Alfred Hitchcock with Anny Ondra on the set of Blackmail One of the purposes of a film's musical score is to assist the performers in eliciting a range of emotional responses from the audience such as fear, sadness, joy, or even pain. But what happens when a director makes the artistic choice to partially remove the score within a film? In the case of Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929), such a choice leaves us, as viewers, unsettled, forcing us to tap into the emotions of the main character without the familiar comfort of music directing us how to feel. Blackmail features one of my personal favorite sequences in early cinematic history, and as such, I felt compelled to simply put my thoughts to words in a little writing exercise by taking a look at some of the techniques Hitchcock used, as well as Anny Ondra's captivating performance, both of which I admire. With the rise of talkies in the late 1920s, the beloved era of silent films was at its end. As major stu
Gizmo hides from the sunlight The cult classic film Gremlins ( dir. Joe Dante ) took the box office by storm in 1984 when it brought in over $100 million nationally. Audiences everywhere fell in love with the fuzzy titular character, Gizmo, quickly collecting keychains, cups, board games, shirts, lunchboxes, toys and anything this lovable little creature adorned. The effect this had on fans in the 80s might be comparable to today’s Baby Yoda frenzy. As such, it’s no wonder why the film and its characters are still beloved by audiences four decades later. As a huge fan of the film myself, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to watch the first season of the brand new animated prequel series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai ahead of its release. The series effectively combines laugh out loud humor with startling imagery and creepy atmospheres, akin to the charm of the 1984 film. The Max original series, set in 1920s Shanghai, introduces the magical origin story of Sam Wing ( I