much scary as gleefully depraved. The film revels in it’s childhood attitude,...
- 10/18/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
“We do not fear censorship, for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue – the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word – that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.” — [Opening title card]
David Wark “D.W.” Griffith’s controversial 1915 masterpiece, “The Birth of a Nation,” occupies, on some level, similar stature in film scholarship as its subject matter does in American history. Like slavery’s vile stain on the memoirs of a constitutionally egalitarian nation, Griffith’s ode to Anglo supremacy and the plight of the White South represents the worst of artistic cinema through racist, exploitative, historical revisionism. Both film and subject are reviled, rightly so, for their unforgivable turpitudes. Of course no singular...
David Wark “D.W.” Griffith’s controversial 1915 masterpiece, “The Birth of a Nation,” occupies, on some level, similar stature in film scholarship as its subject matter does in American history. Like slavery’s vile stain on the memoirs of a constitutionally egalitarian nation, Griffith’s ode to Anglo supremacy and the plight of the White South represents the worst of artistic cinema through racist, exploitative, historical revisionism. Both film and subject are reviled, rightly so, for their unforgivable turpitudes. Of course no singular...
- 2/26/2010
- by Eric M. Armstrong
- The Moving Arts Journal
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