Tagged: movies

Each year, so many downright awful movies make it into theaters. If you set out to compile a list of the ten-best films of a given year, you easily might cite the 25 worst films... or the 35... or the 50. And unfortunately, 2012 was no different.

Celebrating 13-years of innovative filmmakers & filmmaking, the Woodstock Film Festival has unveiled its line-up of nearly 130 films, panels, and events, screening Wednesday October 10th through Sunday October 14th, in Woodstock NY, and neighboring towns of Rhinebeck, Kingston and Rosendale.

The 2012 festival presents a record 62 Premieres consisting of 19 World Premieres, 6 U-S Premieres, 3 North American Premieres, 10 East Coast Premieres and 15 New York Premieres.

Movies spotlighting characters who are fiercely individualistic always have appealed to me. For after all, we live in a culture in which conformity is the norm, in which one is expected to do what one is told without asking questions. Sometimes, cinematically-speaking, those who do ask questions become heroes. Sometimes, they become victims. But their stories are more interesting to me, just so long as those stories are well-told.

Lately, there have been some very interesting female characters appearing in movies. These characters are young-- they are in their twenties-- and the stories that spotlight them deal with issues involving romance and commitment.

As we are about to embark on one of the high-profile movie seasons, it is as good a time as any to ponder exactly what is being marketed to mainstream moviegoers. 

I recently presented a paper at a Hofstra University conference spotlighting the 50th anniversary of the New York Mets. My subject was “The Mets in the Movies” and I chronicled the various celluloid references to the Amazins, from Bill Mazeroski, the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Famer, hitting into a triple play against the Mets in the screen version of Neil Simon’s THE ODD COUPLE to Billy Crystal’s wearing a Mets baseball cap while running with the bulls in Pamplona and herding cattle in CITY SLICKERS.