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EARTHQUAKE! – An Update From the Trenches
Imagine if you will (spoken in my best Rod Serling voice), it’s 3:20am on a Sunday morning in the small city of Napa. You’d gone to bed a few hours earlier after enjoying a few glasses of home grown...
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Good stuff! Gimmie some of that good stuff!
I am taking five from talking about death in any form to talk about one of our favorite things. Who doesn’t like good stuff?! (Answer: no one.) The contents of today’s Good Stuff! column will reflect...
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How to like everything
My wife once accused me of liking every movie I see. As a criticism, that’s a character flaw I think I can live with. In fact, it’s hard to even see it as an insult. I’ve got a number of pop culture...
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The Unexpected Treasures of Cinema
Today is Alan Ladd’s day here at TCM and one of the movies being shown is The Iron Mistress, which I had the pleasure of writing up for TCM not long ago in anticipation of today. The movie is about...
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Pre-Code Primer: There’s More to Pre-Code Movies Than Sin
This month, TCM turns its Friday Night Spotlight on Classic Pre-Code Movies. What better way to end the week than to watch 24 hours of pre-Code musicals, dramas, gangster flicks, and comedies. Viewers...
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In a Frame: Out of the Past (1947)
Jeff Markham knew Kathie would not arrive, but he sat there and drank anyway. He was resigned to his premonitions, seemingly able to tell the future but powerless to stop it. “I think I’m in a...
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Melvyn Douglas: Reverse Tracking
It’s my lucky month and your’s, too. Why? Because Melvyn Douglas is the Star of the Month and he not only has a great body of work as an actor, one of the greatest actors ever in my opinion, but...
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Until Needed or Sold
I’m afraid I’m going to have to finally play my “Get Out of Blogging Free” card today. Still dealing with the damage caused by the recent earthquake in Napa, which made a mess of my computer. Also...
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I’m not finished with you, MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD… not by a long...
I’ve been grooving to the soundtrack to Arnold Laven’s THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957) for about 24 hours now (there was some sleep jumbled up in there, but not a whole lot), which was...
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The Arsenio Lupin Show
As we approach the anniversary of 9/11, I do at least have some good news to report. No, international terrorism is still a thing. Violence still reigns across Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gaza strip, and...
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How steve mcqueen blew it on a movie that almost had stampeding elephants,...
I spent the Labor Day weekend at the 41st Telluride Film Festival. There were many highlights, but at the top of my list was a 35mm print screening of California Split (Robert Altman, 1974), which was...
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A Forgotten Pre-Code to Remember: Kongo
This month, TCM’s Friday Night Spotlight, titled Classic Pre-Code, boasts an impressive line-up of both familiar and little-known movies released prior to the enforcement of the Motion Picture...
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Renoir Noir: Night at the Crossroads (1932)
“Every detail, every second of each shot makes La Nuit du carrefour [Night of the Crossroads] the only great French thriller, or rather, the greatest French adventure film of all.” -Jean-Luc Godard,...
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Navigating the Moral Waters of the Crime Film
Ever rooted for the bad guy? Of course you have, we all have. Many times the bad guy is more interesting, more exciting, and much more charismatic. To take two obvious examples, Batman is brooding...
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A Killer Stalks the Streets of San Francisco in Edward Dmytryk ‘s THE SNIPER...
You can currently stream THE SNIPER online at Watch TCM A few weeks ago I finally caught up with THE SNIPER (1952) on TCM, which tracks the brutal crimes of a gun-wielding maniac stalking women on the...
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For shame
I’ve halfway convinced myself that there is no more purely cinematic emotion than shame. This came to me today as I wrote about CASABLANCA (1942) and made the mistake of rewatching the “Le Marseilles”...
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Jean and Clara, Bombshell and It
Coming up on Friday on TCM is a delightful pre-Code screwball comedy called Bombshell. If you haven’t seen it before, you owe it to yourself to catch up with it this time around since it is at once a...
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Rousing Rivalries
Today TCM airs two movies, The Old Maid and Old Acquaintance, both starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, about rivals in life and love. Of course, Bette Davis made another movie about a rivalry...
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In the Aftermath of Errol Flynn
Recently, 57-year-old actor Stephen Bauer was photographed with his new girlfriend, 18-year-old aspiring journalist Lyda Loudon. The paparazzi pounced on the couple as they emerged from a restaurant....
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Death’s Design: Final Destination (2000)
John Waters wishes he directed Final Destination. At the recently completed John Waters retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, there was a sidebar of films Waters was “Jealous I Didn’t...
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