My Film Studies courses were some of my favourite classes during my liberal arts degree. Building on a love of movies that’s been with me since I was a kid, I love applying an analytical mindset to the medium. Cinematography techniques, editing terms and styles, the history of silent film, and the invention of the “Talkies.” This juicy knowledge allowed me to better understand the choices writers, directors, and actors make — all of which affect the final product. It turns out we have plenty of books about the history of cinema in our collection. I thought I would share the most intriguing ones for me in the hopes that you are inspired to learn about the avant-gardists and the innovators, the great craftspeople of the movies who have been creating amazing works of art for over a century now. Let us start with some of the best directors that have ever existed. I took out Andy Tuohy’s alphabetically organized, slender reference book A to Z Great Film Directors a year or two ago. I remember savouring the condensed morsels of information on each page. I was familiar with some of the collected auteurs, but more often I had heard their name without knowing much about them at all. As a trivia enthusiast, I was also hoping to find out some tidbits and little-known facts that might come up during Jeopardy. I had to return the book before finishing, stopping somewhere around Hitchcock or Iñárritu. I will get back to this one someday. I’m sure of it. The bright and colourful graphic illustrations of directors make each entry fun and keep you turning the pages.

Chris Stuckman has amassed a substantial following on YouTube as a movie reviewer. His reviews are fair, thoughtful, and demonstrate how much knowledge he has of the industry. I have forced family members to watch his videos when we couldn’t decide which movie to go to in the theatre. If he was psyched about it, I inevitably encouraged my family to pick that one. He has recommended some good ones, some under the radar gems, a few of which I was skeptical about, but his videos swayed me. One I was certainly hesitant to watch was Marry Me, a romcom starring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. When I finally got around to watching it, I found Stuckmann was right. It was fluffy, flimsy, and often ridiculous, but a lot of fun and exactly what I feel like watching at the end of a long week. He has written a collection of short essays about the fifty movies he would recommend for anyone’s cinema bucket list. I’m placing a hold on this one myself because I’m very curious which ones made it into the Top 50.

John Hughes is one of my favourite filmmakers of all time. It’s pretty rare that a director aligns themselves so perfectly with the aesthetics, counterculture themes, and comedic sensibilities of a generation. Hughes was able to do that. It’s hard to believe how many staples of Americana from the 80s and 90s he wrote and/or directed. Let’s digress for a moment, shall we? Hughes wrote the screenplay for several National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, the Home Alone movies, co-wrote the live action 101 Dalmations Disney movie, and co-wrote Maid in Manhattan under the nom de plume Edmond Dantès. Wow. And those are just the screenplays. The films he directed, as well as wrote, are some of my favourites: The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That deserves a wowee this time. What an incredibly prolific and successful career in film. So many moments from these movies have stuck with me, becoming core memories (to borrow the parlance of Inside Out) from my childhood and adolescence. The opening sequence of Some Kind of Wonderful, where Mary Stuart Masterson plays the drums in sync with a pop rock song playing over a soft montage of the main characters, diffused lighting making it feel like an 80s dream. The end of Sixteen Candles, when Jake is there hidden behind a car outside the church, waiting for Sam. The freeze frame tableau of them kissing over her birthday cake, credits rolling over top. The letter the Rat Pack signs, written by Anthony Michael Hall’s character. Those words hit hard for me growing up: “Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us – in the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions.” Hughes was an incredible force for good in the film world. Tragically, he died when he was 59.

I’ve spoken a lot about Roger Ebert on this blog, I know. Therefore, I won’t blather on too much about the guy, but he’s another one of those forces for good the world was lucky to have as long as it did. His memoir, Life Itself, is an insightful exploration of the journey he took from childhood in Urbana, Illinois, all the way to prominence as a film critic and star of Siskel and Ebert. I once attempted a movie blog of my own, back in prehistoric times before I started at VPL. It was called The Great Movies Project, and my goal was to watch every single movie Ebert had dubbed “Great” in his three collections of Great Movies books. Ebert was truly a film historian. These books cover films from several countries, going back all the way to the silent era. Each short essay packs in a lot of information about each work, including his reasoning for including it. In my relatively short time writing that blog, I watched several classics: Apocalypse Now, The Apartment, The 400 Blows, All About Eve, 8 1/2, to name more than a few. We have the second and third of the Great Movies books in our collection. I would definitely encourage you to take a look, and if you don’t already regularly check the Roger Ebert website for new movie reviews, please do. It is bittersweet to see his name there when I know he passed a while back, but I do love that it lives on. The writers, many of whom knew and worked with Ebert when he was alive, have taken up the mantle of his legacy and brand. While they will never be quite like him — my favourite reviewer of all time I think — they strive to make him proud. I would, anyway, if I wrote for the hallowed website. A gal can dream, I suppose.

This is where I’ll leave you this month. I hope there’s something here that piques your filmic interests. Personally, I’m very tempted to watch a John Hughes movie and read about a famous director at the same time. I will see you all again soon. Take care.