Toward a New Cinema

The author wishes to offer you more than the standard fare of sex and violence that normally comes with your popcorn, burgers, and fries. He is betting you have been hankering for a little courage and love, spiced with pride and faithfulness, and that you might find a turn to nobility and truth more to your tastes. This book of movie reviews samples the classics and more contemporary selections. You will discover the author’s observations and thoughts about Twelve Years a Slave as well as Amiri Baraka’s The Dutchman. We will examine Edison with Spencer Tracy and David Mamet’s Oleanna. James Coburn will take us dancing and prancing through death and danger as Our Man Flint, and we will have a front-row seat to Klaatu’s stern lecture to humanity in The Day the Earth Stood Still. After a round trip through The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jett Li, we will, at length, settle down to a glass of milk and a slice of apple pie with Young Tom Edison. Finally, with all this under our belt, we might, at last, find ourselves meditating and contemplating upon a route toward a new cinema.