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Seeing the Classics on the Big Screen, the Hits and the Misses
One thing most movie lovers tout is seeing a movie on the big screen. Now, I understand plenty of people don’t want to go to a theater, spend a fortune on tickets, popcorn, and a drink just to see the...
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Border Incident
There’s an old joke about a comedians’ convention. Comedians have come from around the world to gather in each others’ company, and they are such experienced veterans of the joke trade that instead of...
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The Obscure Dads of the Cinema
It’s Father’s Day again and TCM has a wide selection of movies with the general theme of fatherhood. Enjoy them all. As for me, when I think of great, or bad, fathers in movies, I tend to go with the...
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Pick Up That Phone, or Maybe Not
In Bells Are Ringing, which airs on TCM Thursday, June 23, Judy Holliday plays an answering service operator who gets personally involved in her callers’ lives. If I were showing this in one of my...
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Summer of Rohmer: La Collectionneuse (1967)
Summer has officially arrived, along with the mounting pressure to enjoy it before it passes. The filmmaker who most deeply investigated the contradictions of the sweaty months is Eric Rohmer, whose...
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This week on TCM Underground: Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) and Bloody Birthday...
Oh, it’s wall to wall problem children this week on TCM Underground! Horror movies have long availed themselves of the iconography and sacraments of the Catholic Church, whose essential mystery has...
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Richard Was Here
This space was formerly occupied by Richard Harland Smith, who handled write-ups for TCM Underground on Wednesdays and retired from the Morlocks a couple of weeks ago. Since no one has yet taken this...
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Summer Reading Suggestions
Pull up a chair and pour yourself a nice cold glass of something. It’s time for my annual nonfiction Summer Reading Suggestions! Orson Welles, Volume 3: One Man Band by Simon Callow The third volume...
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The Sound Film That Wanted to be Silent
Today on TCM, some of Charlie Chaplin’s later films (City Lights, Modern Times, and Limelight) fill the afternoon. Chaplin is a figure in cinema history whose fascination for me has more to do with his...
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Gracie Allen Finds the Perfect Man
College students are coming to the Hotel Casa Del Mar–in pairs they come, two by two. It’s a veritable Noah’s Ark for young scholars. Why they have come is a matter of some debate, however. The new...
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Tippett Studio
A few weeks ago I got a chance to visit Tippett Studio and was given a tour by Phil Tippett himself. He was seven-years-old when he saw Ray Harryhausen’s The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and knew what he...
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Otto Preminger in the Czech Republic
Last week I attended my first film festival outside the U.S.—the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in the Czech Republic. Classic movie lovers will be pleased to know that the KVIFF...
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Summer of Rohmer: The Green Ray (1986)
My Summer of Rohmer has been held over for its fourth smash week! For the uninitiated, I have been writing about the summer-set films of Eric Rohmer, allowing my vacation-less self to live vicariously...
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The Whole World is Watching: Medium Cool (1969)
“This is America quaking, this movie, seen the way only a gifted artist can possibly draw his photographic attention to these events . . . the roots and fruit of social turmoil, and the media...
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The Methodical Thriller
Yesterday, TCM ran one of my favorite sci-fi thrillers of the seventies, The Stepford Wives. It belongs to a category of movie not often made, a satirical thriller in which the satire is played...
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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
For the moment, set the title aside. There is no character named “Colonel Blimp” in this film—we will come to him later. Instead, our hero, if that’s the word, is Major-General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger...
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The Vanishing Political Drama
Tonight on TCM, The Best Man airs, the 1964 political drama that plays like a suspense thriller. It’s one of the best political movies ever made and recalls a time when political conventions actually...
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What I Did on My Summer Vacation: Karlovy Vary, Part II
In last week’s post, I talked about the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), and its series devoted to Hollywood director Otto Preminger. This week, I thought I would follow up by bringing...
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Summer of Rohmer: A Summer’s Tale (1996)
My summer of Rohmer enters its fifth week by docking at the rocky Breton seaside town of Dinard, the location of A Summer’s Tale (1996). Like all of Eric Rohmer’s summer vacation films, it is about...
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The New Kid in Town
Remember how you felt on your first day at a high school or just sitting down at your desk for a new job? Okay, maybe jumping in with the Morlocks isn’t quite like that, but I still feel like I...
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