I went into Pretty Persuasion expecting a shocking comedy about profoundly awful people saying and doing venomous things. I kind of got these things. Except for the “comedy.” Certainly, the film made me laugh – but like the scene in The Producers when the “Springtime for Hitler” number is over. Remember that scene? That feeling […]
In 1949, a full ten years after their ninth and last film for RKO Radio Pictures, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers reunited under the aegis of MGM for their swan song, The Barkleys of Broadway. In some ways, this is really a perfect final film for the pair. It opens where most of their vehicles […]
In an act of some heresy, I have to admit that I think Shall We Dance (Mark Sandrich, 1937) is a superior film to the widely regarded Fred and Ginger masterwork, Swing Time (and I like Top Hat better than either. Go figure). A small part of this might be because it was the first […]
Another film, another timeless pop standard – in this case, Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight,” one of those rare Best Song Oscar winners that deserved it. I’d never seen Swing Time (George Stevens, 1936), but now I have, and I can keep my musical-lover’s certificate. I have to say on […]
August is supposed to suck at the cinema – not quite like February, the dumping grounds of Movie Hell, but still, around now, we’re supposed to be getting the dregs of the season, the post-blockbusters that are thrown out only to fill seats while audiences try to flee the heat. And yet, here it is, […]
And now for something completely different…Fred & Ginger blogging, day 2. Follow the Fleet is one of their least typical films, not altogether a great thing for a team whose formula was so successful. In this case, Fred plays a seaman (hehe), Ginger plays an entertainer who specialises in Navy boys, and two other people […]
Author’s note, February 2017: My God, I used to be a dumb little child. Keeping this one up for posterity, but I’m pleased to say that I’ve had much more sophisticated experiences with this movie since. From time to time, I see a movie that I don’t know what to make out of it. Not […]
I got back to Evanston a bit too late to get tickets for The 40 Year-Old Virgin. But sitting in the lobby of my apartment waiting for me was a copy of Warner and TCM’s new Astaire/Rogers box set. Which, love Steve Carell though I do, is clearly a trade-up. Anyway, expect for me to […]
Junebug, written by Angus MacLachlan and directed by Phil Morrison, is a wonderfully charming chamber piece. It is a perfectly constructed little gem of charm. In fact, it is so charming that you begin to wonder when it will perhaps decide to be maybe a bit less charming, and grow some balls. That’s not actually […]
It has been far, far too long since I’ve watched a movie in a theater (8 whole days!) and I broke my drought with The Aristocrats, a documentary by Penn Gillette and Paul Provenza. It is extremely funny, and deeply, deeply perverse: it is in fact the most perverse thing that I have ever seen. […]
It’s a fool’s gambit to declare “The Best Film of the Year” in August. Just, really, really stupid. The studios never release the good stuff before Thanksgiving. Remember 2003, when every watchable film of the year was released after mid-December? Never a good idea to start “best of” lists before January. That said, Jim Jarmusch’s […]
I managed to wrangle tickets to see a sneak preview of The Great Raid (John Dahl, 2005) and have one thing to say: Stalag 17 was a phenomenal movie. The plot, not that it matters, is the true story of a mission to liberate 500 American P.O.W.s from a prison camp in the Philippines, in […]
