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THE VERTIGO OF TIME
Unlike Chris Marker (1921 – 2012), I am not an editor, poet, videographer, novelist, digital multimedia artist, or filmmaker. Even on a strictly personal level we are worlds apart, him having been a...
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Happy Birthday, Torchy Blane
Today, June 30, marks the birthday of one of Warner Bros.’s brassiest blondes, Glenda Farrell. Farrell was a working actress from the age of 7 until she died in 1971 at age 66. She began her career in...
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Father and Son: The Watchmaker of St. Paul (1974)
The last outpost of the retail cinephile shrine Kim’s Video is shutting down this year. I made one last pilgrimage to its lower east side redoubt in NYC to experience the disappearing pleasure of...
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When You See the Remake First
Paul Mazursky, the actor/writer/director whose movies I grew up with, died yesterday and, as with the death of any famed director/writer/actor, I immediately began to think of his movies. One of the...
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If I Were Offering a Movie-Location Tour
* Thursday is generally Morlock Kimberly’s territory, but she is taking a brief break. I know her fans will miss her, but I will do my best to fill her blogging shoes. When I was a college student...
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Survival is no way to live (Part 1)
Next to horror movies I’m a big fan of movies about survival, about people lost in some kind of hostile environment, who must rely on their native cunning and whatever tools are handy in order to make...
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All kids love Alien
It was 1979; I was nine years old. It was a Sunday morning and my parents were leisurely enjoying the Sunday paper. I could see there was a front page story, illustrated with a massive photograph of...
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Playing Against Type: Deciphering the Actor’s Personality
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece here on actors belonging to a certain place and time. I mentioned how Lloyd Bridges and Beau Bridges seemed out of place in pre-revolutionary France in The Fifth...
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Is This Really the Same Actor?
While researching a film from the 1930s costarring Melvyn Douglas, I was reminded of how suave and handsome he was when he was a young star of romantic comedies (at left). This was not the Melvyn...
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Tall in the Saddle: Clint Walker in Fort Dobbs and Yellowstone Kelly
In the late 1950s Warner Brothers was using their television properties to create stars on the cheap. One of them was Clint Walker, a former merchant marine and deputy sheriff whose freakish...
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Three Supporting Performances, Three Bad Movies, Zero Recognition
Like any good film fan, I’ve got a million opinions and I’ll be happy to share them with you whenever you’ve got the time. I’ve also got a million pet peeves and I’ll share those with you whether...
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The Power of a Well-Placed Exclamation Point, or Would You See a Movie Based...
* Morlock Kimberly Lindbergs is still unavailable to post her usual tantalizing and entertaining articles, so I am filling in for her once more. For several months, I have been researching posters for...
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Survival is no way to live, part 2
Picking up where we left off last week, one of the attractions to survival dramas is watching the protagonist or protagonists cobble together their survival kit from materials brought with them into...
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Dawn of the Rise of the Conquest of the Escape of the Planet of the Apes
In honor of this week’s debut of the latest outing in The Planet of the Apes franchise, I rewatched Tim Burton’s 2001 misbegotten reboot. It was like picking at a scab that wouldn’t heal—I know I...
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CAREERING HUBCAPS
Peter Yates (1929 – 2011) is primarily known as the director of Bullitt (1968), which set the bar for car-chases. Anyone who has seen The French Connection (1971) or To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)...
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The Power of a Well-Placed Exclamation Point, Part 2
I had so much fun selecting tag lines from Golden Age movie posters for last Thursday’s post that I thought I would revisit the topic in Part 2. A bit of light summer reading! As with Joan Crawford and...
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Forgotten 1970s: To Find a Man (1972)
The year after he directed the Emmy-winning football weepie Brian’s Song, Buzz Kulik made the now-forgotten coming of age drama To Find a Man. Brian’s Song packed big emotions into the small-screen,...
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The Essential Fritz Lang
On an upcoming installment of The Essentials, hosted by Robert Osborne and Drew Barrymore, TCM presents Metropolis, the 1926 Fritz Lang classic about a dystopian future that was very much about 1926...
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When Fact Mirrors Fiction: AGATHA (1979)
On December 3, 1926 the popular mystery author Agatha Christie vanished following an argument with her husband who was demanding a divorce. Agatha was devastated by his decision but he responded to her...
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Survival is no way to live: Postapocalypscript
To hear the 80s tell it, all one needed to survive the Apocalypse was a crossbow, shoulder pads, and a kickass attitude. (The stylish survivalist might accessorize as well with leather, a samurai...
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