Clik here to view.
This week on TCM Underground: AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL (1972)
A disillusioned Vietnam veteran escapes the madness of modern living and attempts to establish a Utopian commune on a desert island. AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL (1972) aka HA-TREMPIST, THE...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Celebrate Like the Stars
There are some universal truths in life that we can probably all agree on. The world is round. Cary Grant looks damn good in a suit. Washington, D.C. is the capitol of the United States. And classic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Henry Fonda: It Took a Long Time
Today Henry Fonda is featured on TCM and he’s an actor for whom I’ve never really had any particular affinity. The problem was never his talent. I recognized his greatness as an actor early on. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Saving Christmas from the Grinch
Sorry, Opie, but this is appalling. The other night, a back-to-back broadcast of the original 20-minute Grinch cartoon was paired with the bloated monstrosity of the 2000 film starring Jim Carrey...
View ArticleClik here to view.
THE WIZARD OF OZ – 75th Anniversary
A blurb written in 1998 by Rick Polito for a TCM screening of The Wizard of Oz was resuscitated on the internet two years ago and went viral: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Top Ten Films You Will Likely Never See: 2014
I should call my annual compilation of indies, documentaries, and mistreated Hollywood films “Lost Causes of 2014.” The truth is few people will watch these films: Many won’t be interested because the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Against Type: Hi, Nellie (1934)
Paul Muni snarled to prominence as the amoral gangster kingpin Scarface (1932), and followed it up with an expose of the prison system, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1933). He had already...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This week on TCM Underground: NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (1984)
A young man with artistic ambitions but no actual talent flees Manhattan in the not-too-distant future and hops a shuttle to the moon in search of true love. Cast: Zach Galligan (Adam Beckett),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Happy New Year!
Thanksgiving, Christmas and now New Year’s Day. All the major holidays fell on Thursday in the last few months making me the Movie Morlock’s unofficial holiday ambassador. I thought I’d use this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If It’s Really Funny, I’ll Laugh… Or Maybe Not
Today on TCM, with only a couple of exceptions, it’s a day for comedy. Comedies run from morning until night so, naturally, one may assume, it’s a day for laughter. For some people. For others, like...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Magic Pixie Dream Grampa
I’m here to talk about farces. About romantic comedies, TV sitcoms, and silent slapstick. About Charley Chase, the Marx Brothers, and Charles Coburn. I’m inspired this week by the lovely 1943 romantic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Sympathetic Criminal
Robert Stroud was not a nice man. He spent most of his life behind bars (almost 55 years) and not for a few petty robberies and aggravated assaults. Robert Stroud was in jail because he was a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Casting ‘The Good Earth’
Last month, Ridley Scott and the studio responsible for Exodus faced criticism for not casting ethnic actors in the two main roles, which were played by Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton. Some rightly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Night and the City: Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
“A brutal policeman is a terrible thing. He has too much power. Too many chances of taking his viciousness out on helpless people.” – Katherine Mallory (Gale Storm) in Between Midnight and Dawn In...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This week on TCM Underground: MIAMI CONNECTION (1987)
Members of a Florida rock band use their skills at taekwondo to combat a ninja drug cartel on the mean streets of Orlando. Cast: Y. K. Kim (Mark), Vincent Hirsch (John), Joseph Diamand (Jack), Maurice...
View ArticleClik here to view.
15 Favorite Films From 2014
I know what you’re thinking. Another list?! Forgive me my trespass but as a member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists I’m asked to compile a list of my favorite films each year and I wanted to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Parody Conundrum
Parody rules the night on TCM as Murder by Death is followed by The Cheap Detective, both starring Peter Falk. Murder by Death is a parody of the Agatha Christie style mystery in which a group of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Ministry of Fear
So what do we find here? Two different fortune tellers, neither one genuine. A dead man who isn’t dead—or, put another way, a man who is killed twice. Two different characters who kill a loved one, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Digressions: Max Ophüls and Paul Thomas Anderson
TCM screens The Earrings of Madame de… (Max Ophüls, 1954) on January 26th. As an every-other-week Morlock poster I’d ideally save any Ophüls-related piece for Jan. 25th. But I’m skipping that date to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remembering ‘A Raisin in the Sun’
In the year of the Freedom Rides, in which an interracial group of activists challenged Jim Crow segregation by traveling throughout the South by bus, Columbia released A Raisin in the Sun. A faithful...
View Article