Kris Kristofferson

Our Summer of Remakes is coming to an end, with a conversation about not one, two, three or four films, but a whopping five, starting with What Price Hollywood? (1932), which was adapted in 1937 into A Star Is Born – and again in 1954, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Then, in 1976, the story got the Streisand treatment, and in 2018 we got Bradley Cooper’s version, starring himself and Lady Gaga. Join Julie, Sam and Alan as they talk about the remake extravaganza. What is it about the material that makes it so enduring? How do the films tell their story differently? And, if A Star Is Born, is such an enduring tale, what would our cultural baristas expect from a near-future remake, should one be forthcoming?

Continue reading →

Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!

What still gets me in John Sayles’ Lone Star is its simple device of showing you that time has passed. Let’s say there is a scene at the edge of a river in Texas, a woman and a man talking, set in the 1960ies, and then the scene comes to an end, and the camera slowly pans to the right, where there is another character in the here and now, the grown-up son of the man from long ago, watching the scene before his mind’s eye. Just by letting the camera move, the story is told in a flashback without a cut. Lone Star is not at all the first movie to do this, but to me, it was a simple but effective way to show that years, even decades, have gone by.

Continue reading →