From Silent to Streaming

EPISODE 5: "TRUE GRIT" - The Coen Bothers' 2010 remake is brilliantly shot and brilliantly told through the eyes of Mattie Ross, a young girl out for revenge. It is proof that Westerns are still viable more than a century after their debut.

Robert Altman's outstanding "North" Western is another product of the anti-hero. Warren Beatty, like Newman, was excellent as a bumbling outlaw who is no match for the Sears company trying to take away his business or the ruthless and cunning businesswoman, Mrs. Miller.

EPISODE 3: "THE WILD BUNCH" - Sam Peckinpah's classic, made the same year as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid takes a much darker and more violent sendup of the "Anti-Western."

Quite possibly the most famous Western of all time, this film broke the mold of the genre by having one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Paul Newman, play a bumbling bank robber who gets killed in the end. The film also featured one of the first powerful roles for a woman in Westerns with Etta Place, played by Katherine Ross.

The Western Film was born out of the legends of the American West and folk tales of Cowboys, Outlaws, Gunslingers, and Native Americans. Beginning with the first "Western" star, Buffalo Bill to The Great Train Robbery to Stagecoach, I'll talk about how the Western became a Hollywood staple for more than 50 years.

The foundation for modern Horror classics like Halloween and Friday the 13th comes from Universal Horror with several familiar signs still on display.

Boris Karloff's second most famous role is Universal's most original Horror Classic and one that would spawn several lucrative remakes and sequels starring some of contemporary Hollywood's biggest stars.

An unknown actor named Boris Karloff wins the role that would shape his life forever after and become the most enduring image of the franchise.

Bela Lugosi kicks off the phenomenon that would become UNIVERSAL HORROR.

The origins of Hollywood's first film franchise come from "German Expressionism" and films like Nosferatu, the Vampire and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The Searchers, John Ford's classic Western which gave birth to the anti-hero sect of the Western genre had a direct influence on one of the greatest films of the 1970's, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Inspired by John Ford, Akira Kurosawa went onto a legendary filmmaking career by using and expanding John Ford's legendary style.

John Ford's influence on Orson Welles inspired Welles to use ace cinematographer Gregg Toland, who shot The Grapes of Wrath and The Long Voyage Home in 1940 for Ford, just prior to shooting Citizen Kane.

John Ford arrives in Hollywood and works his way up from actor/stuntman to Hollywood legend.  The seeds of Ford's brilliance finally come to fruition with a pair of classics in the 1930's, THE INFORMER(1935) and STAGECOACH(1939).

Season 2 of FROM SILENT TO STREAMING will be the first edition of 'The Director's Spotlight.'  Kicking things off is an in depth analysis of the legendary John Ford.

Ava Duvernay's groundbreaking second feature about a young African-American medical student struggling with family conflicts and the threat of her husband remaining in prison is explored.  The film earned Duvernay the "BEST DIRECTOR" prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival which catapulted her into larger projects such as the Oscar nominated "SELMA".

From 2019, The Farewell, is a film by Lulu Wang. The film follows Billie as she copes with her family's decision to follow a Chinese custom and withhold her grandmother's diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.  Through this family crisis, Wang explores the culture clash of East vs West through the experiences of her main character played by an excellent Awkwafina(*Best Actress/Golden Globe).