Book: Movie Quotes for All Occasions

Posted on February 1, 2018 at 12:05 pm

“Round up the usual suspects.” “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.” “There’s no place like home.” The movies are so much a part of our lives, so much a part of us, that we can’t help quoting them. James Scheibli’s new book, Movie Quotes for All Occasions: Unforgettable Lines for Life’s Biggest Moments, is a treasure trove of gems from the movies, and it is already an Amazon best-seller.

What makes this book special is the way it matches the quotes, to the occasions where they are most apt — graduations, weddings, office pep talks, sports pep talks, and even sadness and loss. And Scheibli has some great selections, both the familiar to the unexpected, the classics (“Rocky,” of course, “Citizen Kane,” ) to the far-from-classics (“Hellboy,” “Never Back Down,” “Two for the Money,” “Vanilla Sky”). It also includes recommended films, behind-the-scenes details, and some unexpected trivia.” Every page is a delight.

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Today’s Google Doodle Salutes Sergei Eisenstein

Posted on January 22, 2018 at 6:56 pm

Today’s Google Doodle pays tribute to one of the great visionaries of the early days of movies, Russian director Sergei Eisenstein on the 120th anniversary of his birth.

The earliest films were pretty much just using the camera as though it was seated in the audience of a play, with some close-ups. Eisenstein was hugely influential in the development of “montage” story-telling, with cuts back and forth to different points of view. His classic “Odessa Steps” sequence from his film “Battleship Potemkin” is still studied today.

This scene in “The Untouchables” pays tribute to it.

You can learn more about Eisenstein here:

It is interesting to note that his father, Mikhail Eisenstein, was an architect whose majestic and imaginative work is still on display in Riga, Latvia.

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Alice Faye Sings “You’ll Never Know”

Posted on December 2, 2017 at 6:33 pm

What a treat to see a tribute to Alice Faye’s classic “You’ll Never Know” in Guillermo del Toro’s new film, “The Shape of Water.”

The song was introduced by Faye in “Hello, Frisco, Hello.” The lyrics were based on a poem by a WWII war bride. It not only won the Oscar for best song and became a hit — it was such a hit that Faye sang it again a year later in another movie, “Four Jills in a Jeep.” It is now a standard, covered by Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and many others, including Barbra Streisand, who chose it as her first-ever recorded song, made at a do-it-yourself booth when she was 13 as a gift for her mother.

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HIstoric Black Films Available on Netflix

Posted on September 3, 2017 at 10:00 am

Twenty of the films in the Kino Lorber Pioneers of African-American Cinema collection are now available on Netflix. They include Paul Robeson’s debut in “Body and Soul,” a black and white silent film where he plays the dual roles of a preacher and his evil brother and “The Bronze Buckaroo,” with Herb Jeffries as a singing cowboy, as well as “Hot Biskits” (a man cheats at golf using magnets), “Birthright” (a Harvard-educated man goes home to start a school), and “Verdict not Guilty” (“Truth” serves as judge over a woman’s life).

BBC’s Top 25 Funniest Movies

Posted on September 2, 2017 at 8:00 am

The BBC surveyed critics to come up with the top 25 funniest movies of all time. Of course there’s a lot of overlap with the AFI list. And some of the movies are just what you might guess: “Some Like it Hot,” “Airplane,” “Blazing Saddles.” If by any chance you’ve overlooked any of these, please try to find them. If you’ve seen them, watch them again!