Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
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You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
Risky Business (1983, Paul Brickman), the director’s cut
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 18, 2008
There are three things I want to discuss about Risky Business (there isn’t room to cover the fourth, why Tom Cruise is so excellent in this film then mostly terrible for the next twelve years). The subjects are director’s cuts, teen movies and this film’s portrayal of women. All t read more
Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 11, 2008
Trouble in Paradise features some great filmmaking. Here, Lubitsch runs wild with the passage of time–there’s a great sequence with various clocks marking the minutes, but there’s a lot of carefully orchestrated fades as well. The film opens with an excellent mixed shot–agai read more
Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973, Gilbert Cates)
The Stop Button Posted by on Nov 5, 2008
What is this film and how have I never heard of it. Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams is somewhat indescribable in terms of plot. I mean, it obviously isn’t indescribable–I could list the scenes (there are about fifteen in the film, which means it averages a scene every six minutes and that read more
Halloween (1978, John Carpenter)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 31, 2008
Halloween is a technical masterpiece. It’s absolutely spectacular to watch. Carpenter’s composition is fantastic, but Dean Cundey’s cinematography and the editing–from Tommy Lee Wallace and Charles Bornstein–creates this uneasy, surreal experience. The way Carpenter us read more
Baby It’s You (1983, John Sayles)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 30, 2008
Baby It’s You is a John Sayles film I never expected to see… it’s John Sayles for hire. Sayles has had a lucrative career as a ghostwriter of blockbusters (Apollo 13 famously had his name on one poster… but not after the WGA got done). But Baby It’s You is the first of read more
Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Mizoguchi Kenji)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 29, 2008
Sansho the Bailiff is one of cinema’s most depressing pieces. I don’t think, after about twenty minutes into the film, there’s a single positive moment. Good things happen–occasionally–but they only lead to bad things (or the revelation of bad things). The film opens w read more
The Mississippi Gambler (1953, Rudolph Maté)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 28, 2008
Torpid isn’t an adjective I get to use often, but I can’t think of a better one to describe The Mississippi Gambler. It’s a boring melodrama, trading entirely on the charisma of its cast–Tyrone Power might have been able to handle the weight, but the film concentrates on the read more
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968, Jack Hill)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 24, 2008
Spider Baby might not be “the maddest story ever told,” but it comes somewhat close. The film’s a strange mix of haunted house, 1950s sci-fi and cartoon humor–I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a live action cartoon; it’s like “Scooby Doo” on exp read more
Piranha (1978, Joe Dante)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 22, 2008
More than anything else, I think Pino Donaggio’s score sets Piranha apart. Initially, anyway. The film’s a very self-aware Roger Corman Jaws “homage,” but Donaggio’s score very quickly establishes it on firm ground. The score’s delicate, without any spoof-related read more
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962, Tony Richardson)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 21, 2008
Despite its title, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner doesn’t really concern itself with loneliness and the only long distance running is secondary in the narrative. The film’s really something of a social piece, made rather conspicuous in the third act, with the comparison betw read more
Ground Zero (1987, Michael Pattinson and Bruce Myles)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 15, 2008
Ground Zero opens with a title card attesting to the film’s historical relevance. The intended effect is apparently to convince the viewer of the film’s authenticity and plausibility. So, for a film featuring a cameraman who can outfight spies, Ground Zero is completely plausible until read more
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984, Hugh Hudson), the extended version
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 13, 2008
Greystoke ought to work. From the opening, it really seems like it might. It survives a massive narrative hiccup–switching perspective from young Tarzan to explorer Ian Holm. It establishes people in ape costumes as believable, sympathetic, feeling characters. It’s got beautiful cinemat read more
Purple Rain (1984, Albert Magnoli)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 8, 2008
I’m glad I’m not the only one who observed the pervasive misogyny in Purple Rain. Apparently, it’s a well-known feature of the movie. It’s constant from the start and frequently surprising in its intensity. At some point, that frequency wears down any reaction–the only read more
Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 3, 2008
Every time I watch Casablanca–and I think it’s been a while since the last time, over ten years ago, when I saw it at Radio City–I marvel at the pacing. The film runs an hour and forty minutes and it doesn’t even seem like any time has passed until Bergman is in Bogart’ read more
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943, William A. Wellman)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 2, 2008
The seventy-five minutes of The Ox-Bow Incident are some of the finest in cinema. The film is eventually a solemn examination of the human condition, quiet in its observations, with spare lines of dialogue of profound importance. But before this period in the film, which roughly lasts from twenty m read more
I Love You Again (1940, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 1, 2008
I Love You Again is such a confident success–the whole thing rests on William Powell and everything he does in the entire picture is fantastic–it’s hard to think of anything wrong with it. It moves beautifully, its ninety-nine minutes sailing by, the supporting cast is all excelle read more
Wings in the Dark (1935, James Flood)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 30, 2008
Wings in the Dark is three-quarters overwrought melodrama with the remainder squandered potential. The film opens with Myrna Loy as the protagonist, an aviatrix (never thought I’d get to type that word) whose flying abilities can’t compensate–in terms of professional opportunities read more
Design for Living (1933, Ernst Lubitsch)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 26, 2008
From the first third of Design for Living, it’s impossible to think it might not be absolutely fantastic throughout. Eventually it does hit a dry period and it’s impossible to think it’s going to pull out of it. Then it does and it’s impossible to think… well, you get read more
Thunder Birds (1942, William A. Wellman)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 25, 2008
Thunder Birds runs just under eighty minutes and if one were to subtract the propaganda, both narrated and in lengthy monologues–not to mention the flashback to the stoic Brits–he or she would have a fifty-five minute love triangle set at an Army flight training base. The whole reason o read more
Below the Sea (1933, Albert S. Rogell)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 24, 2008
Below the Sea really should be good. It’s got a great–somewhat startling when viewed today–opening, it’s got excellent special effects and Albert S. Rogell has some fantastic composition. But it all goes wrong. The opening is set in 1917 on a German U-boat. It’s carryi read more