must reads: “What *Could* Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?”
Under the law that existed until 1978: works from 1955…
Billy Wilder
question of the day: How would great female filmmakers describe their work in ways comparable to the machismo of male filmmakers?
The male dominance of filmmaking sometimes smacks at you from a direction you weren’t expecting.
Double Indemnity (review)
In the wee hours of July 16, 1938, an insurance salesman Walter Neff sits down at a dictation machine in the offices of Pacific All-Risk in Los Angeles to record a confession. That guy Dietrichson, who died mysteriously? Neff killed him.
The Apartment (review)
Only a man could have written this movie (it was Billy Wilder, and he directed, too). And only men could have written all the glowing reviews of The Apartment that I’ve found both online and off. The Apartment is a perfect demonstration of why ‘nice guys’ get a bad rap from women, but that seems to go right over the head of all those men praising it.
The Lost Weekend (review)
American cinema took a sudden, gritty turn with director Billy Wilder’s terrifying The Lost Weekend. Whereas earlier films kept some distance from their subjects, Weekend zooms in and puts one man’s obsession under a microscope.
