...an endless banquet (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009
1. Bright Star , dir. Jane Campion 2. Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone 3. red beans + rice 4. red flannel hash fig. a: On Dangerous Ground 5. On Dangerous Ground , dir. Nicholas Ray fig. b: Border Incident 6. Border Incident , dir. Anthony Mann 7. Dirk Bogarde, A Particular Friendship 8. King of Hearts Drink Book (1955) + Esquire Party Book (1965) 9. The Best of Everything , dir. Jean Negulesco fig....
L. A. Times Dodgers Blog (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
Watching old westerns is not something I would ever do when I am well, but when sick, I am looking for cinematic comfort food.
Hacking NetFlix (Free subscription) | 11/17/2009
This is a guest post by Michael Ravnitzky, with titles suggested by Katherine Brosnan. Regrettably, many classic Film Noir movies are not currently available on Netflix. While a few of the films identified below are available on DVD (in unrestored and unremastered form), many are not. Want to learn more about the amazing world of film noir? Check out the website for the Film Noir Foundation (http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org)...
The Film Doctor (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
---How you can tell that Charles Bronson is a man. ---Recommended reading: Farber on Film : The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber , edited by Robert Polito. In a review of the new book, Howard Hampton notes some surprising aspects of Farber's critical method: "1) The notion of what movie to see and what to avoid is secondary to opening up new ways of looking at the familiar and the overlooked....
L. A. Times Dodgers Blog (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
Also: Overlooked Auteurs at Silent Movie Theatre When the X-rated sex comedy " The Telephone Book" was released in 1971, it was called pornographic and obscene. But now, 38 years later, it's considered a neglected masterpiece.
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
In the nineteen-fifties, Fred Zinnemann (“High Noon”) and George Stevens (“Shane”) tried to freeze the Western genre into a single archetypal film, while directors like Budd Boetticher and Anthony Mann were taking it in bitter new directions. “Ride the High Country,” Sam Peckinpah . . .
Laura's Miscellaneous Musings (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
THE NARROW MARGIN is a taut, terrific film noir about a nightmarish Chicago to Los Angeles train trip. LAPD Detective Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) is escorting the widow (Marie Windsor) of a mobster to Los Angeles to testify in front of a grand jury. Brown's job is to keep her alive for the duration of the trip -- not easy when the train is crawling with assassins. Brown's one advantage is that the...
Most Beautiful Fraud in the World (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
"There was theatre (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). Henceforward there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray." - Jean-Luc Godard I watched Johnny Guitar last night and all I have to say is - let the gushing begin. Seriously, Johnny Guitar is what cinema was and still should be. Combining Ray's unique talent for visually luscious filmmaking...
The One-Line Review (Free subscription) | 10/10/2009
USA Feature Film Directors: Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann Writers: John C. Higgins, Crane Wilbur, Harry Essex Cinematographer: John Alton Composer: Leonid Raab Cast: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, Jimmy Cardwell, Jack Webb Rather awkwardly mixing scenes filmed in a documentary-like style with those of a more stylised nature, this police-procedural cum noir thriller - following...
MTV Movies Blog (Free subscription) | 10/06/2009
'Tis the season for scary movies, so it's fitting that Thomas Jane's stylish, noir-fueled horror film "Dark Country" arrives on shelves this week. In his directorial debut, the "Punisher" actor not only makes his first bow behind the camera, but he also stars alongside Lauren German ("Hostel: Part II") and Ron Perlman ("Hellboy")—two actors not [...]
DVD Times (Free subscription) | 10/06/2009
DVD Video Review: A character named John Kennedy tries to stop a conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln in this historical film noir directed by Anthony Mann and set on a train.
Coxsoft Art News (Free subscription) | 10/05/2009
Yesterday afternoon, this bust of heroine Violette Szabo was officially unveiled on London's South Bank to commemorate all those who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton created the SOE in 1940 to conduct espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines. Anthony Mann's The Heroes of Telemark (1965) dramatized one of the SOE's most successful...
James Wolcott's Blog (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
Via F Word Brenda, I've found a new favorita on the blog scene, one that dispenses laughter and keen, eyewitness sociological insight with every complimentary bowl of salted peanuts: Behind the Stick, a weekly status report on the view from...
Terry Malick's son (Free subscription) | 09/05/2009
I'M SPARTACUS! NO, I'M SPARTACUS!!, etc., etc. As I slowly devour Stanley Kubrick's back catalogue, I stumble upon this grand antique-Spartacus- Kubrick's 1960 swords and sandals epic about the leader of a slave revolution. To say this is a Kubrick film is slightly misleading when you consider his other works. For one, it was brought together by Kirk Douglas, wanting to get his own back on the Ben...
Cinema Viewfinder (Free subscription) | 09/04/2009
There were so many screeners sent to me this week, a week in which I happened to be laid up (along with my son) with the H1N1 virus (we're fine now, thanks), that this will probably be the first of several posts coming your way this weekend in an effort to clear the decks before the start of the De Palma Blog-A-Thon on Monday. First up, is the Warner Archive Collection with this month's batch of releases:...
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