Classic Movies Posted by KC on July 1, 2018

Image Source The critics were apoplectic. They seemed to feel that Little Edie, in particular, was just crazy, and therefore wasn’t capable of giving informed consent for the filming. I totally disbelieve that: Edie managed her life just fine after her mother died. She was eccentric, certain   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 24, 2018

Image Source A very good plot is a minor miracle; it's like a hit tune in music. -Stanley Kubrick Source   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 21, 2018

When Animals Attack: The 70 Best Horror Movies with Killer Animals Edited by Vanessa Morgan, B.L. Daniels Moonlight Creek Publishing, 2016 In search of a light read, I came across When Animals Attack: The 70 Best Horror Movies with Killer Animals on NetGalley and decided to give it a try....   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 19, 2018

Throughout decades of movie fandom I’ve seen astonishing sights and transcendent works of art, and yet, if you asked me what I want to see at any given moment, I would probably ask to watch Glenda Farrell and Joan Blondell doing stuff. Whatever production they are in, they never let...   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 17, 2018

Image Source For us in Italy, it was as if the Virgin Mary had just descended upon us from Disneyland. -Federico Fellini about Ingrid Bergman's arrival in Rome Source   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 12, 2018

A Bucket of Blood (1959) perfectly illustrates why producer Roger Corman never lost a dime on a film. Produced in five days, with a budget of $50,000, this dark comedy took a playful swipe at beatnik and art culture with thrift and efficiency, relying on sensational content and bizarre characters...   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 10, 2018

Image Source It grated on me that movie stars were elevated into icons; Hollywood was simply a place where people, including me, made money, like a mill town in New England or an oil field in Texas. -Marlon Brando Source   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 6, 2018

Les Girls (1957) was Gene Kelly’s last contracted MGM musical. It’s a curious film, modern in some respects, old-fashioned in others. In this Rashomon-like story of a successful dancer, and his various entanglements with the trio of women who form his troop, elation and tedium rest side-   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 3, 2018

It was impressive to see a full theater for the Sunday afternoon screening of Jean Renoir’s Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936). I didn't expect this lesser known work of the director to get such a turnout. The film played at SIFF Cinema Uptown for the third weekend of the...   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on June 2, 2018

Last night at SIFF Cinema Uptown, I enjoyed the first SIFF screening of Amy Scott’s documentary about filmmaker Hal Ashby, Hal (2018). Brilliantly edited, compassionate, and full of insightful interviews, I learned a lot about this director who I have always admired, but I realize now not full   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 30, 2018

When Olive Films announced that it was releasing Cold Turkey (1971) on Blu-ray, it was the first I’d heard of this film starring Dick Van Dyke and Bob Newhart and directed by Norman Lear. It isn’t shocking that this comedy about a town that temporarily quits smoking in a bid...   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 29, 2018

The audience attending Belle de Jour (1967) at the SIFF Cinema Uptown last night alternated between stunned silence and nervous giggles, a clear sign that Luis Buñuel’s tale of desire has retained its power over time. In a new 4K restoration from the original negative, the colors popped and Ca   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 24, 2018

I love it when Warner Archive releases a flood of pre-codes. It almost makes up for the end of the Forbidden Hollywood box set series--almost. The company has thankfully stayed true to its promise to continue to make films from this era available on DVD. I enjoyed this latest batch,...   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 22, 2018

The documentary That Summer (2017), which I viewed last night at a SIFF screening at the Ark Lodge Cinema, has been called the “Prequel to Grey Gardens,” because it features footage of Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale, the mother and daughter captur   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 20, 2018

My first day of the 44th Annual Seattle International Film Festival was a varied and long, starting with a Secret Festival screening at the Egyptian Theater (that’s all I can say about that) and traveling through time, from feudal Japan to 1960s France. I didn’t know anything about San   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 18, 2018

I can never get enough of Gun Crazy (1949). It’s an addictive flick. The high-energy performances, its erotic charge, the rhythm of it, and director Joseph Lewis’ economical, effective style elevated this ‘B’ production to classic status. Now it is making its Blu-ray debut wi   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 16, 2018

Magnificent Obsession: The Outrageous History of Film Buffs, Collectors, Scholars, and Fanatics Anthony Slide University Press of Mississippi, 2018 Even from the early days of film, cinema fanatics have existed in some form. Though not always known as film buffs, these mostly white, male, and socia   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 11, 2018

No actress gave the classic melodramatic weeper more depth than Kay Francis. In a genre crafted to manipulate emotions, she threw herself into the drama with such abandon that you can’t help forgiving her for working your tear ducts so relentlessly. Now on DVD from Warner Archive, Comet Over B   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 9, 2018

As the title character of Joe (1970) Peter Boyle spits out a stream of bigoted patter that would have come as a shock a couple of years ago. Now it is a familiar fact of life, an unpleasant reminder that hatred may go into hiding, but never fully fades away....   read more

Classic Movies Posted by KC on May 7, 2018

Director Fritz Lang had an astounding career. Influential, enduring, and inventive, he was able to adapt from silents to talkies and then from European to Hollywood filmmaking while keep his own unique style. I recently had the chance to watch two crime noir titles from late in his career: While...   read more