For each movie in the top 100, I’ve written a question to answer. (It would get very, very boring for me to have to write some variation on “boy howdy, you’ll never believe how good this movie is” one hundred more times.) There’s no exact sentence or word count I’m holding myself to here, but… Read More Top 250 American Movies: 61-70
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. 20) Henry Fonda / Key film – The Grapes of Wrath By the time… Read More Better than AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars: 16-20
One of the Grantland legacies I’m fond of, although I’m sure the idea didn’t start there, is the championship belt (RIP Grantland, long live Barnwell and Hyden). The purpose is to go year by year and create a list of who’s at the top of some field, which is a deceptively simple task, and one… Read More Anglophone Director Championship Belt, 1918-2018
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: 20-16
Dir. John Ford. Starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, Russell Simpson By the time he made The Grapes of Wrath, John Ford had already established himself as one of America’s best directors. Aside from an army of silent movies, he was already the man who had won Best Director for The Informer, which established a precedent… Read More The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Seeing Things Secondhand 