To see my running list of the hundred greatest movie stars in American film history, click here All stars are listed with a single film which is particularly important, though not exclusively so, to understanding what makes them vital to American movies. 30) Al Pacino / Key film – Scarface In a world before the Vietnam… Read More Better than AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars: 26-30
Dir. Howard Hawks. Starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Richard Haydn Watching Ball of Fire, you get the sense that Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett were just more interested in telling a story about eight men writing an encyclopedia than they were in telling the story of an unlikely romance between a gangster’s moll, Sugarpuss O’Shea (Stanwyck)… Read More Ball of Fire (1941)
Dir. William Wyler. Starring Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins One walks away from Friendly Persuasion wishing that the film had been more serious about its characters’ beliefs. It has the seeds of a good movie in it, even an unusual one. Friendly Persuasion is episodic and tranquil in a way that mainstream American movies rarely are anymore. Would… Read More Friendly Persuasion (1956)
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: 90-86
Dir. Fred Zinnemann. Starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado The most famous reviews of High Noon are surely the grenades tossed at it by John Wayne and Howard Hawks; both men criticized the story for how it portrays a marshal who utterly fails to rouse his comrades to serve law and order. Hawks’ smear of how… Read More High Noon (1952)
The following is part of an overview of the top 100 American narrative fiction feature films, from my perspective. For an introduction to the project and an index of other entries in the series, click here. For a list of more than 800 films which I considered for the top 450 and my eligibility qualifications, click here.… Read More Better than AFI’s Top 100: 80-76
Seeing Things Secondhand 