Film #123: Bigger Than Life

Bigger Than Life, released in 1956, is Nicholas Ray's masterpiece starring James Mason as a milquetoast elementary school teacher named Ed Avery, struggling economically at home and at work, and newly diagnosed with a rare, dooming affliction. The cure is a hormone--cortisone--that the menacing doctors advise him to take indefinitely. Once he's out of harm's way, the physicians also warn him to

Film #123: Bigger Than Life

Bigger Than Life, released in 1956, is Nicholas Ray's masterpiece starring James Mason as a milquetoast elementary school teacher named Ed Avery, struggling economically at home and at work, and newly diagnosed with a rare, dooming affliction. The cure is a hormone--cortisone--that the menacing doctors advise him to take indefinitely. Once he's out of harm's way, the physicians also warn him to

Film #84: The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three

I still remember sitting over at my friend Brian Matson's apartment, snacks in hand, as I ran across this movie's opening credits. I'd always remembered the title: The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three. But somehow I missed this bloodcurdling juggernaut as a free-so-freeeee filmgoing child of the 1970s. But, here, in the 1990s, sitting in my friend's living room, I was struck by one thing first

Film #84: The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three

I still remember sitting over at my friend Brian Matson's apartment, snacks in hand, as I ran across this movie's opening credits. I'd always remembered the title: The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three. But somehow I missed this bloodcurdling juggernaut as a free-so-freeeee filmgoing child of the 1970s. But, here, in the 1990s, sitting in my friend's living room, I was struck by one thing first