Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
District 9 (2)
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 13, 2011
District 9 is one of those rare science fiction films that can sneak into the Best Picture category. It is here because the film is so much more than an alien flick, but evokes a powerful sense of drama about humanity and discrimination while using a wide variety of narrative techniques. Two decade read more
Up
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 12, 2011
Opening weekend for Up must have inspired Take Your Grand-kids to the Movies day, making my husband and I stick out like not-childlike, but not-wrinkly thumbs. As we settled in between the aching joints and the bouncing sugar highs, I cried with the grandparents and squealed in delight with the kid read more
Avatar
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 11, 2011
Back in December 2009, my husband and I went out to dinner and then strapped into three hours of 3D mayhem with James Cameron’s overrated Avatar. In no way do I encourage the 3D movie industry that has plagued theaters recently, but I am lucky to be one of those who is not hindered by the 3D experi read more
An Education
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 10, 2011
In today’s society, we are conditioned to assume that any adult man offering a ride to a teenage girl is a predator. In An Education, it seems Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is not completely blind to those precautions when she is approached by David (Peter Sarsgaard) in his sports car. He explains that, read more
Precious
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 9, 2011
A word of caution to those seeking out this film for its inspirational attributes. Precious can be hard to watch at times. By the end, we are proud of this girl for what she has accomplished and overcome. But the amount of physical and sexual abuse she suffers at the hands of her own parents is read more
A Serious Man
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 8, 2011
Even when life is quickly going from bad to worse to you-gotta-be-kidding-me terrible, no one is willing to admit that they are a modern day Job. We are always taught to seek out a silver lining and keep saying, “Everything is going to be fine.” But sometimes someone upstairs just doesn’t read more
The Blind Side
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 7, 2011
Directed by John Lee Hancock, The Blind Side is based off the true story of Michael Oher, a current NFL player who was adopted by the Touhy family who helped him increase his grades in high school enough to earn a college scholarship. Though Michael (Quinton Aaron) is a student at a private Christi read more
Up in the Air
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 6, 2011
In mid 2009, a professor would ask my entire graphic design class every week up to graduation if anyone had found a real job yet. Every week, all we could do was laugh. No one was hiring anyone in any field, much less us hopeful artists and budding writers. People were losing their jobs left and read more
Amadeus (2)
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 5, 2011
Most people can name a few key composers; Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, some may toss in Wagner. However, few people have an interest in classical music. To make a film about an 18th century composer is almost certain financial destruction, unless it has a rambunctious and saucy energy like Amadeus. read more
A Passage to India
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 4, 2011
“-I’ve scarcely spoken to an Indian since we landed. -Lucky you!” It seems most of the English people in A Passage to India have no problem carrying and displaying this disdainful, colonial attitude, holding themselves and their culture at a much higher esteem than anything in India. Throughout read more
A Soldier’s Story
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 3, 2011
Analyzing A Soldier’s Story brings me back to my college days where I took a course entitled Black Drama, where we discussed plays by and about African-Americans. After watching this film, I honestly wished we would have discussed the play it is based off of, Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play. read more
The Killing Fields
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 2, 2011
Based on true events in 1970s Cambodia, Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) is a New York Times journalist covering their civil war. Local Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) faithfully helps Schanberg cover the tragic stories of the war. When the embassies are warned against the Khmer Rouge invading the capit read more
Places in the Heart
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on Jun 1, 2011
In the middle of the depression, Edna (Sally Field) and her family seem to be one of the few lucky people in a small Texas town still living comfortably on a steady income, until her husband is accidentally killed by a drunk black man. Suddenly, after years of only doing housework and raising kids, read more
The Informer
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 30, 2011
In John Ford’s The Informer, we are taken to a foggy night in Dublin, 1922. Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) is a starving now that he’s been cast out of the organized rebels. When he sees a reward poster for his old pal, Frankie (Wallace Ford), the twenty pound reward is tempting. So tempting read more
Mutiny on the Bounty (1)
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 29, 2011
Back when I reviewed the 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, I was left with many questions about the original, mostly was the remake necessary. It was not. Not at all. The HMS Bounty is about to leave for a two year mission to Tahiti to bring back a supply of bread fruit. Ran by the notorious read more
Les Misérables (3)
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 28, 2011
Based off of Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Misérables tells the tale of Jean Valjean (Fredric March), who is sentenced to ten years in the galleys for stealing food to feed his sister’s children. The conditions are brutal and when Valjean’s sentence finally ends, he still has to live the life of read more
Top Hat
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 27, 2011
To describe classic 1930’s cinema, one would have to include a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing number. Top Hat is one of their iconic classics, the first created exclusively to feature this pair. With catchy musical numbers, great use of Astaire’s fast feet and comedic plot based on mistake read more
Ruggles of Red Gap
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 26, 2011
While visiting Paris in 1908, an American couple wins an English butler, Ruggles (Charles Laughton), in a game of poker. The wife, Effie Floud (Mary Boland), hopes that giving her husband, Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles), a personal manservant will help him rise into a more sophisticated lifestyle th read more
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 24, 2011
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is loosely based of Francis Yeats-Brown’s memoir about British soldiers protecting the boarders of India from rebellious natives. In the Northwest Frontier, Colonel Stone (Guy Standing) runs a cold and efficient camp, allowing little ceremony or grieving for those lost read more
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Best Picture Project Posted by Alyson on May 23, 2011
I’m no expert on Shakespeare, but I’ve always found his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be fun, whimsical and wonderfully weird. This film, directed by Max Reinhardt, is just that and incorporates a ton of simple, elegant early movie magic. Theseus (Ian Hunter) is about to marry Hypolita, read more