May 2013
17 posts
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Spirits of the Dead / Tales of Mystery and...
Starring: Jane Fonda, Alain Delon, Brigitte Bardot, Peter Fonda, Terrence Stamp
Screenplay: Roger Vadim & Pascal Cousin, Louis Malle & Clement Biddle Wood, Federico Fellini & Bernardino Zapponi, Daniel Boulanger, based on Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Narrator: Vincent Price (English Language Version Only)
Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli, Claude Renoir, Giuseppe Rotunno
Music:...
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Savages (2012)
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Travolta, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro
Screenplay: Shane Salemo, Don Winslow, Oliver Stone, based on Winslow’s novel
Cinematography: Dan Mindel
Music: Adam Peters
Director: Oliver Stone
The film is a kind of experiment to see if Stone can deliver a straightforward action thriller with the flair he brings to stories in...
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There's Always Tomorrow (1956)
Starring: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Bennett
Screenplay: Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Based on the Novel by Ursula Parrott
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Music: Heinz Roemheld, Herman Stein
Director: Douglas Sirk
I’m becoming a fan of Sirk’s work, but as with other great stylists, the more over-the-top it is, the better. And the black-and-white There’s Always...
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Twist Street: constellation-funk: The elites will... →
constellation-funk:
The elites will become cogs in the machine. You will become a bright, silver, indestructible wrench that breaks it. You will become the creator of your own machine, and they will envy you your purity. And the money they inherited, they will give to you. And unlike…
Fantastic stuff by Abhay. Life is part meritocracy, part connections and part luck. I’m not a...
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That's Entertainment (1974)
Starring: Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart, Peter Lawford, Mickey Rooney
Screenplay: Jack Haley, Jr.
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Music: Henry Mancini
Director: Jack Haley, Jr.
Until this film came along, there was little nostalgia for the Golden Age of Hollywood films. Movies came and went within...
“This is a book to shake up the world, to make us put down our iPhones and head...”
– Ann Patchett has discovered Nicholas Carr’s Pulitzer Prize finalist The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and wrote about it on her Parnassus Books blog. (via wwnorton)
I wonder if I can get a blurb from her for my smoke signal piece about the dangers of electricity?
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Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris
Screenplay: John Elder (Anthony Hinds)
Cinematography: Arthur Grant
Music: James Bernard
Director: Terence Fisher
In the fourth Hammer Frankenstein film, we get a twist on the formula. Not only is Dr. Frankenstein (Cushing) not a huge player, but there’s no “monster”, per se. We get to know Hans...
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The Fugitive Kind (1959)
Starring: Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Victor Jory, Maureen Stapleton, R.G. Armstrong
Screenplay: Meade Roberts, Tennessee Williams, based on the Play, Orpheus Descending, by Tennessee Williams
Cinematography: Boris Kaufman
Music: Kenyon Hopkins
Director: Sidney Lumet
Tennessee Williams at his most overwrought and unfocused, the film finds Brando as guitar-playing drifter...
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Iron Man 3 (2013)
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Ben Kingsley
Screenplay: Drew Pearce, Shane Black
Cinematography: John Toll
Music: Brian Tyler
Director: Shane Black
We begin with Tony Stark narrating a 1999 flashback, as a drunken Tony seduces scientist Maya Hansen (Hall) and blows off nerdy scientist...
April 2013
53 posts
1 tag
Watchthe-absolute-best-posts:
tigursblood:
my heart just broke in 9 seconds..
This post has been featured on a 1000notes.com blog.
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Bite The Bullet (1975)
Starring: Gene Hackman, James Coburn, Candice Bergen, Ben Johnson, Jan-Michael Vincent, Mario Arteaga, Sally Kirkland, Dabney Coleman
Screenplay: Richard Brooks
Cinematography: Harry Stradling, Jr.
Music: Alex North
Director: Richard Brooks
Hackman and Coburn play Sam Clayton and Luke Mitchell, former Rough Riders making their way in 1906 to a 700 mile horse race. Sam (Hackman) is an...
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Early Spring (1956)
Starring: Chikage Awajima, Ryo Ikebe, Keiko Kishi
Screenplay: Kogo Noda, Yasujiro Ozu
Cinematography: Yuharu Atsuta
Music: Kojun Saito
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Ozu is a filmmaker I’m just getting into and I would cautiously say I know enough to know I can’t write with authority on all his strategies, how he compares with other Japanese directors of the same era, or recurrent...
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The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)
Starring: Butch Patrick, Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, Candy Candido, Hans Conried, June Foray, Patti Gilbert, Shepard Menken, Cliff Norton, Larry Thor, Les Tremayne, Michael Earl
Screenplay: Norton Juster, Sam Rosen, based on the Novel by Norton Juster
Cinematography: Lester Shorr
Music: Dean Elliott
Director: Chuck Jones, Abe Levitow, Dave Monaham (live action)
It was odd to happen upon this...
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Jeff, Who Lives At Home (2011)
Starring: Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Judy Greer, Susan Sarandon, Rae Dawn Chong
Screenplay: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Cinematography: Jas Shelton
Music: Michael Andrews
Directors: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
As a people, we want to make sense of a harsh, confusing and seemingly indifferent world. We want to feel our suffering serves a purpose, or be told who or what is causing that suffering. We...
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Solaris (1972)
Starring: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Juri Jarvet, Vladislav Dvorzhensky, Nikolai Grinko, Anatoly Solonitsyn
Screenplay: Andrei Tarkovsky, Fridrikh Gorenshtein, based on the Novel by Slanislaw Lem
Cinematography: Vadim Yusov
Music: Eduard Artemyev
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Despite the director’s branding the film, ultimately, a failure, Solaris ranks up there with 2001: A...
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The Gold Rush (1925, 1942)
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Georgia Hale
Screenplay: Charlie Chaplin
Cinematography: Roland Totheroh
Music: Charlie Chaplin, Carli Elinor, Max Terr, James L. Fields
Director: Charlie Chaplin
The film he wanted most to be remembered for, The Gold Rush is the Platonic Ideal of Chaplin films, a perfect blend of innovative comedic set pieces and heart-tugging...
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Poor Taste In Movies, Good Taste In Ladies'...
This guy. He’s efficient, though, using the same thoughts for both Argo and Citizen Kane.
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Dark Shadows (2012)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloe Grace Moretz, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Bella Heathcote
Story: John August, Seth Grahame-Smith
Screenplay: Seth Grahame-Smith, based on the Series created by Dan Curtis
Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel
Music: Danny Elfman
Director: Danny Elfman
I approached this film as not a fan of the Dark Shadows series (I...
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The Beatles Song By Song - "Hold Me Tight"
Considered by many the weakest track on With The Beatles, “Hold Me Tight”, mostly composed by Paul McCartney, is devalued even by the group. Lennon called it a pretty poor effort, and McCartney himself thought of it as just a “work song”, something that was hammered into a shape just acceptable enough to be album filler. It was actually first recorded for the first album,...
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The Rules of the Game (1939)
Starring: Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Marcel Dalio, Jean Renoir, Roland Toutain
Screenplay: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch
Cinematography: Jean-Paul Alphen, Jean Bachelet
Music: Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, Mozart
Director: Jean Renoir
Considered by many one of the greatest films of all time, The Rules of the Game is a kind of tragedy of manners about the French upper class just prior to World War...
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Top 5 Gay Hip-Hop Artists
1. Lil’ Wang
2. Jizz Markie
3. Beastie Bears
4. Gay-Z
5. Kurtis Blow
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Knock On Any Door (1949)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, John Derek, George Macready, Allene Roberts, Candy Toxton
Screenplay: John Monks, Jr., Daniel Taradash, based on the Novel by Willard Motley
Cinematography: Burnettt Guffey
Music: George Antheil
Director: Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray had already lensed two features when he hooked up with Bogart for the leading man’s first film with his own Santana Productions, but...
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Crowded House - Chocolate Cake
“The band of the night take you to ethereal heights over dinner And you wander the streets never reaching the heights that you seek And the sugar that dripped from the violin’s bow made the children go crazy Put a hole in the tooth of a hag”
Undoubtedly the best song to mention Tammy Faye Bakker, and somehow the way Neil Finn sings, “Here comes Missis Hairy Legs”...
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The Law and Jake Wade (1958)
Starring: Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, DeForest Kelley
Screenplay: William Bowers, based on the Novel by Marvin H. Albert
Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Music: Fred Steiner
Director: John Sturges
Like Wyatt Earp, Jake Wade (Taylor) was an outlaw who’s now a lawman, which doesn’t earn him any breaks when his old partner in crime...
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20 Reasons To Hate Margaret Thatcher
Don’t forget.
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The Beatles Song By Song - "Roll Over Beethoven"
This ranks as one of the most faithful of the Beatles’ cover songs, using a similar arrangement to Chuck Berry’s 1956 original classic, but rocking on for a few extra bars. Where it differs is that there isn’t any piano on the Beatles’ version, and the recording itself is much more dynamically produced. To be clear, there’s a lot of appeal to the more upfront,...
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My Forbidden Past (1951)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas, Lucile Watson, Janis Carter
Adaptation: Leopold Atlas, from the Novel, Carriage Entrance by Polan Banks
Screenplay: Marion Parsonnet
Cinematography: Harry J. Wild
Music: Friedrich Hollaender
Director: Robert Stevenson
In 1890s New Orleans, Dr. Robert Lucas (Mitchum) returns from South Africa with a new wife, intending to rub it in the...
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The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
Starring: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Ona Munson
Screenplay: Josef von Sternberg, Geza Herczeg, Jules Furthman, based on the Play by John Colton
Cinematography: Paul Ivano
Music: Richard Hageman
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Sternberg’s second-to-last Hollywood film finds him attempting to recapture the magic of films he had done with Marlene Dietrich, specifically...
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