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.
Easter Yeggs (1947, Robert McKimson)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 8, 2011
I’m sorry, I think I missed something… did Bugs Bunny just kill the Easter Bunny? Or did he just maim him? Easter Yeggs ought to be a lot better. It’s got an Easter Bunny who conspires to get out of his duties on an annual basis by acting emo, it’s got Elmer Fudd and it’s got a psychotic infant read more
Sundown (1941, Henry Hathaway)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 7, 2011
The majority of Sundown is excellent. Hathaway sort of mixes the Western and British colonial adventure genre with a World War II propaganda piece. New Mexico stands in for Kenya—it’s an interesting war film because there aren’t any Americans. Lead Bruce Cabot is playing a Canadian. Cabot does read more
Screwball Squirrel (1944, Tex Avery)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 6, 2011
Screwball Squirrel opens with the protagonist mocking a Disney-like cartoon squirrel and sending him packing. The Disney-like squirrel sounds and looks enough like Thumper from Bambi I forgot Thumper was a rabbit. This moment establishes the cartoon—because the protagonist, the never named Screwy read more
The Mating Season (1951, Mitchell Leisen)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 5, 2011
The Mating Season is an awkward social comedy of errors. I say awkward because to make the plot work, Gene Tierney has to act selfishly every time she’s supposed to be garnering sympathy. Thinking about it now, the film never even resolves her flirtations with the guy out to ruin her husband read more
The Land Unknown (1957, Virgil W. Vogel)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 2, 2011
The Land Unknown has it all—a guy in a Tyrannosaurus Rex suit (the dinosaur’s roar is suspiciously similar to Godzilla’s), lizards standing in for dinosaurs, awful rear screen projection of those lizards to make them seem large, CinemaScope, misogyny, torture, a homicidal rapist being portrayed read more
It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958, Edward L. Cahn)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 31, 2011
I watched It! The Terror from Beyond Space because I understood it’s widely considered (look at that passive voice) a precursor to Alien. Any such connection is tenuous at best. I also thought Ray Harryhausen did the special effects. No, no, he did not. If It! were a production of a middle sc read more
A Night at the Movies (1937, Roy Rowland)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 30, 2011
A Night at the Movies opens with Robert Benchley in a domestic situation (Betty Ross Clarke does a fine job playing his wife). They’re trying to figure out what movie to go see. It’s a gently amusing scene—each has seen movies without the other so they’re trying to agree on an unseen one. It’s read more
Dangerous Partners (1945, Edward L. Cahn)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 29, 2011
Much of Dangerous Partners‘s excellence comes from the script. Edmund L. Hartmann adapted Eleanor Perry’s story, which Marion Parsonnet then from wrote the screenplay from–in other words, it’s hard to know who’s responsible for the script’s brilliance. Partners h read more
Alien (1979, Ridley Scott)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 26, 2011
Can you even watch Alien if you have epilepsy? After about a hundred minutes of elegant direction, Scott relies on this strobe effect for the remainder of the film’s running time. Yes, it makes a disquieting effect, but it gets old in a few minutes and he uses it for at least fifteen. And, strobe read more
Balloon Land (1935, Ub Iwerks)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 25, 2011
For lack of a better word, Balloon Land is disturbed. It’s a cartoon about a magical place where everyone is a living balloon. Not just people, but plants too. Objects are solid though. The new balloon people–Iwerks opens showing the reproductive process–are made through one creat read more
How to Sleep (1935, Nick Grinde)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 23, 2011
How to Sleep isn’t just a funny little short featuring a man who can’t get to sleep, mostly because he keeps doing stupid things, but it’s also an interesting look at how a personality works on film. Robert Benchley wrote the film, he hosts the bookends as though it’s a serious scientific explorati read more
The Elephant Spider (1967, Piotr Kamler)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 18, 2011
Even though The Elephant Spider clearly takes place in a three dimensional world, it’s hard to think of it working if the animation weren’t so two dimensional. The short takes place around the Big Bang… probably before. A poor creature called the Elephant Spider spends its life walking in one read more
21-87 (1964, Arthur Lipsett)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 16, 2011
The title credit card of 21-87 is a human skull and the second clip (the film is a collection of somewhat unrelated clips edited together) is of an autopsy. It’s hard not to think about mortality while watching it, especially once the accompanying soundtrack—usually interviews unrelated to the clip read more
Moving (1988, Alan Metter)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 15, 2011
I really wish–even though the cameo is great–Morris Day wasn’t in Moving. If he weren’t, one could make the argument all the terrible people are white and all the good people (basically Richard Pryor and his family) are black. But Day shows up for a funny moment. Oh, and bad read more
Gross Anatomy (1989, Thom E. Eberhardt)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 12, 2011
Gross Anatomy is harmless and diverting. It’s got some good performances–Christine Lahti is fantastic, Matthew Modine barely does any work and is solid as the lead. The supporting cast has some bright points (Alice Carter and John Scott Clough), but it’s also got Daphne Zuniga. No read more
The School for Postmen (1947, Jacques Tati)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 11, 2011
There’s a lot of physical humor in The School for Postmen. Not falling down or stumbling or whatnot, but Tati setting up elaborate physical action–for example, a bicycle getting away from its rider, who gives chase. Tati plays the rider, a provincial postman, who shortcuts the bicycling read more
The Face Behind the Mask (1938, Jacques Tourneur)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 9, 2011
Until seeing The Face Behind the Mask, I had no idea there really was a mystery man in an iron mask. I’ve seen at least two of the movie adaptations, maybe three, and am aware of the source novel… I just had no idea it was based in some kind of fact. MGM calls the short a “histori read more
It’s Not Just You, Murray! (1964, Martin Scorsese)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 4, 2011
It’s hard not to watch It’s Not Just You, Murray! without keeping Scorsese’s subsequent career in mind. The film’s got some moments out of Goodfellas, but also a couple where one wonders if Francis Ford Coppola saw the short before he made the Godfather films. Not to mention Scorsese ends the read more
So You Won’t Squawk (1941, Del Lord)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 2, 2011
So You Won’t Squawk opens with a lot of expository dialogue, only not from Buster Keaton. For the first few minutes, Keaton’s treated like he’s in another silent. Except, of course, his actions are much more restrained. He’s goofing around while decorating… not too exciting. Of course, read more
Several Friends (1969, Charles Burnett)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jul 26, 2011
Several Friends is in four parts. The first part has nothing to do with the rest, except Eugene Cherry appearing in it. It’s four friends sitting in a car talking. Burnett’s composition is great, but his dialogue is even more impressive. For ninety percent of the film, Burnett’s d read more