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.
Blind Adventure (1933, Ernest B. Schoedsack)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 25, 2012
Blind Adventure is a genial, nearly successful comedy thriller. Robert Armstrong, playing an unexpectedly wealthy working class American who’s vacationing in London, heads out into the fog and finds himself on a wild night. He encounters espionage, British society, a damsel in distress (Helen Mack) read more
The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921, Maurice Elvey)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 24, 2012
The Man with the Twisted Lip is not a particularly exciting narrative to begin with, but director Elvey does keep the story moving at a decent pace. He paces most of Lip like a play, albeit one with flashbacks. Elvey cannot, however, make it interesting. Some of the problem is the adherence to the read more
The Best Legs in Eighth Grade (1984, Tom Patchett)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 23, 2012
The Best Legs in Eighth Grade aired on HBO. Apparently, their original programming has gotten a lot better since the eighties. It’s difficult to describe Legs. Bruce Feirstein’s script seems to be meant for stage–the biggest surprise isn’t just he’s had a career since, read more
Snow Time (1930, Mannie Davis and John Foster)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 21, 2012
Snow Time is another strange cartoon from Foster. It’s wintertime in cute cartoon animal land and everyone’s having a swell time skiing, synchronized skating and so on. Until this cat’s tale gets cut off because he’s messing around in a ski lane. But Foster and co-director D read more
Wonder Woman (1967, Leslie H. Martinson)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 16, 2012
Here’s a weird one. A short pilot for a “Wonder Woman” sitcom. Ellie Wood Walker’s Diana Prince lives at home with her mother (Maudie Prickett), who wishes her daughter would just find a man. The pilot consists mostly of their bickering, which isn’t unfunny–thoro read more
Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925, Del Lord)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 12, 2012
Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies explores the dangers of electric cars. Basically, they can be taken over by radio waves and made to do crazy things. If it weren’t for the gasoline dealer (John J. Richardson) being the villain, one could almost see it as twenties gas company propaganda. The short is read more
The Mischief Makers (1957, François Truffaut)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 10, 2012
The Mischief Makers is undeniably well-made, with great photography from Jean Malige (if lousy editing by Cécile Decugis) and Truffaut’s deliberate and panoramic composition. It’s an adaptation of a short story, about a group of adolescent boys who playfully torment a young woman they&# read more
No Noise (1923, Robert F. McGowan)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 9, 2012
In some ways, No Noise has it all. Kids getting high off laughing gas, then enjoying a little electrocution, there’s some cross-dressing… it seems like there’s even more. The threat of Farina being operated on by the Our Gang kids. Actually, Farina’s practically in drag too. read more
My Science Project (1985, Jonathan R. Betuel)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 8, 2012
It’s hard to say what’s worse in My Science Project, Beutel’s lame characters or his direction of the actors playing those roles. And I’m not counting Dennis Hopper, who plays an ex-hippie in the picture. While Hopper certainly has a poorly written character and Beutel’ read more
His Trysting Place (1914, Charles Chaplin)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 7, 2012
The best thing about His Trysting Place is probably Frank D. Williams’s photography. Chaplin’s athletics are impressive, but he doesn’t have much use for them. They’re most exciting during his food fight with Mack Swain. The food fight itself isn’t particularly funny&# read more
Christine (1983, John Carpenter)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 6, 2012
John Carpenter does some amazing work on Christine. He’s got help from his cinematographer, Donald M. Morgan, but the first forty-five or fifty minutes of the film are simply masterful. Carpenter has a wide variety of scenes–high school, ominous, family scenes, conversations–and a read more
Ménilmontant (1926, Dimitri Kirsanoff)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 5, 2012
I’m hesitant to call parts of Ménilmontant brilliant. There are some great moments, with amazing composition and editing, but there are also some painfully pedestrian ones. If those sequences were the only problem, I suppose I would. But director Kirsanoff also displays an abject lack of self read more
Happy Days (1926, Arvid E. Gillstrom)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 3, 2012
Happy Days is a good example of a bad silent comedy short. Ostensibly about Ethelyn Gibson’s secretary slash girl about town (it’s based on a comic strip), the short more focuses on her brother (the androgynous Billy Butts) and his baseball game. The baseball game is basically a rip-off read more
Paul Bunyan (1958, Les Clark)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 2, 2012
The beginning of Paul Bunyan is cute. It’s little Paul Bunyan (though a giant) growing up in Maine. Very cute. The song, which later becomes annoying, is well-used. Director Clark’s direction is pretty good throughout, though once Paul’s enormous ox, Babe, enters the picture, Clar read more
The Dying Detective (1921, Maurice Elvey)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 31, 2012
Given the terrible attempts at humor and Eille Norwood’s histrionic performance as Sherlock Holmes, one might think The Dying Detective is a farcical adaptation. Unfortunately, I doubt director Elvey gets farce as he doesn’t get pacing or filmic storytelling. Almost every shot in Detect read more
Pluto’s Christmas Tree (1952, Jack Hannah)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 29, 2012
Pluto’s Christmas Tree gets off to a somewhat rocky start; it turns out, the animators spend more time on one nut than they do on Mickey Mouse. Besides looking perpetually hung over, Mickey’s also very loosely drawn. However, Tree soon picks up because Hannah’s direction is inspir read more
Pig-Eyed (1925, Scott Pembroke and Joe Rock)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 27, 2012
There’s got to be something good about Pig-Eyed. I just can’t think of it. I suppose directors Pembroke and Rock do show some competence; they save the stupidest gag for last. Stan Laurel falls seven stories without injury. If there’s never any danger to him, why be interested? Bu read more
The House of Tomorrow (1949, Tex Avery)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 26, 2012
The House of Tomorrow is such a well-made cartoon, the technical aspects more than make up for some of the weak writing. However, that weak writing does make the cartoon an interesting historical artifact. First the technical stuff. Tomorrow is a tour through a house of 2050. The year’s made read more
Jean Cocteau Addresses the Year 2000 (1962, Jean Cocteau)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 24, 2012
The title sort of gives away Jean Cocteau addresses… the year 2000, but not really. The short, conceptually, is meant to be preserved in a time capsule and projected to young people in the year 2000. Cocteau is very specific about the audience; he ostensibly hopes they will be less materialis read more
Social Lion (1954, Jack Kinney)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 22, 2012
Social Lion is such a truly awful cartoon, one would need to sit with pencil and paper to make notes on every moronic detail in its six minutes. Director Jack Kinney–brother to co-writer Dick Kinney, who, with Milt Schaffer, writes a lousy story–doesn’t have bad ideas, particularl read more