Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
Serials
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 16, 2017
Starting in August 2017, I’m going to be doing chapter-by-chapter posts on various movie serials. I’ll be posting about one serial a month, scheduled three months in advance, and the chapter responses will be posted daily. August 2017 Batman (1943) September 2017 Flash Gordon (1936) Oct read more
Quartets
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 14, 2017
Starting in August 2017, I’m going to be scheduling certain The Stop Button posts. Every month will have a different theme, scheduled a few months in advance; some themes will tie into the month (horror movies in October), some themes will be built around a particular actor, director, writer, read more
Surveys
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 14, 2017
A Stop Button “survey” is meant to be a comprehensive, mildly objective, mildly subjective recapping of a particular group of films, whether the films of an actor, director, or just films in a series. Films discussed: The Brothers McMullen, She’s the One, No Looking Back, Sidewalks of read more
Moana (2016, Don Hall, Chris Williams, Ron Clements, and John Musker)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 14, 2017
Moana takes a while to find its stride. Directors Clements and Musker and Hall and Williams aren’t at ease until the movie’s on the water. The film starts on a Polynesian island, with a young chief-in-training (Auli’i Cravalho) secretly longing not to be stuck on the island paradise, but out explor read more
Wild Strawberries (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 8, 2017
Wild Strawberries is about a septuagenarian doctor (Victor Sjöström) being awarded an honorary degree. Sjöström’s narration sets it up in the first scene, before the opening titles. Director Bergman’s script, through the narration, lays out the entire ground situation before the titles, in fact. read more
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972, George Roy Hill)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 7, 2017
When Slaughterhouse-Five is just about World War II, director Hill can handle it. He doesn’t understand the humor, but he can handle it. The script doesn’t understand its own humor, as screenwriter Stephen Geller tries to force his own sense of humor on the source material, but Hill just makes it read more
The Phantom (1996, Simon Wincer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 4, 2017
The Phantom has three distinct visual spaces, more or less corresponding to the three acts. First act is in the remote jungle, second act is modern age–New York City–third act is evil villain pirate stronghold. Underground evil villain pirate stronghold. The last half hour of the movie is the cast read more
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, Marc Webb)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 4, 2017
The Amazing Spider-Man is melodramatic trifle, but not in any sort of bad way. I mean, it doesn’t succeed but it does try a lot. Director Webb really goes for a high school romance, with such saccharine effectiveness it probably ought to be an ominous foreshadowing for leads Andrew Garfield and Emm read more
Deadpool (2016, Tim Miller)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 3, 2017
Deadpool never gets to be too much. The film quickly goes into flashback–narrated by lead Ryan Reynolds–but not before going through an elaborate, effects and humor filled action sequence. Maybe even two. But I think one. It takes Deadpool over an hour to get the viewer caught up on Reynolds’s read more
Fright Night (1985, Tom Holland)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 2, 2017
So much of Fright Night is humdrum, with the occasional energy pulses whenever Chris Sarandon gets to be vampirish, I didn’t really expect it to get any better. I certainly didn’t expect director Holland to go all out on the special effects or even Roddy McDowall to get such good material. I also read more
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 2, 2017
The Adventures of Robin Hood gets by on a lot of charm. Charm and costuming (good and bad). The film opens with title cards setting the scene. Sherwood Forest, evil King’s brother, righteous nobel, beautiful damsel, insidious villain, and Technicolor tights–Claude Rains looking like a Little Lord read more
Million Dollar Baby (2004, Clint Eastwood)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jul 2, 2017
Million Dollar Baby has a somewhat significant plot twist. Well, it actually has a couple of them. And neither comes with much foreshadowing. A little in Paul Haggis’s script, which director Eastwood visualizes appropriately, but they’re in the background. The film has its larger than life story read more
Indian Summer (1993, Mike Binder)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 24, 2017
Indian Summer is genial and life-affirming. Writer-director Binder imbues it with an optimism and positivity–as long as you have the right support system, anything is possible. Given the film’s about a bunch of thirtysomethings who return to their childhood summer camp to find themselves, it’s read more
Vanished (1971, Buzz Kulik)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 23, 2017
Even for a TV miniseries, Vanished feels like it runs too long. There are always tedious subplots, like folksy, pervy old man senator Robert Young plotting against President Richard Widmark. Widmark is up for re-election and he’s vulnerable. Even his own press secretary’s secretary (Skye Aubrey) read more
Series | The Thin Man
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 22, 2017
Since its first installment in 1934 and in the eighty years since, The Thin Man series has stood apart from other film series and franchises. Its six films always delivered a “twist” mystery and the wonderful chemistry between stars William Powell and Myrna Loy. Much of the series’s most memorable read more
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985, George Miller and George Ogilvie)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 17, 2017
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is the story of a burnt-out, desolate man who learns to live again. Sort of. It’s more the story of a burnt-out, desolate man who finds himself babysitting sixty feral children who think he’s a messiah. But not really that story either, because Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome read more
Alien (1979, Ridley Scott), the director’s cut
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 16, 2017
Ridley Scott’s director’s cut of Alien feels like vaguely engaged exercise more than any kind of devout restoration. Its less than artistic origins–Scott cut it together a combination, apparently, of fan service and studio marketing needs–actually help it quite a bit in the first act. Scott’s read more
Making Mr. Right (1987, Susan Seidelman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 11, 2017
Making Mr. Right feels a little incomplete. It’s not entirely unexpected as Floyd Byars and Laurie Frank’s script plays loose with subplots–even after the film forecasts its basic structure, it loses track of a lot, and some essential scenes happen offscreen. The subsequent reveals in the narrative read more
Alexander the Great (1963, Phil Karlson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 11, 2017
Had Alexander the Great gone to series instead of just being a passed over pilot and footnote in many recognizable actors filmographies, it seems likely the series would’ve had William Shatner’s Alexander continue his conquest of the Persian Empire. The pilot is this strange mix of occasional actio read more
Ragnarok (1983)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jun 10, 2017
Ragnarok is a “video [comic] strip.” There’s no animation, though occasionally there are electric crackles, just panning, scanning, and zooming across illustrations while three voice actors perform multiple roles. There are sound effects–minimal ones, which sometimes works to great effect, sometime read more