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.
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 14, 2018
A lot goes unspoken in The Big Sleep. It’s very much set in a wartime Los Angeles, but there’s never much said about wartime conditions or Los Angeles. When private detective Humphrey Bogart goes around the city, investigating, he’s only ever encountering women (beautiful women at that, because read more
The Mechanical Monsters (1941, Dave Fleischer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 13, 2018
The Mechanical Monsters has a lot of promise. Or at least it seems like it’s going to have a lot of promise. A mad scientist has built around thirty giant flying robots he sends out to rob Metropolis. The cartoon opens with one of them returning with its loot. No one can stop him. Back in the city, read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 8: The Black Sapphire of Kalu
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 12, 2018
Poor Flash (Buster Crabbe) and Dale (Jean Rogers), every time it seems like they might actually get a chance to lock lips, something happens. This time it’s Frank Shannon calling attention to Donald Kerr being injured. Flash being Flash, Crabbe has to attend to Kerr, not passionately reunite with read more
Superman (1941, Dave Fleischer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 11, 2018
Superman (or The Mad Scientist) opens with Jackson Beck narrating the origin of Superman. It’s a couple minutes, sets up Krypton going boom and mild mannered reporter Clark Kent. Then it’s on to the action, which starts with a mad scientist sending a threatening letter to the Daily Planet. Perry read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 7: The Prisoner of Mongo
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 10, 2018
The Prisoner of Mongo title suggests, well, whoever was titling the chapters wasn’t paying attention to the actual script–much like last chapter’s title, calling the Forest People the Tree-Men–but it does indeed turn out Buster Crabbe and company will end up prisoners of Mongo. At least, of read more
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995, John McTiernan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 9, 2018
Until the tacked on finish, Die Hard with a Vengeance can do little wrong. It doesn’t aim particularly high, just high enough–it’s a symphony of action movie action (and violence) set in New York City; the city’s geography (at least movie familiar geography) plays less and less of a part as read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 6: Tree-Men of Mars
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 8, 2018
Oh sure, the title is Tree-Men of Mars, but they’re actually called the “forest-people (of Mars)” or even the “fire-men (of Mars). They live in a forest (in the trees) and shoot fire at their enemies. Who, by the end of the chapter, are after Crabbe and company. Crabbe and Shannon have just read more
The Lodger (1944, John Brahm)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 7, 2018
The Lodger begins four murders into the Jack the Ripper killings (the film actually goes over the historical number but also makes some rather liberal changes to the history). Just after a murder occurs, which seems a rather unfortunate event since the victim passes a number of police officers and read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 5: The Boomerang
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 6, 2018
It’s unclear what the chapter title, The Boomerang, has to do with any of the content. Unless it’s something about Buster Crabbe and Frank Shannon continually returning to Beatrice Roberts’s palace from the Clay Men’s kingdom. Crabbe and Shannon start the chapter saving Jean Rogers and Donald read more
Gaslight (1944, George Cukor)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 5, 2018
At the end of Gaslight, when all has seemingly been revealed, there’s only one question left. If Scotland Yard inspector Joseph Cotten isn’t an American in London, why doesn’t anyone notice his lack of accent. It’s a wise choice not to give Cotten an accent–presumably he couldn’t do one–but read more
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015, Christopher McQuarrie)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 4, 2018
While Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation doesn’t deliver much in the way of plot twists, it instead delivers a lot of easy smiles and a handful of good laughs. The easy smiles aren’t just for the action sequences, which often focus on characters’ reactions to them–sometimes relief, sometimes read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 4: Ancient Enemies
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 3, 2018
The cliffhanger resolution from last chapter should be this awesome sequence where Buster Crabbe–faced with a collapsing structure–swings down on a line, risking his life to save his prisoner (Beatrice Roberts), in a scene George Lucas would “borrow” for Star Wars. Unfortunately, the whole thing read more
This Unfamiliar Place (1994, Eva Ilona Brzeski)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 2, 2018
This Unfamiliar Place is content in search of presentation. Director Brzeski’s father survived the Nazi attack and occupation of Poland. He never talked about it. Then there’s an unspecified earthquake (maybe the San Francisco-Oakland one of 1989, but it’s sort of immaterial because Brzeski’s read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 3: Queen of Magic
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 1, 2018
Queen of Magic has a lot going on. After the perfunctory cliffhanger resolution, there’s another chase sequence (of sorts) through the Clay Men’s caves. It takes a while–and has Buster Crabbe and company duking it out with the actual bad guys (Beatrice Roberts’s human thugs)–but eventually read more
I, Tonya (2017, Craig Gillespie)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 31, 2018
Despite the rather declarative I in the title, I, Tonya, Margot Robbie’s Tonya Harding is not the protagonist of the film. Writer Steven Rogers avoids making her the protagonist as long as he can–really, until the third act–and instead splits it between Robbie and Sebastian Stan (as her husband). read more
Pushover (1954, Richard Quine)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 30, 2018
As far as suspension of disbelief goes, nothing in Pushover compares to the second scene of the film, when twenty-one year-old Kim Novak makes goggly-eyes over forty-eight year-old Fred MacMurray. Both actors handle it straight, which is impressive on its own, but clearly MacMurray realizes how luc read more
Black Rider (1993, Pepe Danquart)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 29, 2018
Black Rider is almost desperate in its lack of great. There’s a single great moment–sort of, it’s a funny twist but entirely problematic–amid a bunch of other not great moments. And the resolution to the twist is pat and a joke… only one at the expense of writer and director Danquart and the read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 2: The Living Dead
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 28, 2018
If only The Living Dead had some better stock music choices, because the actual content of the chapter is fantastic. Unfortunately, it’s got this passive, tranquil score without any energy or excitement. Meanwhile the onscreen action is all energy, all excitement. While Buster Crabbe, Frank Shannon read more
Autumn Sonata (1978, Ingmar Bergman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 27, 2018
Somewhat recently I read an observation along the following lines–Ingmar Bergman created great roles for actresses by giving them absolutely awful emotions to essay. Whoever said it (I’ve tried, without success to properly credit her) said it a lot better. But at around the hour mark of Autumn Sona read more
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938, Ford Beebe and Robert F. Hill), Chapter 1: New Worlds to Conquer
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 26, 2018
Until about three-quarters of the way into New Worlds to Conquer, I thought Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars was going to be one of those mistitled movies. Like the studio changed it for some reason. Because when adventurers Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, and Frank Shannon take off, they’re headed right read more