Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

In Praise of Frances McDormand

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Tom Jolliffe celebrates the career of Frances McDormand… I have a number of favourite actors. If I had carte-blanche to cast a film it would probably be filled up with characters. Maybe brilliant underachievers, who never quite hit their heights for one reason or another (Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Rutger Hauer), or maybe they just […]

In Praise of Sam Rockwell

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Tom Jolliffe looks at the career of the vastly underrated Sam Rockwell… So after doing a piece on the fantastic Frances McDormand, sticking with the Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri connection, it seemed apt to do a piece on an actor who has always slipped just below the radar. Sam Rockwell is always great and […]

King of the Gypsies: 40 Years of Eric Roberts

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Tom Jolliffe looks at the career of Eric Roberts after 40 years on the silver screen… I’ve long championed a certain cinematic underdog. An actor who burst onto the scene full of promise. A character actor with an edge and the ability to play tightly wound and/or complexly simple-minded characters with aplomb. The other day […]

Unnecessary Reboots, Remakes and Sequels

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Tom Jolliffe looks at Hollywood’s preoccupation with reboots, remakes and sequels… I sit here in the year 2018. Suddenly I find myself compelled to moan about the unimaginative approach to greenlighting Hollywood studio pictures. This is not a new phenomenon, it’s old hat. As of now the vast majority of greenlit, large studio films are […]

When You Need To Watch A Film Twice

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Tom Jolliffe looks at when you need to watch a film a second time to fully appreciate it… A couple of days ago one of my Flickering Myth brethren Neil Calloway wrote a piece about watching classic films for the first time and finding them boring. The piece certainly got a reaction, from no less […]

How To Be Unique In Cinema

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Tom Jolliffe delves into what makes a film truly unique… If you’ve watched Captain America, or Spider-Man, or another masked hero, you’ve pretty much seen a variation on the same film. Genres themselves have clearly identifiable tropes and an action film for example, will often adhere to specific action genre calling cards. That doesn’t necessarily […]

The Cult of Cults in Movies

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Tom Jolliffe looks at cinema’s preoccupation with Cults…  Minor Spoilers Follow… Film has always had a fascination with the odd. It delights in the macabre, the outsiders, and in portraying the sects who lurk off the grid, away from the rest of us. There was a particular shift toward the idea of cults especially after […]

A Beginner’s Guide to Brian De Palma

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Tom Jolliffe begins a series of features focused on iconic directors. Those whose work has influenced many younger directors who have followed them. First up is Brian De Palma… The 70’s saw a group of exceptional directors coming to the forefront of cinema. It’s an era where I could all too easily cover Martin Scorsese, […]

A Beginner’s Guide to Ingmar Bergman

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Tom Jolliffe offers a beginner’s guide to the work of Ingmar Bergman… To know Ingmar Bergman’s work is to understand a director who has impacted cinema as greatly as anyone. A true master by any measure of directorial influence, he’s a man whose work is iconic, even to the unbeknown who’ve never seen his films. […]