Blog
These stories have been around a long time. Some of them I have updated. Many of them I haven’t. This started out when blogs were like, new!
“Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” And Me
The 1969 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a Paul Mazursky film, examines the late Sixties' trends of "liberation", such as touchy-feely therapy, as two married couples try them on for size. Only slightly satirical, it's a humane work with competent performances...
On Machismo And Murder
You might want to read an article for the right-leaning website, The American Thinker, called "Was Mollie Tibbetts the Victim of Mexican Machismo?" by Jeannie DeAngelis (Aug. 26) This would be the Mexican machismo of the illegal immigrant, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who...
He’s A Brutal One: “Shield For Murder”
Detective Barney Nolan is oddly quiet as precinct bookings and other activity go on around him in 1954's Shield for Murder, and no wonder. Nolan himself has just committed a capital offense: he murdered a bookie's runner. Enacted with scary power by Edmond O'Brien,...
The Savior, Falling Leaves: Two By Alice Guy Blache
She who may have been the first female movie director, Alice Guy Blache, crafted the 1906 silent opus, The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (the Resurrection is there too). It's only 30 minutes long and features many cast extras, filmed in naught but medium...
A Review Of “The Parable [Not the Passion] of the Christ”
Seemingly a straight-to-DVD product, The Parable of the Christ (2006), by George Jiha, could have been better acted and better directed, in that order, but after seeing it five times I now consider it a commendable film. Mick Shane is incisive and pleasantly subdued...
Responding To Bernie S.
Medicare-for-all, Mr. Sanders? No doubt the socialists among us believe we can have such a thing, and, truth to tell . . . we can. In fact we can something far better than Medicare---but not through socialism. It can be attained through spending cuts (and,...
Late 50s Grit: The Movie, “From Hell to Texas”
Mountains and broad clouds in a blue sky make a great photographic difference between one Western film and another, and so we have the Henry Hathaway piece from 1958, From Hell to Texas, looking more handsome than his piece from 1969, True Grit. Both, however, are...
Are There Reasons To Watch “Reasons to be Pretty”?
It pleases me to report I was able to see a filmed production of Neil LaBute's play, Reasons to be Pretty (2008), on YouTube. It was mounted by the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. The plot purveys for us the hurt Steph, a young woman whose lover, Greg,...
“Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”: And What An Occurrence It Is!
When a person loses freedom in every way imaginable, he loses it for good. This is the meaning I infer from the Robert Enrico short, "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1961), a well-known French-made film from a story by Ambrose Bierce. Low-angle and overhead shots...
