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.
La Bamba (1987, Luis Valdez)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 26, 2018
La Bamba is a perfectly adequate biopic of fifties rock and roll singer Ritchie Valens, who died at seventeen in a plane crash. Very twenty-five year-old Lou Diamond Phillips plays Valens. He’s adequate. He lip-synchs all right, though the performances (Los Lobos covers Valens’s songs) almost never read more
Aquaman (2018, James Wan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 25, 2018
Just because you can get Patrick Wilson to say “Call me, Oceanmaster!” over and over again with a straight face doesn’t necessarily mean you should have Patrick Wilson say “Call me, Oceanmaster!” over and over again. Unless director James Wan was just trying to get my wife to laugh uproariously. read more
Seven Days in May (1964, John Frankenheimer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 23, 2018
Screenwriter Rod Serling really likes to employ monologues in Seven Days in May. John Frankenheimer likes to direct them too. And the actors like to give them. Because they’re good monologues. The monologues give all then actors fantastic material. Everyone except George Macready, who isn’t the read more
Puss Gets the Boot (1940, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 20, 2018
Until the exceptionally racist caricature of “Mammy Two-Shoes” arrives, the most distinguishing thing about Puss Gets the Boot is the exceptional cruelty of the cat. Puss is the first Tom and Jerry cartoon, before Tom is named Tom (he’s Jasper here) and Jerry doesn’t get an onscreen name. For read more
The Predator Holiday Special (2018)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 20, 2018
At two minutes, The Predator Holiday Special runs long. The joke runs out. It starts as a rather fun riff on the original Predator movie, with the same music and some familiar action motifs, and the Rankin-Bass stop motion holiday specials. Sure, the stop motion isn’t great and the Predator appears read more
Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985, Bill Melendez)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 18, 2018
Right after Snoopy decides to get married–appropriate since the special’s titled Snoopy’s Getting Married, Charlie Brown–Charlie Brown (Brett Johnson) worries about how Snoopy will handle the responsibilities of marriage. Now, Charlie Brown finds out Snoopy is getting married because read more
It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984, Bill Melendez and Sam Jaimes)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 16, 2018
It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown has to be seen to be believed… but also doesn’t need to be seen at all. The special is a Peanuts-riff on… Flashdance. Like, Snoopy saw Flashdance and has become inspired to go out dancing until dawn every night. Meanwhile the Peanuts kids are into dancing read more
Tumbleweeds (1999, Gavin O’Connor)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 14, 2018
Despite excellent lead performances, Tumbleweeds is almost entirely inert–dramatically speaking. Janet McTeer is a thirtysomething single mom with bad taste in men who drags tween daughter Kimberly J. Brown all around the country after her latest romance goes bad. The romances never go too bad beca read more
It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown (1983, Sam Jaimes, Phil Roman, and Bill Melendez)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 13, 2018
Despite being an anthology of eight different stories, It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown does not have many adventures. Well, not in the adventurous sense. They’re still good, they’re just not… adventures. The special runs forty-seven minutes, with the eight stories having differing lengths. read more
What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? (1983, Bill Melendez)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 13, 2018
What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? is exceedingly intense. It doesn’t start intense, though it does start a little different. There’s this gradual shot–with Judy Munsen’s lovely score accompanying–moving through all the toys in Charlie Brown’s house before it gets to his bookshelf. read more
Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? (1983, Phil Roman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 11, 2018
Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? opens with this gag of Linus and Snoopy fighting over Linus’s blanket. It doesn’t relate to the special’s story and has a completely different tone–and an almost cruel Linus (Jeremy Schoenberg)–but it does echo later on a little. Goodbye is about Linus read more
A Charlie Brown Celebration (1982, Bill Melendez)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 10, 2018
A Charlie Brown Celebration opens with Charles M. Schulz introducing the special–which is twice as long as a regular special–and explaining he and director Bill Melendez had a little bit different of an idea for this one. It’s going to be a series of vignettes (though Schulz doesn’t read more
It’s Magic, Charlie Brown (1981, Phil Roman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 9, 2018
It’s Magic, Charlie Brown is the dramatically inert tale of Charlie Brown (Michael Mandy) turning invisible. It takes a while for him to turn invisible, with the first half or so of the special spent on a magic show. Magic opens with Charlie Brown demanding Snoopy go to the library to better himsel read more
Lawyer Man (1932, William Dieterle)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 8, 2018
Lawyer Man is a tad too streamlined. It runs around seventy minutes, charting neighborhood attorney–meaning he works with ethnic types and not blue bloods–William Powell’s rise and fall from grace. At the end, he says something about the events taking place over two years, which the film accomplish read more
The Descent (2005, Neil Marshall)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 7, 2018
I want to say nice things about The Descent. Or, more… I wish I could say nice things about The Descent. There are some nice things to say about it–the production values are strong, Marshall’s composition is decent, Sam McCurdy’s photography is good. It’s rarely boring–though it does drag read more
Someday You’ll Find Her, Charlie Brown (1981, Phil Roman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 6, 2018
Someday You’ll Find Her, Charlie Brown is the cringe-inducing tale of Charlie Brown (Grant Wehr) and Linus (Rocky Reilly) stalking a girl Charlie Brown saw at a football game on TV. She was in a “honey shot,” which is already makes things cringe-y because these are eight year-old kids. Regardless read more
Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown (1980, Phil Roman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 5, 2018
Life is a Circus, Charlie Brown is about Snoopy joining the circus. Somewhat unintentionally. The circus comes to town, Snoopy investigates the racket, and eyes a fetching poodle. She’s in an act; her trainer grabs Snoopy and drafts him into it. After Snoopy proves funny (versus capable), the train read more
She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown (1980, Phil Roman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 4, 2018
She’s a Good Skate, Charlie Brown is all about Peppermint Patty (Patricia Patts). Charlie Brown (Arrin Skelley) has a couple appearances, but it’s just for the brand. Skate is all Peppermint Patty, Snoopy, Marcie (Casey Carlson), and Woodstock. Patty’s training for an ice skating competition. read more
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966, Mike Nichols)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 3, 2018
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens with this gentle, lovely music from Alex North. It’s night, it’s a university campus, a couple is walking silently as the credits roll; the music’s beautiful. Then the couple–Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton–get home. And pretty soon they start yelling read more
Venom (2018, Ruben Fleischer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Dec 2, 2018
For most of the movie, Venom’s greatest strength is its potential. It certainly seems like lead Tom Hardy can do anything but as things progress, it becomes more and more obvious the potential is an illusion. Director Fleischer just hasn’t done a big action sequence yet, so the movie hasn’t shown read more