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.
About
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Jan 23, 2009
Hello, and welcome, to the Stop Button “About” page. I’m Andrew Wickliffe and I’ve been blogging here so long the site can get a driving permit. I write about movies, comics, and television. On rare occasion, I write longer pieces in hopes of driving traffic to the older pie read more
Child’s Play (1988, Tom Holland)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 22, 2009
Child’s Play barely makes any sense. Or maybe some of it does, but there’s a big voodoo component and it gets used as a crutch for the more fantastical elements (with its own problems with rationality). But the film opens with a shootout in downtown Chicago–Child’s Play uses read more
R.I.P. VHS
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 22, 2009
It’s hard to imagine anyone fetishizing DVDs, though I’m sure some must. Someone out there knows each and every day he or she bought a different release of Army of Darkness. Someone out there sleeps with their Necronomicon case from The Evil Dead–didn’t it smell too? The initial Anchor Bay read more
Calling Dr. Death (1943, Reginald Le Borg)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 21, 2009
Reusing music in b movies isn’t uncommon, but to reuse music from a movie with the same star? It kind of gets distracting. Almost everything about Calling Dr. Death is distracting, actually. The movie opens with a head in a glass sphere ominously describing the film’s setting (Dr. Death read more
The Saint in London (1939, John Paddy Carstairs)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 20, 2009
One of the unfortunate developments of television is the proliferation of hour-long mystery dramas. While these programs might be good, it means movies like The Saint in London don’t get made anymore. The film’s not episodic, with an abbreviated first act–George Sanders (playing t read more
Fear and Desire (1953, Stanley Kubrick)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 19, 2009
Fear and Desire‘s a mess to be sure, but it’s hard to understand why Kubrick later strove to have it willfully forgotten. The film’s greatest faults–the script and the acting–pale when compared to Kubrick’s success as a director and editor. He described the film read more
The Benson Murder Case (1930, Frank Tuttle)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 16, 2009
I wonder how Eugene Pallette felt–more, how his co-stars felt–about having the closest thing to a close-up in The Benson Murder Case. I’ve never been more acutely aware of shot distance than I was during the film. Tuttle has a standard pattern. Long shot–usually a lengthy lo read more
The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981, Joel Schumacher)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 15, 2009
I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to properly discuss The Incredible Shrinking Woman. It’s an experience–Ned Beatty was in Network and he appeared in this one? Sorry. Anyway, according the IMDb, the movie might have made money–in fact, it might have even been a hit. I alway read more
The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jan 14, 2009
The Prizefighter and the Lady mixes a couple genres–the philandering husband whose wife can’t stop loving him standard and, additionally, stunt casting. Heavyweight contender Max Baer stars as a heavyweight contender, who fights the champ, played by champ Primo Carnera. Myrna Loy plays read more
Batman (1989, Tim Burton)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 25, 2008
Batman‘s an odd success. It has almost constant problems–Kim Basinger’s bad, Jack Nicholson’s phoning it in (but never contemptuous of the material, which makes it a peculiar performance) and the movie never really finishes the story it starts in the first act–but it&# read more
Thunderbolt (1929, Josef von Sternberg)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 24, 2008
Thunderbolt has some excellent use of sound. It’s a very early talky and I’m hesitant to say any of its uses were innovative, because the word suggests others picked up on the techniques and developed them. Most of Thunderbolt‘s singular sound designs didn’t show up again in read more
Moonstruck (1987, Norman Jewison)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 17, 2008
I’ve seen Moonstruck once before–though I’d forgotten the terrible opening titles–and I think (I repressed the experience) that time I had the same response I just had this time. Moonstruck makes me worried I have brain damage. The first three quarters of the film, roughly u read more
The Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 11, 2008
I can’t figure out who Renoir had in mind when he made Grand Illusion. It goes without saying he placed incredible trust in his audience, but his expectations are somewhat beyond anything else I’ve seen. Grand Illusion is a film with events–momentous, important events–but th read more
Sam’s Song (1969, Jordan Leondopoulos)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 9, 2008
For a while, somewhere in the late second act, Sam’s Song is really good. It has its characters established and it seems like it’s going to take an interesting path getting to its inevitable plot point. The film is mostly about Jennifer Warren, who has a husband (Jarred Mickey) apparent read more
Grievous Bodily Harm (1988, Mark Joffe)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 5, 2008
The intrepid reporter genre has almost entirely disappeared. These are the films–around since the 1930s, when newspapers became American cinema’s ideal breeding ground for protagonists (many screenwriters, new to talkies, were former journalists)–where the reporter is investigatin read more
The Stunt Man (1980, Richard Rush)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 4, 2008
The Stunt Man opens with an exquisitely interconnected sequence, introducing all of the principals–Peter O’Toole, Barbara Hershey and Steve Railsback–while concentrating on Railsback. Hershey’s introduction, which turns out to be the first of director Rush’s muddling o read more
Caddyshack II (1988, Allan Arkush)
The Stop Button Posted by on Dec 3, 2008
Now it makes sense–Rodney Dangerfield was originally going to come back for Caddyshack II, but then fell out over script disputes and Jackie Mason came in, persona in hand, to fill in. I kept wondering who writers Harold Ramis and Peter Torokvei envisioned in the lead role while writing the s read more
The Howling (1981, Joe Dante)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 27, 2008
All due respect to Rick Baker, but Rob Bottin’s werewolf transformation in The Howling is superior. The transformation lasts so long it’s no longer shocking, just interesting. It’s so deliberate, it got me wondering what the werewolf would do if he needed to change in a pinch̷ read more
Straw Dogs (1971, Sam Peckinpah)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 26, 2008
Little known fact: the British Tourist Authority actually funded for Straw Dogs. They were sick of Americans moving over. Obviously not true, but it would explain a lot. Not many films have such singularly evil human beings as those portrayed in Straw Dogs, but then few feature such textured evil h read more
Phantasm (1979, Don Coscarelli)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 25, 2008
Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm is not any kind of cinematic wonder. Coscarelli is a decent director in terms of composition and his screenplay has some inventive moments. Mostly, the writing credit is due because of his enthusiasm for the content. There’s nothing like seeing adults defer to read more