Sorry, been away a long time and prob'ly nobody is even reading this anymore, but I'm about to start a new in-depth examination of the films of Shaw Brothers Studios, and just in case there's anybody still around, I figured I'd leave a link to the introduction (no, there aren't any actual film discussions up yet, it's just a statement of intent). ( Read more... )

I've been trying to figure out why this particular celebrity death matters so much to me, in a way that none has since Jim Henson. Part of it, I think, is that David Bowie was more than his music. I mean, while I love his music I prefer his contemporaries, Pink Floyd. I own many Bowie albums, but all of Floyd's. Probably I listen to them more often ( Read more... )

One of the reasons I’m glad to be home is that Richmond winters are pretty mild. They don’t last long and they aren’t generally the really real cold that I encountered when I lived in the Midwest. But now and then the temperature does actually drop, and tonight on the walk home it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit ( Read more... )

Facebook conversations are...well, sub-optimal. The site is good at what it does, but it isn’t great for really discussing things at length, for several reasons. One of them is this: even assuming that you and the person you’re talking to manage to be concise and still eloquent, a few days later that conversation has been flooded by all the other ( Read more... )

Richmond doesn’t get much snow. I spent the first 19 years of my life here, and in that time we got exactly two real snowstorms, one in the late Seventies and one in the winter of 1986-7. Even when the rest of the Commonwealth gets hammered, we get nothing. A few years ago, all of Virginia was under a foot-deep blanket of snow; Charlottesville got ( Read more... )

There have been, what, 85 or 90 Best Picture Oscar winners so far? Somewhere around there. And there have been 47 films that I’ve rated 10/10, a more select list and (if I may say so) a much better one. I flatter myself that most film fans would rather watch my tens back-to-back than all the Best Pictures, if for no other reason than my list is ( Read more... )

So there was the Monday Matinee today.

This week there were three movies I was interested in: Selma, Paddington, and Inherent Vice. Selma started too late for me to get to work on time afterwards, so that left Paddington and Inherent Vice. I decided last night upon Paddington, because after years of disappointment I’ve finally realized that Paul ( Read more... )

Ordinarily, this is the time of year when I complain about all the films, actors, or technicians who didn’t get Oscar nominations. I’m usually arguing out of ardor more than knowledge, though; until this year I hadn't really gone to the movies a lot since the early 90s, and have watched things as they came out on DVD. Since the industry likes to ( Read more... )

Kind of pleased, but also slightly embarrassed, tonight. Two facts are responsible for this:

Fact one: Catch-22 is one of my all-time favorite novels. If you asked me to name the mythical Great American Novel, I would say Catch-22 every time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it. Mama just bought me a lovely hardcover edition as a Bogey ( Read more... )

I had a thought tonight that I felt the need to share. It’s about the legendary bad movie Battlefield Earth, the epic failure to adaptat L. Ron Hubbard’s novel. I could totally write a whole post about the flaws in this film, and prob’ly a separate one about its troubled production history, but that’s not my purpose here ( Read more... )