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Movie History – The 100 Greatest Movies of the 20th Century
Yes, you read that right! It’s time to attempt the (seemingly) impossible: Compiling a list of the most transcendent works committed to film in the past century. Is there anything more subjective than...
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Movie History – The Five Biggest Movie Trends of the New Millennium
Any grouping of movies during a decade reflects the interests, mind-set, and concerns of moviemakers and their times. Sensationalized celebrity deaths, global terrorism, the growth of broadband...
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Movie History – Tim Dirks’ Top 25 Movies of the Past Decade
It’s always a bit overwhelming to contemplate a decade’s-worth of movies all in one fell swoop — particularly when trying to come up with a best-of list that includes a scant 25 movies. All of the...
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Movie History – Box Office Benchmarks (They Never Last Long)
Critics and novices alike have opinions about movies, but when you’re looking for objective truth, the numbers don’t lie. One of the more tangible ways to evaluate movies over a long period of time is...
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Movie History – Five Truths Served Up by This Year’s Oscar Nominations
It’s that time of year again: the Oscar nominations have been announced. This year’s awards race is particularly notable, as it marks the debut of the Academy’s newly expanded, ten-nominee Best Picture...
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Movie History – Takeaways From This Year’s Academy Awards
The Oscar race is over and the results are in, after what feels like one of the longest awards seasons in history. As always, some intriguing patterns arose out of the hype. Let’s examine them, with...
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Movie History – Why Sahara and The Alamo Qualify as Two of Cinema’s Seven...
As any movie fan knows, there are more examples of box-office disasters than can be summarized in a quick list. For this one, we selected among the most notorious films that pushed a studio into...
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Movie History – Product Placement Is Nothing New – Just Ask James Bond
The line between advertising and entertainment has become increasingly blurred of late. Sure, most moviegoers are savvy to the lucrative practice of placing products (as paid advertisements) in films,...
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Movie History – Vampire Films, From Nosferatu to Twilight
With all the recent interest in vampires (the Twilight saga, HBO’s True Blood, CW’s Vampire Diaries), it seems essential to note that the vampire character is one of the most ubiquitous in the history...
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Movie History – Extreme Weather, in Reality and on the Big Screen
The latest wave of climate-related catastrophes pounding the world has intensified, with reports of devastating floods, shattering earthquakes, hurricanes, and tropical storms. Since the silent era,...
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Movie History – The Godfather of Gangster Films
In 2011, AMC acquired exclusive on-air and on-demand U.S. cable rights from Paramount to the Godfather films for nine years, (the longest TV licensing deal ever signed for the trilogy). Many accolades...
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Movie History – Bring Out the Undead – The Evolution of Zombies on Film
Originally derived from the voodoo word zonbi — meaning “ghost or departed spirit” — zombies have long been a horror-movie staple. The zombie film is one of the most versatile of genres — there have...
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Movie History – On the Harry Potter Films and Their Twists and Surprises
What is it about the many Harry Potter films, beginning in 2001, that appeal to such a varied, devoted audience of all ages? There are many answers to that question, including the imaginative scripts...
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Movie History – The Greatest New Year’s Eve Scenes at the Movies
The mention of New Year’s Eve — what comes to mind? Times Square and the countdown to the dropping ball, parties with Champagne glasses clinking, kisses at the stroke of midnight, New Year’s...
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Movie History – What the Oscar Nominations Tell Us About Movies in 2010
It was an interesting year at the movies. Attendance was down at theaters: it was almost 6 percent lower (the lowest in fifteen years) than in 2009, and fewer tickets were sold, though we saw slightly...
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Movie History – Why Are There So Few Lesbian Romance Films With Positive...
Lesbian tales may be gaining steam in the movie industry, but with regard to romantic comedies or dramas they’ve become more commonplace in Hollywood cinema only as of late. This was confirmed when...
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Movie History – In Praise of Original Screenplays – Oscar Winners
In addition to its recent wins for Best Director, Actor, and Picture, The King’s Speech also received an Oscar for Original Screenplay. The award recipient was respected British-American writer David...
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Movie History – Like AMC’s The Killing? You’ll Love These Five Crime Dramas Too
AMC’s latest coup is a thirteen-part series about the violent death of a teenage girl, created by writer-producer Veena Sud. Set in Seattle, the brooding, noirish crime drama was adapted from the hit...
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Movie History – Looking Back at the First Fifteen Years of Filmsite.org...
Filmsite was launched in May of 1996, when I first registered filmsite.org as a domain and set out to create a small non-profit site dedicated to great American film. It was a bygone time, fifteen...
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Movie History – Ka-Boom and Va-Va-Voom… Bombshells From Mae West to Marilyn...
From Hollywood’s earliest days, the maxim holds true: Sex sells. But it wasn’t until the 1930s that actresses with sensational, come-hither sex appeal were publicized as “bombshells.” In the days of...
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