Movie Year Director Actor Actor Ranking They Live by Night 1948 Nicholas Ray Cathy O’Donnell Farley Granger 3 All That Heaven Allows 1955 Douglas Sirk Jane Wyman Rock Hudson 24 Cane River 1982 Horace B. Jenkins Richard Romain Tommye Myrick 54 My Best Girl 1927 Sam Taylor Mary Pickford Charles Rogers 62 The Crimson Kimono… Read More Better than AFI’s 100 Passions: Society Gets in the Way Cliché
Main Street on the March!, a short movie by Edward Cahn, is a forerunner for what has become, beyond the postwar years, a significant mode in World War II filmmaking. Cahn’s picture depicts an American public which is blissfully unaware that war will come to their territorial borders, and that they will send out so… Read More “We Can Begin to Live Again” – Portraits of Adjustment in Post-World War II American Cinema
I’m joining in the spirit of the year-in-review post, even though the way I watch movies isn’t really conducive to the kind of list that one usually sees at the end of the year. (Incidentally, if you happen to be a recent music aficionado, friend of the blog Matt will have his year-end list of… Read More 2018 Year-End Review: Fifty Movies
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 10-6
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 55-51
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet This is weird for me to say about him, but Charlton Heston was the right man for the job. Judah Ben-Hur spends the vast majority of this movie, which is probably about as famous for being long as it is for anything else, planning to… Read More Ben-Hur (1959)
Dir. Nicholas Ray. Starring Farley Granger, Cathy O’Donnell, Howard Da Silva A woman is like a dog, Keechie (O’Donnell) tells Bowie (Granger) one night. I knew a dog who lost his master and refused to eat food from anyone else’s hand, would let no one pet him. It is a humiliating comparison, and Keechie is… Read More They Live by Night (1948)
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Fredric March, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews In 1979, Jimmy Carter gave a speech that, in my mind, ranks with George Washington’s Farewell Address or Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural as one of the most important in the history of the American executive. The “Crisis of Confidence” speech speaks to a statistic that… Read More The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Seeing Things Secondhand 