Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

March 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 87

Total Comments: 44

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The Defiant Ones / USA / 1958

An established classic, and rightly so. The Defiant Ones is the kind of film that gets written out of the newer histories as a piece of liberal propagandist hokum, as if that’s a bad thing- true, it lacks the stately grandeur of To Kill A Mockingbird, but then Kramer never was the subtlest of directors. But there’s a huge amount to enjoy here- Poitier’s unexpectedly terse, unlikeable performance, Curtis’s strange, fey twist on manliness. In a modern context the film says far more about gender than it does about race, and even takes a few jabs at religion- the most daring moment for contemporary audiences has to be the scene where a gang of bloodthirsty rednecks describe Poitier’s impending lynching as ‘a good ol’ fashioned prayer meeting’.

by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
13 Mar 2006 5:15 AM | Submit Comment

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