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.
Ace in the Hole (1951, Billy Wilder)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 20, 2015
Ace in the Hole moves while the script–from director Wilder, Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman–never races. In fact, it’s deliberate and methodical, maybe even redundant at times (especially in the first act). The redundant moments aren’t actually a problem since Kirk Douglas read more
Friday the 13th Part III (1982, Steve Miner)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 13, 2015
Friday the 13th Part III is shockingly inept. Director Miner has a number of bad habits, some related to the film being done in 3-D, some just with how he composes the widescreen frame. Miner favors either action in the center of the frame or on the left. The right is unused. Miner’s shooting read more
Evening Classes (1967, Nicolas Ribowski)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 8, 2015
Evening Classes is a bit of a surprise; without Jacques Tati’s involvement, the short would almost work more as an examination of his films. With his involvement, Classes certainly has some outstanding moments, but director Ribowski and Tati (who also wrote the short) don’t really have read more
Seven Miles of Bad Road (1963, Douglas Heyes)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 5, 2015
Once you get past Jeffrey Hunter (at thirty-seven) playing a character about fifteen years younger–and some other significant bumps, Seven Miles of Bad Road isn’t entirely bad. It shouldn’t be entirely bad, even with those bumps, but it’s an episode of “The Chrysler Th read more
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Lewis Milestone)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 3, 2015
For the first act or so of All Quiet on the Western Front, director Milestone very gently puts the viewer amid the naïveté of the film’s protagonists, a group of students who drop out to enlist (in the first World War). He opens with this gorgeously complicated shot–brilliantly edited read more
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963, Richard Donner)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 29, 2015
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet races. Director Donner and writer Richard Matheson pace out the episode perfectly–though it being a “Twilight Zone” episode means they can also utilize some of the series’s credit formula to great effect. The episode has a few phases. Introducing Wil read more
Diary of a Country Priest (1951, Robert Bresson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 27, 2015
Diary of a Country Priest is a somewhat trying experience, as so much of the viewer’s experience watching the film requires him or her to empathize with the titular protagonist, something that character is apparently incapable of doing. Much in the film is made of the protagonist’s inex read more
[Stop Button Modells] Templeton Bradley: The Razor’s Edge
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 20, 2015
An audiovisual essay about Edmund Goulding’s 1946 film, “The Razor’s Edge,” produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox. read more
Keep Your Left Up (1936, René Clément)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 18, 2015
Keep Your Left Up is a genial little short set in a small French country town. The arrival of the postman sets off the short, which eventually has local do-nothing Jacques Tati in the ring against boxer Louis Robur. The charm comes mostly from the setting, Clément’s excellent composition and read more
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938, Michael Curtiz)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 16, 2015
Angels with Dirty Faces runs less than ninety minutes, but doesn’t really fill them. The first fifteen minutes of the film are flashbacks, tracking James Cagney’s character from troubled boyhood to juvenile detention to prison. Once the present action starts, Cagney immediately reunites read more
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981, Steve Miner)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 13, 2015
When director Miner finally does a decent sequence in Friday the 13th Part 2, it comes as something of a surprise. Amy Steel is on the run from the masked killer and, even though it’s stupid, it’s somewhat effective. Steel probably gives the film’s best performance (she’s st read more
Ride the High Country (1962, Sam Peckinpah)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 13, 2015
Ride the High Country is a fine attempt. It’s not a successful attempt, but it’s a fine one. Director Peckinpah seems to know what he wants to do, but he’s too trapped in Western genre tradition. Having icons Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as his leads (they’re both great), read more
Fun Sunday! (1935, Jacques Berr)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 11, 2015
It takes Fun Sunday! almost the entire short film to find its footing. The problem is director Berr; he has no comic timing. Sunday cuts a couple corners as far as budget–the sound cuts in and out, going over to music and not the background noise–but it’s rather ambitious stuff. E read more
The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 6, 2015
The Battle of Algiers is brilliantly constructed. Director Pontecorvo deceptively frames the film–he also gives most sequences a date and time, which shows the viewer how greater events are progressing, but Pontecovro also gives multiple times in a day, which puts the viewer on edge even thou read more
The Decalogue: One (1989, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 4, 2015
For the first episode of “The Decalogue,” director Kieslowski and co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz go straight for the jugular. Kieslowski fills the episode with foreshadowing until it spills over. And no symbolism is too obvious. One is about a computer programming professor (Henryk Bara read more
A Night at the Opera (1935, Sam Wood)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 2, 2015
As good as the Marx Brothers are in A Night at the Opera–and George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind’s strong script is important too–director Wood really brings the whole thing together. The film has its obligatory musical subplot and romantic leads. Wood knows how to balance those read more
Brute Wanted (1934, Charles Barrois)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 25, 2015
Quite a bit of Brute Wanted is rather funny. The whole idea is funny–dimwitted, failing actor (Jacques Tati) goes for an audition and it turns out he’s agreeing to wrestle a musclebound Russian grotesque. Tati’s got a nagging wife (Hélène Pépée) who also manages him. A lot of the read more
[Stopped Button Favorites] Episode 1 | King Kong ’76
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 20, 2015
Synced to the R1 Paramount DVD release. iTunes link coming soon MP3 Download read more
[Stop Button Modells] Safe and Well: King Kong ’76
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 20, 2015Inherit the Wind (1960, Stanley Kramer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 20, 2015
A lot of Inherit the Wind is about ideas and not small ones, but big ones. Director Kramer is careful with how big he lets the film get with these ideas, because even though Inherit the Wind is about Darwin vs. the Bible as its biggest idea, the smaller ideas are the more significant ones. And when read more