Yes, Kevin Church Is Blogging.
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“On Dangerous Ground” – A Hard-Boiled Trip to the Hinterlands
I wrote this introduction for The Mesilla Valley Film Society’s screening of On Dangerous Ground in December, 2023. Robert Ryan is Jim Wilson, an embittered big city detective who’s exiled to the intentionally ambiguous “Upstate” to track down a killer. Ida Lupino plays Mary Maiden, a blind woman who’s dragged into his quest through circumstance. He…
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“Godzilla Minus One” – A Re-Return to Its Roots
I hope you like someone going on a bit about a giant radioactive dinosaur.
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Noirvember: “Double Indemnity” (1944)
When you get a group of two or more noir nerds together, there are two things that are inevitably going to happen: 1. They will argue about what is film noir. 2. They will agree that Double Indemnity is in the top three films noir, if not the absolute best of the genre.
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Noirvember: Fritz Lang’s “Human Desire” (1954)
Fritz Lang is one of those directors whose name is synonymous with film noir: a German expatriate who brought his expressionistic storytelling technique to Hollywood and quickly began to change how studio films looked and felt. His debut, Fury (which I talk about here) still shocks in spite of its studio-mandated happy ending, and movies like…
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Deeper Into The Shadows: A Dozen Films Noir For The Not-Quite-Neophyte (Part Three)
Part three! It’s over…or is it? (It is, at least for now.)
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Deeper Into The Shadows: A Dozen Films Noir For The Not-Quite-Neophyte (Part Two)
Part two features Cliford Odets adapted for the screen, John Garfield as a mob lawyer, plus much more.
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Deeper Into The Shadows: A Dozen Films Noir For The Not-Quite-Neophyte (Part One)
It’s November, and that means noir!
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They Got Their Money’s Worth: Joseph H. Lewis’s “Gun Crazy”
Gun Crazy is easily in my top five film noirs, probably even in my top three. It’s got everything you need to qualify as a genre classic.
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One Shot, One Kill: Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter.”
The much-loved actor only helmed one picture, but what a picture it was.
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“High and Low”: Economic Inequality Through The Lens of the Crime Film
I wrote this introduction for The Mesilla Valley Film Society’s screening of High and Low in July, 2023.