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.
I’m a Fool (1954, Don Medford)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 25, 2017
I’m a Fool gets off to a somewhat promising, somewhat precarious start. Eddie Albert is an onscreen narrator–precarious–talking about his younger days–his younger self played by James Dean–promising. Dean is leaving his small-town for the booming metropolis of Sandusky, Ohio, where he hopes read more
You Gotta Stay Happy (1948, H.C. Potter)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 23, 2017
It takes You Gotta Stay Happy a while to get there, but it’s actually a road movie. Well, it’s flying movie. Owner-operator James Stewart flies his cargo plane from New York to California with a number of paying passengers (a no no), with co-pilot Eddie Albert doing most of the ticket sales. The read more
Dracula’s Daughter (1936, Lambert Hillyer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 21, 2017
Dracula’s Daughter starts as a comedy. With Billy Bevan’s bumbling police constable, there’s nothing else to call it. Sure, the opening deals with the immediate aftermath of the original Dracula–returning Edward Van Sloan arrested for driving a stake through a man’s heart–but it’s all read more
Masters of the Universe (1987, Gary Goddard)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 21, 2017
Masters of the Universe is almost charming in its lack of charm. Its plot is a kitchen sink–a little Conan sword fighting here, a little Superman opening credits, a lot of Star Wars stuff (like all black “troopers” with laser guns, the skiffs from Jedi), but also lots of other popular eighties read more
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002, Guy Maddin)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 20, 2017
To put it mildly, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary is narratively erratic. The film–a filmed ballet “converted” to a silent movie–opens with panic over Eastern Europeans entering Britain. At least, the onscreen text implies this panic. It’s quickly forgotten; after doing cast introductions read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 20, 2017
King of the Rocket Men isn’t a long serial. It’s only twelve chapters and almost one of them is a recap of the first three chapters. The final chapter spends most of its time setting up a big showdown, with the grand action finale–at least the grand action finale not recycling disaster footage read more
Let Her Out (2016, Cody Calahan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 20, 2017
If cheap, misogynist Canadian horror gore twaddle is a genre, Let Her Out must be one its finest examples. At least in the modern era. In some ways, the worst thing about the film is director Calahan. With a single exception, his direction’s not bad. His composition is strong, his sense of space is read more
The Omen (1976, Richard Donner)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 20, 2017
The Omen is a terrible bit of cinema. It’s a long bit, almost two hours, filled with Jerry Goldsmith’s–shockingly Oscar-winning–chant filled “scare” score. It doesn’t scare. It annoys, which just makes everything go on longer. Director Donner certainly doesn’t help with it. He drags read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon), Chapter 12: Wave of Disaster
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 18, 2017
The Wave of Disaster does have some great special effects for Rocket Men’s finale. Sure, they’re from an earlier film, but they’re still great. The Rocket Man effects are fine too, they’re just boring. After yet another tepid cliffhanger resolution–maybe the first to directly contradict the read more
The Cosmopolitans (2014, Whit Stillman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 18, 2017
The Cosmopolitans opens with some visual sarcasm, but it quickly moves to verbal. Writer-director Stillman is somewhat merciless, introducing characters just to comment on the absurd pretentiousness of the principals. Of course, Stillman doesn’t let the observers off easy either. It just takes long read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon), Chapter 11: Secret of Dr. Vulcan
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 17, 2017
About halfway through the chapter–the penultimate Rocket Men chapter–Tristram Coffin and Mae Clarke go over a cliff in a car into a lake. They’ve already gone over a cliff together as a cliffhanger. And Coffin forced a motorcycle driver to his death over the cliff into a lake. It really felt like read more
Desk Set (1957, Walter Lang)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 16, 2017
Despite being an adaptation of a stage play and having one main set, Desk Set shouldn’t be stagy. The single main location–and its importance–ought to be able to outweigh the staginess. Desk Set does not, however, succeed in not being stagy. It puts off being stagy for quite a while, but not foreve read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon), Chapter 10: The Deadly Fog
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 16, 2017
The Deadly Fog is a clip chapter. Sadly, the fog doesn’t refer to the misting effect when Deadly goes into flashback to the moments from the first three chapters. After another lackluster cliffhanger resolution, Tristram Coffin ignores the weapon of mass destruction in a nearby car–he r read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon), Chapter 9: Ten Seconds to Live
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 15, 2017
Ten Seconds to Live is a new low as far as Rocket Men quality goes. It’s bad to the point the badness becomes more engaging than the story, partially because there’s no story, mostly because the good guys are just so dumb. The cliffhanger resolution is bad. The subsequent setup for the read more
The Invention of Lying (2009, Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 15, 2017
The Invention of Lying is a 100 minute exploration of a gag. In a world without lying–or any fictive creativity whatsoever–co-director, co-writer, and star Ricky Gervais one day spontaneously mutates and lies. He lies for personal gain, only to discover exploiting people doesn’t make him feel read more
The Black Cat (1934, Edgar G. Ulmer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 14, 2017
The Black Cat has a lot going on. It’s the story of two American honeymooners–David Manners and Julie Bishop–who, for whatever reason, decide Hungary is better than Niagara Falls. It’s also the story of a recently freed Hungarian soldier Bela Lugosi, who went into the war a read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon), Chapter 8: Suicide Flight
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 14, 2017
Maybe I missed Tristram Coffin revealing his Rocket Man identity to Mae Clarke and House Peters Jr. Or maybe they just don’t question only Rocket Man ever coming to their rescue after Coffin has put them in danger. This chapter is a mild improvement over the previous one, though the cliffhang read more
Sleeping Beauty (1959, Clyde Geronimi)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 13, 2017
Seven credited writers on Sleeping Beauty and none of them could figure out any dialogue to give the prince. Though, notwithstanding some cute banter between the three fairies, there’s not much good dialogue in Sleeping Beauty anyway. Villain Maleficent doesn’t even get any. Eleanor Audley’s great read more
King of the Rocket Men (1949, Fred C. Brannon), Chapter 7: Molten Menace
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 13, 2017
King of the Rocket Men made it to chapter seven before having a stinker. And Molten Menace isn’t even an exciting stinker, it’s just a plodding one. It’s also frustrating because it requires lead Tristram Coffin to be stupid about something a scene after he was talking about being cautious about read more
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Oct 13, 2017
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is either terrifying or horrifying. Sometimes it’s a combination of the two. Sometimes it’s visual terror or horror, sometimes it’s audial, sometimes it’s just implied. Director Hooper has three different styles–daytime, nighttime, indoor&# read more