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Big Man on the Small Screen — Woody Strode on TV
I hope you’ve all gained as much respect and admiration for actor Woody Strode as I have after reading all the great posts this week, and after watching Strode in action. Jeff referred to himself as...
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Cowmageddon
Exactly one week ago today I was in a clear green field near an aspen grove here in Colorado, staring down at a suspiciously mutilated cow. Aside for a few flies, nothing else was near it. Oblivious to...
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Elvis on Tour: Split Screen Fit for a King
Elvis Week begins tomorrow in Memphis, and fans and tourists are descending on the King’s city to mark the 33rd anniversary of his death with a week of concerts, movies, Graceland tours, and informal...
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The 30th Anniversary of Airplane!
On July 2nd, 1980, AIRPLANE! was released in the United States. For its 30th anniversary, the Film Society at Lincoln Center held a screening and a Q&A last night with directors and writers David...
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Remembering Tom Mankiewicz (Part I.)
On July 31, 2010 screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz passed away at his home in Los Angeles due to complications from cancer. The Mankiewicz family is the stuff of Hollywood legend and consists of Tom...
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Remembering Tom Mankiewicz (Part II.)
This is the second half of David Konow’s interview with the late Tom Mankiewicz. The first part was posted earlier today. ………. It was the early ’70s and Cubby Broccoli was preparing Diamonds Are...
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The Incredibly Strange Film Fiends Who Had Kids and Became Mixed-Up Horror...
Returning to our ongoing discussion of raising children in a world at least partially devoted to fear and loathing is Jeff Allard, Dennis Cozzalio, Greg Ferrara, Paul Gaita and Nicholas McCarthy. PAUL...
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Party Out of Bounds
This week I’m here to praise BFI Flipside, a classy underdog in the world of DVD distribution, who launched this label in 2009 with the following explanation on all of their box art: “The Flipside:...
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“Salvation is a last-minute business, boy.”
I spent two weeks working round-the-clock to put together my fall film calendar and to meet my printer’s deadline last Friday. I celebrated with top-shelf beers and a 16mm screening in my backyard of...
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Written Words on Spoken Word: Victor Nunez’s Latest Film
Like his peer John Sayles, director Victor Nunez is a veteran independent filmmaker of three decades. Even before the Hollywood studios closed their doors to auteurs and turned their backs on audiences...
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Learning to Love Raoul Walsh
Raoul Walsh was nothing if not adaptable. As a teenager, he tagged along with his uncle on a trading mission to Cuba and Mexico. The schooner was damaged in a storm and had a long layover in Vera Cruz....
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Courage Conquers Death in Christopher Strong
I can still recall the first time that I saw Dorothy Arzner’s Christopher Strong (1933). I was just a teenager flipping channels one lazy afternoon and suddenly the opening credits appeared on my...
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Look out ol’ Bela’s back!
Bela Lugosi lives… in the funny pages. Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian expatriate actor who achieved a kind of damned immortality in Hollywood as the first, proper cinematic DRACULA (1931), went to his own...
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Bird on a Wire
“If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” - Leonard Cohen Missing in action since it was first filmed by Tony Palmer in 1972, BIRD ON A WIRE, a documentary account of Leonard Cohen’s...
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Films for when you feel icky and gross.
I was reading The Onion and took a peek at my horoscope. It said “You will make medical history this week as the first person to recover from smallpox only to die from a never-before-seen strain of...
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Lon Chaney and His Gallery of Grotesques
Each year I look forward to the Silent Summer Film Festival at the Portage Theater, one of Chicago’s few restored movie palaces. For six consecutive Fridays, the Silent Film Society of Chicago (SFSC)...
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Raoul Walsh’s Group Therapy
My hopscotching education in Raoul Walsh skitters on this week, with five gut-punching thrillers. I’m jumping through his career haphazardly, watching whatever I can easily acquire. Last week led me...
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Impossibly Funky, Fresh and Dope
I haven’t had the chance to do much reading this year and that’s been really frustrating. Like many people, I often enjoy catching up on my reading during the summer months when the hot weather makes...
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Spooks on the loose… in Los Angeles!
Opening on September 3rd and running until September 22nd, 2010, Gallery1988 in Los Angeles (in conjunction with The Autumn Society of Philadelphia) will be home to an exhibit of original artwork...
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Mountain Men
As one of the movies being presented as part of TCM’s 24-Hour Tribute to the Telluride Film Festival on Monday evening, September 6th at 2 am (ET), THE CHALLENGE (1938) is a bit of an oddity. Rarely...
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