4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 22, 2020

It does feel like one of the grand old westerns we left behind in more recent years. It’s a big picture in the horizontal majesty of widescreen, Glorious Technicolor, backed by the only score Bernard Hermann would ever arrange for the West. There’s little doubt we are in for a...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 20, 2020

Though it’s easy for this film to be overshadowed by Clint Eastwood’s Rowdy Yates, in retrospect, Rawhide is a spare outpost western nevertheless loaded with tension and talent. It is set against the backdrop of a network of stagecoaches transporting mail across the continental United St   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 18, 2020

In our ongoing series of selecting 4 films to help newly-minted classic movie fans get their bearings, we’re going to look at one of my personal favorites when it comes to the 1940s, Gene Tierney. If you’re not familiar with her, she filled out a lot of film noir and...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 17, 2020

“It looks like Ballard’s past has come to town!” A brood of leery guns lumbers into the town of Silver Lode. We have an instant clash of temperaments. Because this outside force is menacing and foreboding. Meanwhile, the townsfolk are getting everything together for their Fourth o   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 15, 2020

First impressions suggest Dick Powell doesn’t fit the boots of a western hero as he did the fedoras of noir. Like Bogart or even Cagney, his physique isn’t imposing and yet he makes up for it with a wry wit. Running off his mouth as he often does fits the cynicism of noir....   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 13, 2020

This is admittedly nitpicky, but the title cards of Blood on the Moon are a bit jarring as the white-lettered names all but disappear into the sliver of light stretching across the otherwise black canvas of the screen. Thus, I missed out on about a fourth of the names in...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 11, 2020

The majority of movies have to fight to earn our allegiance. However, Yesterday really does have a foolproof premise because, from the outset, it can bank on a viewership who will already have memories crowded with the Beatles and as the Fab Four play a key role in the story,...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 10, 2020

It’s a grievous offense, but I must admit to clumping Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl in a category together. They are both redheads of immense beauty, around the same age, and while they both featured in some quality films, they never quite reached the apex of a Maureen O’Hara or...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 8, 2020

Billy Wilder, more than any screenwriter I’ve ever known, has a knack for voiceover narration. What other novices consider a crutch to feed us information, he uses as an asset to set tone, story, and location, while offsetting the image with the spoken word. Take the beginning of Love in...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 6, 2020

The when is 1862. The where is Southern Indiana. We find ourselves in the throes of Quaker country as envisioned by novelist Jessamyn West and brought to the screen by his eminence, William Wyler. What follows is a lovely opening gambit with a goose about as anthropomorphic as they come...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 4, 2020

Our next addition to our classic movie guide is one of the most beloved mainstays of American popular culture and the western mythos. That’s right. We’re talking about Marion Morrison better known to the viewing public as John “The Duke” Wayne. As is the case, we will provide   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 2, 2020

You might say I turned up to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker out of respect for the dead. Because we’ve lost many of our beloved figures. Han. Luke. Carrie Fisher. Peter Mayhew. Kenny Baker. You get the idea. And from the rumblings I couldn’t avoid hearing, it felt like...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 31, 2019

Let me put this out in the open. Christmas movies are some of the most difficult films to regard subjectively because the majority of them are either tied to our childhood and fond memories, which are as much a part of the experience, or the alternative; they were not a...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 30, 2019

A version of this review was published over at Film Inquiry. I recently watched an interview between Peter Bogdanovich and Wes Anderson reminiscing about the film. One of the most striking suggestions is the inferred sadness in “They All Laughed.” It takes its title from a song but whil   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 28, 2019

We continue our series chronicling the career of classic Hollywood stars with 4 films. This week our subject is Teresa Wright a genial actress with a high degree of success throughout the 1940s at MGM. If memory serves, she remains the only performer to have received Oscar nominations for her...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 26, 2019

I came to this movie because it has San Diego in the title: my home away from home for some time. Taking stock of its assets is simple enough. It’s a B-grade film set during the War Years housing crisis. Judging by film output at the time like More The Merrier...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 25, 2019

Growing up in a household indebted to British everything, you get accustomed to certain things. Numerous everyday knickknacks and antiques imported from The U.K. Muesli Cereal in the pantry with copious amounts of English Breakfast Tea. Beatrix Potter, P.G. Wodehouse, and Postman Pat become househol   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 24, 2019

In viewing the 1951 version of the Christmas classic, I took particular interest in the name of our protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, attempting to redeem it for the masses. For this picture, I was curious in considering another integral term in our lexicon: Humbug. The term is so ubiquitous and elicits   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 22, 2019

In full transparency, I’ve often considered Noah Baumbach as heir apparent to Woody Allen and a lot of this attribution falls on their joint affinity for New York City. It is the hub of their life and therefore their creative work even as the broader art world often finds itself...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 21, 2019

Like all the great fantasy stories, this one begins with “Once upon a time…” The world is Pepperland, 80,000 leagues under the sea, where people live in harmony frolicking across the hills with music wafting through the air. But there must be villains and there are no cartoonish b   read more