At Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, Liselotte Doeswijk has a nice analysis of Maurice Binder’s opening titles for Dr. No. “The mid 1950s was an interesting time for title sequences. The growing popularity of the rivaling medium of television prompted film studio’s to rethink their promotion strategies. […]
“I must be stubborn or blind to the world around me, but I believe that 2019 audiences still enjoy the clandestine arts of megalomania, quippy men in bespoke suits, and wildly inefficient research and design departments. James Bond is the name we know, but there’s also Derek Flint, […]
Angelica Jade Bastién writes about Killing Eve as Bluebeard at Vulture. “Killing Eve is deeply indebted to film noir, a genre whose backbone is the ways people lose their soul in the face of desire — from the stories of lone stylish assassins (Le Samouraï) to femme-fatale-led worlds […]
If you’re thinking “Hey, didn’t Cultural Gutter already do a piece on a wackadoodle Indian film about eyes starring the handsome and heroic Dharmendra?” you’re perfectly correct. But thanks to a career of over 300 films, producers apparently ran out of different words to use in the title […]
Elaan may be the most fantastic and under-appreciated movie of 1971. It’s exactly the kind of film I live in fear of running out of someday: loony, exuberant, stylish, exciting, and fun. It might not exactly count as an example of standard Hindi cinema mix of action, comedy, […]
It’s hard to write about this movie. Attempts are usually defeated by a combination of dissolving into squees, dance breaks, and the weird contradiction of knowing absolutely nothing about it while simultaneously notating an ever-growing list of why it’s so good. In brief, James Bond 777 (1971, directed […]