Ann Hornaday Updates the Movie Canon

Posted on August 21, 2018 at 8:11 pm

The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday wrote about the new “canon” films, the ones she thinks will be ranked with the best there ever were. Of course any list or ranking will cause more debate than it leaves out, but it is fun to see which films she thinks will show up “Vertigo” and “Citizen Kane” in future “best of all times” lists. Her list includes acclaimed films like “Spirited Away,” “Boyhood,” “Children of Men,” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” but what makes it fun to read are her descriptions of what makes each film so memorable.

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For Your Netflix Queue Lists

New Lists: Best Golden Age Movie Musicals and Best TV since 2000

Posted on August 5, 2018 at 8:00 am

Lists are designed to start arguments, not resolve them, but it is always fun to see what other people think as long as you don’t take it too seriously.

Vulture has a list of the best Golden Age movie musicals. Without making any comment on whether this list is definitive, I’ll just say that every one of them is well worth seeing.

The Ringer has a list of the best 100 television episodes of the century (so far). As you might predict, “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” “The Americans,” and other high prestige dramas, but it was fun to see great choices from “Project Runway,” “Barefoot Contessa,” “The Bachelor,” and the one that would probably top my list, the one with the twist in “The Good Place.”

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What Was Your All-Time Best Movie-Going Experience?

Posted on July 2, 2018 at 9:00 pm

Scott Derrickson asked people on Twitter to respond with their best movie-going experiences and the results are a lot of fun to read. Some are just the pleasure of discovering a great movie or a movie that feels great because it spoke to them in a personal way or at just the right moment. Many others are about sharing a movie with just the right person. The movies named include “Raising Arizona,” “The Sound of Music,” “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” “Harold and Maude,” “Gravity,” “The Blair Witch Project,” and “Interstellar.”

Here’s mine:

Walking out of the two day bar exam after law school into the bright sunlight and going to a theater a block away to see the first Star Wars movie. Liking it so much we sat through it twice. Also: a night of Laurel & Hardy, WC Fields, Keaton, Lloyd at a time I needed to laugh.

Needless to say, I was not the only one who mentioned Star Wars.

While you’re on Twitter, check out this @TCM thread with people posting their favorite movies set in their home states for TCM’s 50 Movies 50 States series.

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Movies for the 4th of July

Posted on July 1, 2018 at 6:18 pm

Independence Day Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum star in one of the all-time great popcorn pleasures. Aliens attack the earth and it takes a quirky engineer, a plucky President, and a heroic military pilot to save the day. What does that have to do with the 4th of July? Listen to the President’s stirring pep talk.

The Patriot There are many films about the Civil War, but not many about the Revolutionary War. Mel Gibson stars in this uneven but stirring film about a farmer pulled into the rebellion.

1776 I love this film, based on the Broadway musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with almost all of the stars from the acclaimed stage production, including William Daniels as the “obnoxious and disliked” John Adams, Ken Howard as a dashing Thomas Jefferson, and Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJmNnEPZHW8

And don’t forget Schoolhouse Rock!

Rita Hayworth, Part 2: Ticklish Business Podcast with Kristen Lopez

Posted on July 1, 2018 at 2:18 pm

Many thanks again to Kristen Lopez for inviting me on her Ticklish Business podcast to talk about Rita Hayworth. Listen to part 2, our conversation about the movie with the worst Irish accent, the worst Hayworth haircut, but the best fun-house mirror denouement, The Lady from Shanghai, directed by and co-starring Hayworth’s then husband, Orson Welles.