Roderick Heath

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

For the Allan Fish Film Festival, amidst the absurd hype and controversy for Christopher Nolan's upcoming take, I look at the only other major movie version of The Odyssey, and muse on the poem's larger imprint on pop culture. Read it at Film Freedonia...
https://t.co/zhBEhsNGNt

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

I did a Spielberg Top Ten or so I can live with.
Duel
Jaws
Close Encounters
Raiders/ 2nd half of Temple of Doom
Color Purple
Empire Of The Sun
Saving Private Ryan
Catch Me If You Can / Minority Report
Lincoln
Fabelmans
Possible ringers: War of the Worlds, West Side Story

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

Rewatch: Mario Bava's The Three Faces of Fear, aka Black Sabbath. Somehow this is both close to a perfect horror movie, particularly taking each story in and of itself, but also highlights a problem with anthology films: there's a slight repetitiveness to the whole.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

...Vale.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@Lasermazer @Jamie_Uhler2 Tried to get into when I reviewed it a few years ago:
https://t.co/9nQQtIsd9x

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

You can see ancestry of the Backrooms "liminal horror" trend in 1970s sci-fi and horror - particularly Fonda's Idaho Transfer, but also stuff like Andromeda Strain, Coma, Phase IV, even a certain Night Stalker episode. It's just been given a more overt Kafka-Piranesian makeover.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@RalphDanvers Yeah!

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

My essay on Idaho Transfer from back when, btw. A real rough and mistreated gem.
https://t.co/9nQQtIsd9x

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@GordonCramsay Maybe that feeling so many have that modern architecture and environs amplifies the sense of alienation from institutions already apparent in Kafka's time.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

Rewatch: Sam Hargrave's Extraction II. The prison break oner in this is on a very short list of the greatest sequences in 2020s film.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@HairOCronenberg One might even go back to the roving, presence-evoking-but-not-impersonating camera in Leni's The Cat and the Canary.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@Jamie_Uhler2 But I suspect Fonda's the deep precursor here in the way he was trying to visualise and articulate bipolar sensations.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@Jamie_Uhler2 Bava's Operazione Paura also gets into that looping space-time-psyche trap feel, just visualised in a classically gothic fashion.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

Rewatch: Sam Hargrave's Extraction. "We just got attacked by the Goonies from hell."

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

Rewatch: Bob Kelljan's Count Yorga, Vampire. Superb little film that smartly updates vampire mythos for the Manson era, Dracula as New Age parasite; full of impressive nastiness, good (and then startling) twists, barely-hidden kink.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

For the Allan Fish Film Festival, amidst the absurd hype and controversy for Christopher Nolan's upcoming take, I look at the only other major movie version of The Odyssey, and muse on the poem's larger imprint on pop culture. Read it at Film Freedonia...
https://t.co/zhBEhsNGNt

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

New at Film Freedonia (yay!), Mario Camerini's Ulysses, the progenitor sword-and-sandal film where Pabst, Bava, Spartacus, Rambo, and Nolan all lurk in the wings:
https://t.co/zhBEhsNGNt

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

@europe133394753 He does just good enough a job not to be a hindrance for the great work put in front of him. Generally, though, I think it's a much better movie than usually allowed.

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

For the Allan Fish Film Festival, amidst the absurd hype and controversy for Christopher Nolan's upcoming take, I look at the only other major movie version of The Odyssey, and muse on the poem's larger imprint on pop culture. Read it at Film Freedonia...
https://t.co/zhBEhsNGNt

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

...or at Wonders In The Dark:
https://t.co/hCfxUL31yP

[Roderick Heath @Roderick_Heath]

I don't know why everyone in the timeline here is suddenly reading Dracula but I approve heartily.