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.
Encore (1951, Pat Jackson, Anthony Pelissier, and Harold French)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 25, 2017
With the exception of some overly confident rear screen projection and a problematic middle story, Encore is an almost entirely successful anthology of three W. Somerset Maugham stories. Each story has a different director and screenwriter; otherwise the crew is the same. Maugham introduces each st read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 20, 2017
For the majority of Batman’s fifteen chapters, the serial has a set formula when it comes to the action. Batman (Lewis Wilson) and Robin (Douglas Croft) get into fist fights with the same five or six thugs. Croft gets beat up early while Wilson takes on at least two of the villain, then two o read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 15: The Doom of the Rising Sun
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 19, 2017
Titling the final chapter, The Doom of the Rising Sun, might give away whether or not J. Carrol Naish succeeds with his awful plan–which Batman never quite defines and sort of forgets about anyway. The screenwriters try to drum up some excitement as Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft finally face off read more
Bluebeard (2017, Lee Soo-youn)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 19, 2017
Bluebeard runs just under two hours. The last forty-five minutes of it basically undo–or seem to undo–everything in the first seventy-five minutes. Writer and director Lee doesn’t want to answer the questions the film’s mysteries raise, but reveal entirely new mysteries with entirely new answers. read more
Disco Pigs (2001, Kirsten Sheridan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 18, 2017
Disco Pigs might not be the best title for Disco Pigs, but it’s hard to imagine any other title for it so an imperfect one is better than a wrong one. Maybe disco had some appropriate cultural Irish relevancy. Or maybe playwright Enda Walsh, who adapted the screenplay himself, couldn’t think of read more
Trio (1950, Ken Annakin and Harold French)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 18, 2017
Trio is a lopsided anthology of three W. Somerset Maugham short story adaptations. The first two segments, directed by Ken Annakin, are deliberate, thoughtful, wry comedies. The last one, directed by Harold French–and taking up over half the film’s runtime–is something of a traged read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 14: The Executioner Strikes
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 18, 2017
The impossible occurs, one chapter until the finish, with The Executioner Strikes actually having a satisfying cliffhanger resolution. A somewhat satisfying one. Better than any of the others. After that high point, unfortunately, the chapter gets pretty bad for a while. First, it’s dumb, with Lewi read more
FM (1978, John A. Alonzo)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 18, 2017
After a somewhat linear, pratical first act, FM begins to meander through a series of vingettes. Occasionally these end in a fade to black, usually when there’s supposed to be some deep meaning to the scene, but occasionally just when it’s time to move an interminate period into the fut read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 13: Eight Steps Down
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 17, 2017
Despite the previous chapter suggesting a cliffhanger, turns out the resolution is more about Douglas Croft and William Austin’s impatience than anything else. But as Batman is now seventy-some percent complete, things start happening in Eight Steps Down. Though nothing about eight steps. There’s read more
Vesper (2017, Keyvan Sheikhalishahi)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 16, 2017
Vesper has something like six “gotcha” reveals, which is a lot for a killer. Especially since Vesper runs twenty-three minutes. And the first gotcha is in the first five minutes. The experience of watching the film quickly becomes waiting for director Sheikhalishahi to spring another one. The story read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 12: Embers of Evil
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 16, 2017
The chapter opens with Batman leaving some guy to get killed–it was hinted at in the cliffhanger, which resolves even more stupidly than I expected, but I sort of assumed Batman wasn’t going to get some guy killed. Nope, he’s fine with it. J. Carrol Naish gets more screen time this chapter than read more
Captains Courageous (1937, Victor Fleming)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 15, 2017
As Captains Courageous enters its third act, Spencer Tracy (as a Portugese fisherman) reminds Freddie Bartholomew (a spoiled blue blood kid Tracy rescues after he falls overboard from an ocean liner) it’s almost time to go home to his regular life. It’s a shock for Bartholomew, but also read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 11: A Nipponese Trap
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 15, 2017
So, even though the title is A Nipponese Trap, there’s no trap in the chapter. Unless it’s when the bad guys bail out Lewis Wilson–in his thug disguise–so they can run him over. Except Douglas Croft and William Austin have already bailed him out, yet they don’t go to pick him up. The bad guys read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 10: Flying Spies
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 14, 2017
And now Batman is back to the misleading chapter titles. There aren’t spies in Flying Spies, there’s only one spy on the plane. After the laziest cliffhanger resolution in the series so far–and there have been some lazy ones–Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft take a break from c read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 9: The Sign of the Sphinx
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 13, 2017
Incredibly, Douglas Croft’s Robin doesn’t get beat up this chapter. Sure, Lewis Wilson still manages to get pummeled, but Croft makes it through without being incapacitated once. Well, except in the cliffhanger resolution and then only temporarily. After quickly ridding themselves of Sh read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 8: Lured by Radium
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 12, 2017
Lured by Radium actually does refer to the content of the chapter. It’s almost getting to be a habit for Batman. Unfortunately, all the serial’s other bad habits are in play here. The recap and resolution of the previous chapter takes a fifth of the runtime. Once again, boring resolutio read more
Quartet (1948, Ralph Smart, Harold French, Arthur Crabtree, and Ken Annakin)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 11, 2017
Quartet opens with what turns out to be a questionable introduction from source story author W. Somerset Maugham. In the rather stodgy introduction to the film–featuring adaptations of four personal favorites from Maugham’s extensive bibliography–Maugham indentifies adjectives critics have given read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 7: The Phoney Doctor
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 11, 2017
The best part of The Phoney Doctor is Charles Middleton. He’s the rough and tumble prospector, albeit one who falls for a phoney doctor, but he’s got personality and presence. He’s unexpected. Everything else in Batman, down to Batman and Robin getting beat up yet again, is predic read more
Even the Rain (2010, Icíar Bollaín)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 11, 2017
Even the Rain has a particular narrative distance as it starts, then changes to another one a little later on. Director Bollaín doesn’t transition gradually between these two vantage points; she keeps the pacing of scenes and how they flow into each other, just from the new distance. The film has read more
Batman (1943, Lambert Hillyer), Chapter 6: Poison Peril
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Aug 10, 2017
Poison Peril actually fits a lot into the chapter. Narrative too, not just racism. Lots of racism this time around, with the screenwriters rushing to fit in slurs. There’s the exceptionally weak cliffhanger resolution–it’s like they aren’t even cliffhangers as much as pauses in action–J. Carrol read more