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.
Hellraiser (1987, Clive Barker)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 12, 2009
So, Hellraiser is supposed to be scary, right? Because it seems like a poorly directed, completely illogical (if a wall split open in front of you, would you walk into it?) mess. It’s only ninety-four minutes, including credits, but it’s this exceptionally boring “scary” mov read more
The Lost Boys (1987, Joel Schumacher)
The Stop Button Posted by on Oct 11, 2009
Not being a girl, I never really got The Lost Boys. I didn’t even see it until I was in my late teens, hunting down Jeffrey Boam’s screenwriting credits. Seeing it now, it’s not just clear how much the film wastes wasted Michael Chapman’s cinematography or how Schumacher mak read more
Thief (1981, Michael Mann)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 14, 2009
With Thief, Mann leaves plain an American standard–the gangster movie. Halfway through the film, I wondered how it fit, as the energy the film opens with is gone. The film moves these awkwardly handled scenes without much flare. These scenes are presented as the standard dramatic scenes, but read more
The Tomb of Dracula (1980, Okazaki Minoru)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 7, 2009
I read somewhere the Japanese started producing anime because there was no way to combat live action American imports. With its narration and lame plotting (it somehow isn’t epical–maybe because Tomb of Dracula was produced for television, complete with convenient commercial breaks), it read more
The Deep (1977, Peter Yates)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 3, 2009
I’m a little surprised Donna Summer did the theme song for The Deep, seeing as how she’s black and, according to The Deep, every black person is a villain of some kind or another. Even with his blond locks, I’ve never thought of Nick Nolte as particularly aryan (maybe because his read more
Lethal Weapon (1987, Richard Donner)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 29, 2009
One of the more impressive things about Lethal Weapon is Danny Glover convincingly playing a fifty year-old at, approximately, the age of forty. It’s never a problem in a film rife with problems. First, Lethal Weapon‘s plot doesn’t really make any sense. There are huge jumps in lo read more
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989, Richard Donner)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 29, 2009
Lethal Weapon 2 opens with the Looney Tunes music. It’s appropriate. I don’t think any other film series has so successfully adapted the sitcom to the big screen. The whole point of Lethal Weapon 2 is not to think–maybe as a ten year-old, I believed the South Africans could get aw read more
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 7, 2009
The best thing about A Nightmare on Elm Street is the font in the opening titles. It’s something sans serif and it’s slightly off and it looks good. To be fair to the movie’s reputation, I did jump twice, both times at the end; maybe because it was waking me up. As opposed to enco read more
Humanoids from the Deep (1980, Barbara Peters)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 3, 2009
Maybe it’s James Horner’s score–which is solid, if a little too Jaws inspired–but if you squint your eyes and turn off your brain, Humanoids from the Deep almost seems like a real movie. It’s not, of course, it’s a New World picture. It’s got to be hard for read more
Central Airport (1933, William A. Wellman)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 2, 2009
Maybe the film should have been called The Lecher, the Floozie and the Rube, because Central Airport doesn’t have anything to do with the plot. I kept waiting for it to turn into a Grand Hotel at an airport, but it’s really a soaper about pilot Richard Barthelmess who romances air show read more
Mid summer movie quiz
The Stop Button Posted by on Jul 30, 2009
From Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. I read about the quiz at Tommy Salami’s Pluck You, Too! read more
Three Days of the Condor (1975, Sydney Pollack)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jul 26, 2009
The espionage genre has gotten so stupid over the last couple decades, it’s hard to even imagine how a mediocre entry could be good. Now, it’s watching the least worst. Three Days of the Condor is such a peculiar film, even though it’s wholly commercial–I mean, Dino De Laure read more
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942, Harold Young)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 14, 2009
The Mummy’s Tomb is better than its predecessor, without a doubt. Harold Young’s direction is strong. It’s not quite scary, but he’s at least going for scary. It’s sort of like an episode of “Cheers;” it takes place in small town Massachusetts and thereR read more
The Vampire Bat (1933, Frank R. Strayer)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 14, 2009
It’s hard not to be, at least, somewhat impressed with The Vampire Bat, if only because it came out in 1933 as a knockoff Universal horror pictures. Except at this point, there’d only been Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy. The Vampire Bat brilliantly resembles a Universal horror pict read more
The Mummy’s Hand (1940, Christy Cabanne)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 7, 2009
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this film. There’s no discernible reason for it to be called The Mummy’s Hand. I can only guess it has to do with the way they cut the trailer, maybe having the hand come out as a shocker. It’s not a traditional Universal horror fi read more
The Saint Strikes Back (1939, John Farrow)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 7, 2009
The Saint Strikes Back is George Sanders’s first Saint film. It’s strong, even though John Farrow might not be the right director for it. The script’s great, playing to Sanders’s strengths of being the charming cad, but Farrow’s close-ups are poorly conceived and some read more
Badge 373 (1973, Howard W. Koch)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 31, 2009
Badge 373 sounded good because it’s seventies Robert Duvall (before he was eighties and nineties Robert Duvall). My high hopes were quickly dashed. It’s poorly written, with lousy direction. It’s amateurish, far beneath Duvall’s abilities. I thought Howard W. Koch was somebo read more
You Only Live Twice (1967, Lewis Gilbert)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 31, 2009
My wife walked out on You Only Live Twice. She got up and left about forty minutes in. I finished it because I figured forty minutes was halfway and I could make it. It was tough. The film’s memorable because of the beginning, where James Bond dies. It’s an interesting scene, even thoug read more
The Oklahoman (1957, Francis D. Lyon)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 14, 2009
The Oklahoman is–well, I don’t want to sell it short because its discussion of racism and prejudice are rather straightforward and singular for pictures of its era–but at its core, the film’s a love triangle between fifty-two year-old Joel McCrea, thirty-five year-old Barbar read more
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 13, 2009
According to John Travolta (who was originally cast and probably wasn’t just making it up–as it was pre-Battlefield Earth and he was still somewhat legitimate), when ABC wouldn’t let him out of his “Welcome Back, Kotter” contract, Malick was forced to cast Richard Gere read more