William H. Macy is in INLAND EMPIRE for one shot lasting less than twenty seconds, and his single line ends with this phrase: “Hollywood, where stars make dreams and dreams make stars.” That’s probably not true, and it ignores a question near and dear to David Lynch’s heart: what about nightmares? Certainly, the film seems […]

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: new horror movies aren’t as good as old horror movies because of commercial pressure. Now, I admit that I’ve never seen the 1986 version of The Hitcher, although people who know things about ’80s horror films (which is to say: not the people calling it a rote slasher […]

Today of all days is a good moment to reflect that one of the greatest generation of actors in cinema history is nearing death. I refer to the remarkable collection of stage-trained British performers who came to prominence in the late 1950s and 1960s, a group including such luminaries as Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Anthony […]

Since Robert Altman died two months ago, I haven’t had a chance to watch any of his films, either familiar to me or new, which is frankly a bit awful. After all, at the time of his death, he was the greatest American filmmaker. Last night, I finally had my chance to watch either The […]

(I had certainly expected to get to this sooner, but the real world got in the way in the form of a thing of Most Distinct Proprietary Secretness, involving me making boatloads of money and being out until far too late to do any blogging. Which is not in any way different from tonight, so […]

After weeks of almost frighteningly unseasonable warmth (you can’t truly believe in global warming until you’ve seen people wearing shorts in Chicago in January), winter has come at last. As I type this, I can see the first snow of 2007 drifting past my window, and I ask myself: what shall I write about on […]

I’m going to start off with the bold statement, and work my way back from there: Clint Eastwood is one of the greatest working American filmmakers. This is not, mind you, the petulance of a Mystic River/Million Dollar Baby fanboy. To some degree, I’ve thought something like that since long before either of those two […]

Not nearly enough careers in the cinema end well. I suppose I’ve always known this, but it was really brought home when Robert Altman died last November: what a perfect final film he had, and how vanishingly small the number of directors, actors and writers who can say the same! Of course, 1939’s The Story […]

After a string of masterpieces between 1935 and 1937, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were ready for a break. Neither one of them had been looking for a partnership in the first place, and it was time to prove they didn’t need each other for success. Ginger ended up starring in three films without Fred […]

By 1935, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were officially “Fred & Ginger”: RKO’s biggest box-office draw, with a proper formula and screenplays being written just for them. But before their Golden Age began in earnest with the autumnal release of Top Hat, they had one last film on the learning curve: an adaptation of the […]

In 1934, a year after accidentally (or not) becoming a pair of stars in Flying Down to Rio, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were re-teamed for the first proper “Fred & Ginger movie,” The Gay Divorcee. “La Carioca” be damned: this is where most of the elements that we associate with their cycle of films […]

Back in the mists of time, when this blog was young and film commentary was more of a palate cleanser than its raison d’être, I once spent a week reviewing my way through the first Warner Bros. five-film box set of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers vehicles (they’re here, if you insist). Having recently been […]