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.
Joe Bullet (1973, Louis de Witt)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 4, 2017
Joe Bullet is a set in the corrupt, dangerous world of South African football. Cocky Tlhotlhalemaje and Sydney Chama play the star players for one team in competition for the Cup. The other team is apparently trying to kill off their teammates, their coach, and their club president in order to sway read more
Logan (2017, James Mangold)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 4, 2017
The strangest thing about Logan, at least in terms of the plotting, is how director Mangold is desperate to reference a film classic–one with a plot perfectly suited to what he’s purportedly trying to do with Logan–and he doesn’t follow it through. In any of the neat ways he could. Instead, read more
The Great Silence (1968, Sergio Corbucci)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 27, 2017
The first act of The Great Silence at least implies some traditional Western tropes. Jean-Louis Trintignant is a gunslinger who fights with evil bounty hunters. Frank Wolff is the new sheriff. Klaus Kinski is one of the evil bounty hunters. Wolff’s got political stuff, or at least the script implie read more
Director | John Carpenter, Part 2: The Studio Quartet
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 26, 2017
With the summer 1982 release of The Thing, John Carpenter finally fully arrived in Hollywood; he’d made a studio picture. And he didn’t come alone. He brought cinematographer Dean Cundey, who shot all of he and Debra Hill’s films, and at least three from Escape from New York: editor Todd C. Ramsey, read more
Sunburn (1979, Richard C. Sarafian)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 19, 2017
Sunburn is a Farrah Fawcett star vehicle. It’s really Charles Grodin’s movie for the most part, but it’s Farrah Fawcett’s vehicle. She can be down home, she can be glamorous, she can be faithful when playing Grodin’s fake wife (which Grodin can’t), she can be adventurous, she can be dumb, read more
Paris Blues (1961, Martin Ritt)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 18, 2017
It’d be easily to blame Paris Blues’s lack of success on the screenplay. With three credited screenwriters and another with the adaptation, there’s literally not enough going on the film to keep it going for the ninety-eight minute runtime. There’s filler, whether it’s a jazz number or a scenic read more
Director | John Carpenter, Part 4: The Mundane Years
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 16, 2017
In the four phases of John Carpenter’s career, the final one–starting in 1992 and going on eighteen years–contains almost forty percent of his theatrical output. This final period is almost an afterthought’s afterthought. While Sandy King produces most of the films, Gary Kibbe photographs most read more
Newlyweds (2011, Edward Burns)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 10, 2017
Newlyweds is an exceptional disappointment. Not really because of the concept–upper upper middle class New Yorker whining–or the execution–Burns has his actors speak into the camera, the characters giving interviews–but because it’s always shaking and Burns, as writer and director, always read more
Colin Hay – Waiting For My Real Life (2015, Nate Gowtham and Aaron Faulls)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 6, 2017
Even though the film’s called Colin Hay – Waiting For My Real Life, it’s not entirely clear what relationship the documentary is going to have with its subject. There are various people interviewed, ranging from Australian movie stars to record execs to sitcom stars to Mick Fleetwood. Directo read more
Director | John Carpenter, Part 3: The Alive Duet
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 4, 2017
Following Big Trouble in Little China’s disappointing box office returns, director John Carpenter returned to low budget filmmaking. For Alive Films–and distributed through Universal, back in the Carpenter business following the failures of The Thing and Halloween III–Carpenter wrote and directed read more
Scanners (1981, David Cronenberg)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 3, 2017
About a half hour into Scanners, the film starts to run out of its initial steam. Director Cronenberg (who also scripted) opens the film with some dynamic set pieces–lead Stephen Lack mind frying a mean woman, Lack on the run from goons, Patrick McGoohan chaining Lack down and torturing him (appare read more
Temple Grandin (2010, Mick Jackson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 1, 2017
The best thing about Temple Grandin is Claire Danes’s performance. She even gets through the parts where she’s thirty playing fifteen. It’s a biopic, there a lot of flashbacks. Director Jackson tries to use a lot of visual transitions for them, but they really succeed because of the teleplay and read more
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017, Paul W.S. Anderson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 29, 2017
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter opens, as usual (I think), with a recap of the previous Resident Evil movies. Star Milla Jovovich narrates; even after six movies, it always seems like Jovovich is just about to have a great scene as an actor in one of these movies and it never comes to pass. It’s read more
Personal Velocity (2002, Rebecca Miller)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 28, 2017
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits. Writer and director Miller (adapting her own collection of short stories) ties together three very different stories, each with its own structure, each with its own narrative approach. Velocity is short too–under ninety minutes–so Miller is fast to establish her read more
Peyton Place (1957, Mark Robson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 28, 2017
Peyton Place takes over a year and a half starting in 1941. Director Robson has a really slick way of getting the date into the ground situation. Robson and cinematographer William C. Mellor go a little wild with Peyton Place–there’s a lot of location shooting and Robson tries hard to make the view read more
Hidden Figures (2016, Theodore Melfi)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 22, 2017
In the first scene of Hidden Figures, the film makes it immediately clear there’s going to be quite a bit of self-awareness. The film is based on the true story of three black women who were instrumental to NASA’s–and the space program’s–success. They’re working at NASA in the early sixties, read more
Once Upon a Spy (1980, Ivan Nagy)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 22, 2017
Once Upon a Spy is a strange result. I mean, it’s a TV movie (pilot) for a spy series, complete with a kind of great James Bond-lite seventies music from John Cacavas, Christopher Lee in a electronic wheelchair with a rocket launcher, spy mistress Eleanor Parker working out of a secret headquarters read more
No Looking Back (1998, Edward Burns)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 21, 2017
No Looking Back runs just under a hundred minutes. The first half of the film–roughly the first half–evenly relies on its cast. In fact, top-billed Lauren Holly almost has less than either Jon Bon Jovi and director Burns (acting, second-billed) in the first half. It’s a love triangle and she’s read more