Movie Diary 2023 (4/6-5/31): Let’s Just Get Through May to Start
Two sentences per movie. The last time I did a retro movie diary, I had three weeks to catch up on. Now I have…more than that. No sweat!
Tag: Raoul Walsh
Movie Diary 2023 (3/17-4/5): That Time I Got Really Into a Different Project and Realized That I’d Deserted a Perfectly Good Bit and Needed to Get Back to It
Okay, this is the hyperspeed version of a movie diary. Two sentences! Each of you movies gets two sentences!
2023 Movie Diary (1/1-1/5): India Songs
January 1st Every year it seems, there’s a documentary that a number of critics go gaga for and which inevitably disappoints me. In 2018 it was Minding the Gap, in 2019 it was Collective, in 2020 Time, 2021 Flee, and this past year Fire of Love. “Disappoints” is a purposefully vague term meant to cover… Read More 2023 Movie Diary (1/1-1/5): India Songs
100 American Films to Save: Origins (1883-1932)
You can find the introduction and index for this series here. Film Director Year Type Buffalo Running Eadweard Muybridge 1883 Short Annabelle Serpentine Dance William Heise and William K.L. Dickson 1895 Short Mr. Edison at Work in His Chemical Laboratory James H. White 1897 Short Pan-American Exposition by Night, 1901 Edwin S. Porter and James… Read More 100 American Films to Save: Origins (1883-1932)
The Five-Movies Test or: Which Director Has Had the Best Stretch of Consecutive Feature-Length Films in English?
Steven Hyden introduced his five-albums test more than a decade ago as a third way to judge a band, short of its popularity or its critical acclaim. While this one is not meant to stand on its own—for example, he’s not sure that either Bob Dylan nor the Rolling Stones had made five great albums… Read More The Five-Movies Test or: Which Director Has Had the Best Stretch of Consecutive Feature-Length Films in English?
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Dir. Raoul Walsh. Starring James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Gladys George The ingredients of The Roaring Twenties are almost comically simple, and the story is a little easy at times as well. In the midst of a firefight in the later days of the First World War, George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) is minding his business in a shell… Read More The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Seeing Things Secondhand 