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.
Friday the 13th (1980, Sean S. Cunningham), the uncut version
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 13, 2015
There’s nothing wonderfully terrible about Friday the 13th. It’s not like any of the cast are bad in funny ways, not even Betsy Palmer who’s doing inept histrionics. Are any of the cast members good? Not really. Some are better than others. Kevin Bacon’s probably the most us read more
Wild River (1960, Elia Kazan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 8, 2015
Director Kazan opens Wild River with newsreel footage of the Tennessee River at flood. The film is set in the 1930s, something else the newsreel footage establishes. Kazan and screenwriter Paul Osborn spend the least amount of time possible setting up the film. The newsreel takes care of setting, w read more
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959, Kobayashi Masaki)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Feb 7, 2015
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love is about, you guessed it, the human condition and the problems with being a humanist when you’re working in a foreign country your country has invaded and occupied. The film takes place in 1943, in Japanese-controlled Manchuria. It’s a desolate spo read more
The More the Merrier (1943, George Stevens)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 25, 2015
The More the Merrier is a wondrous mix of comedy (both slapstick and screwball) and dramatic, war-time romance. Director Stevens is expert at both–that war-time romance angle is as gentle as can be, with Stevens relying heavily on leads Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea to be able to toggle between read more
Cross My Heart (1987, Armyan Bernstein)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 21, 2015
Cross My Heart has a significant problem right off. Its gimmick work against the film. The opening scenes establish Annette O’Toole and Martin Short’s leads as they prepare for a date. Each has the help of a second (for exposition’s sake, though it doesn’t make the expositio read more
The Searchers (1956, John Ford)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 19, 2015
John Ford is never trying to be discreet with The Searchers, he’s just not willing to talk down to the audience. In the first ten minutes of the film, he and screenwriter Frank S. Nugent quickly establish John Wayne’s character and his relationship with his family. Ford, Nugent, Wayne a read more
Song of the Thin Man (1947, Edward Buzzell)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 30, 2014
Song of the Thin Man has a lot of strong sequences and the many screenwriters sting them together well enough, but can’t figure out a pay-off. Some of the problem seems to be the brevity–while director Buzzell does an adequate job and Charles Rosher’s cinematography is good, none read more
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945, Richard Thorpe)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 29, 2014
The Thin Man Goes Home is very genial. It would be hard for it not to be genial given some of the supporting cast is around just to be genial–familiar character actors like Edward Brophy, Donald Meek and Harry Davenport are around to be likable. And why shouldn’t William Powell and Myrn read more
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 28, 2014
Shadow of the Thin Man has a healthy mix of comedy and mystery. The resolution to mystery is a little lacking at the end, but the film moves so smoothly until then it’s easily forgivable. And there is one amusing final twist (along with a good final joke). Most of the comedy comes from Willia read more
The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 28, 2014
The Shop Around the Corner has a lot going on in a limited space. It’s not particularly long–under 100 minutes–and it mostly takes place in (or outside) the titular shop. And, while the present action is about six and a half months (there’s a big jump), the back story define read more
Another Thin Man (1939, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 27, 2014
Another Thin Man is a peculiar blend of old dark house mystery and the Thin Man style of murder mystery. Most of the first half of the film is the old dark house mystery, with healthy doses of humor thrown. Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s screenplay brings William Powell and Myrna Loy t read more
Footloose (1984, Herbert Ross)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 26, 2014
Footloose isn’t so much awful as dumb and obvious. Some of it is awful–the scene where Kevin Bacon, fed up with the small town getting him down, just has to go to an abandoned mill and dance it out–that scene is awful. So are most of the courtship scenes between Bacon and Lori Sin read more
After the Thin Man (1936, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 26, 2014
There is very little economy to After the Thin Man; instead, screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and director W.S. Van Dyke act with rampant abandon. The first twenty or so minutes of the film is just audience gratification–it’s a sequel to a popular film and the filmmaker read more
Flashdance (1983, Adrian Lyne)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 26, 2014
Even though it’s terrible, Flashdance at least sticks with protagonist Jennifer Beals for most of the film. She’s a steel worker who dances at a club and starts dating her boss (at the steel mill, not the club, which is actually a bar). For a while, director Lyne and screenwriters Thoma read more
Fame (1980, Alan Parker)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 25, 2014
It’s sort of amusing how Fame, a film about high school, gets an incomplete. The film is rigidly structured–the four years of high school, plus the auditions at the beginning for the characters to get into said high school, a performing arts school in New York. The characters’ sto read more
Grease (1978, Randal Kleiser)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 25, 2014
The point of Grease isn’t the story, which is good, because screenwriters Bronte Woodard and Allan Carr do a disastrous job plotting. They also do a terrible job of writing their characters–ostensible protagonists John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have the worst characterizations in read more
The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 25, 2014
While enough cannot be said about the efficiency of W.S. Van Dyke’s direction of the The Thin Man, the efficiency of the script deserves an equal amount of praise. Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich get in so much little character stuff for the supporting cast, it’s hard to imagine how read more
Evil Dead II (1987, Sam Raimi)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 14, 2014
Instead of establishing Evil Dead II’s tone at the start of the film, director Raimi waits a while, veering between horror and comedy–pushing each to their absurdist extremes–until they meet. And, by then, the viewer is fully comfortable in the world of Evil Dead II. Bruce Campbel read more
[FYI] Thoughts on the Thin Man book now available
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 7, 2014
I was lucky enough to get to participate in Danny Reid’s book of essays, Thoughts On The Thin Man: Essays on the Delightful Detective Work of Nick and Nora Charles. Danny runs Pre-Code.com, where he covers pre-code movies, and he put together this awesome idea for a Thin Man book with a bunc read more
Major League (1989, David S. Ward)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 1, 2014
There’s so much strong acting in Major League and director Ward’s script has such likable characters (and such a hiss-worthy villain in team owner Margaret Whitton), the film moves on momentum alone for quite a while. It’s only in the third act, when Ward throws in an unnecessary read more