Titus Techera

Titus Techera is the executive director of the American Cinema Foundation.

Posts by Titus Techera

February 01, 2022

The French Dispatch is a nostalgic look back at a Paris of the imagination

I offer you a series on Hollywood as seen by its artists, on the occasion of the impending Oscars. I don’t mean the dominant liberal arrogance that has doomed cinema, but rather the efforts of artists who have spent their careers trying to advance a view of America that might bring us together, or at least help prevent us coming apart, the concern of all decent people who have influence. Continue Reading...
January 25, 2022

The Djokovic affair proves our elites no longer believe in fair play

Fair play and the rule of law are essential conditions of our civilization, regulating private and public life. We would be ashamed to look for success, prosperity, victory without them. People whom we suspect of unfair dealings or illegality stand to lose everything concerning their reputation, to say nothing of what authorities might do to them. Continue Reading...
January 19, 2022

Don’t Look Up looks down on you

The techno-gossip that passes for objective knowledge these days assures us that the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up was watched extensively—more than 321.5 million hours streamed. Does that mean about 150 million people around the world watched it? Continue Reading...
January 13, 2022

Peter Bogdanovich left behind one last cinematic gem

Peter Bogdanovich has died, America’s only famous chronicler of Old Hollywood, a young friend of Orson Welles and an admirer of John Ford, and a director in his own turn of celebrated dramas like The Last Picture Show (1971), a coming-of-age story about bored kids who don’t like their small town and have only their good looks to recommend them, a Hollywood specialty that won him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and What’s Up, Doc? Continue Reading...
January 06, 2022

Elizabeth Holmes is the con artist we were all waiting for

Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty on four of 11 federal charges of wire fraud and conspiracy, after promising revolutionary blood test technology from her corporation, Theranos. The promised disruption was something people desperately wanted and still want: cheap, quick blood tests, requiring only a finger drop of blood. Continue Reading...
December 31, 2021

Resolve this New Year to visit Billy Wilder’s The Apartment

Christmas movies tend to be sentimental, to emphasize the struggles that define our society and our souls, but ultimately they are hopeful and even joyful. Humanity triumphs at the end of the story—for evidence, read my series of essays on The Bishop’s Wife, The Shop Around the Corner, Christmas in Connecticut, and Miracle on 34th Street. Continue Reading...
December 17, 2021

Christmas in Connecticut: the holiday movie that promises you can’t have it all

I continue my series on old Hollywood Christmas movies. After a movie about church as a community, The Bishop’s Wife(1947), and the workplace as a community, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), I turn to a movie about family, the smallest but most natural community: Christmas in Connecticut (1945), starring Barbara Stanwyck, one of the great Hollywood stars, Sydney Greenstreet (the Fat Man from The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca), and Dennis Morgan. Continue Reading...
December 09, 2021

When bookshops were miraculous, romantic places

I began a series of essays on Christmas movies last week with The Bishop’s Wife (1947), a story about church, the community of the faithful, and spiritual responsibility. This week, I’m writing about a less lofty subject, the community of the workplace and the life of commerce, but a much better movie, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), one of the classics of old Hollywood, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as shopkeepers who fall in love over Christmas. Continue Reading...