Home
Today's Pick
Reviews
Top 5
Categories
Contributors

Posts Tagged ‘coen brothers’

Chris Yogerst

Film Noir Revival, Anyone?

by Chris Yogerst

Picture a quaint Victorian house in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Los Angeles.  A modest insurance salesman shows up at the door, it is opened by a maid.  There is a beautiful woman at the top of the stairs; the sultry Mrs. Dietrichson, dressed in nothing more than a towel.  She gets dressed after the salesman tells her their car insurance doesn’t have them “fully covered.”

The following conversation takes place:


–

The fast, witty, and flirtatious dialogue in this scene gives us light into how a man could possibly get seduced into what was to come.  This is of course, the big murder/insurance scam from Billy Wilder’s classic 1944 film Double Indemnity.

There was a time when dark crime films were popular both with mainstream Hollywood films and B-grade productions. McCarthyism, Hollywood censorship, and World War II among other things all played a role in the shaping and growing popularity of what became known as the classic period of America’s film noir (1940’s-1950’s). (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Sep 14th 2009 at 6:44 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Film | 30 Comments

Mike Long

Look to DVD for Best of 2008

by Mike Long

Some of the biggest movies of any year aren’t in wide release until January, so some of us don’t see all them until much later. As of this week, I think I’ve seen what passes for “everything” from 2008. Herewith, my list of the Top Ten for the year just passed:

10. Sex Drive. Hilarious, under-seen, low-budget comedy starring the creative partner of the funny Michael Cera. Defeated at the box office because of its name, it features a few show-stopping scenes with Seth Green and a live-action pair of Beavis-and-Butthead types who steal the whole thing. This’ll do great on DVD. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Mar 2nd 2009 at 6:23 am in Entertainment, Reviews | 46 Comments

David Harsanyi

They Don’t Make ‘Em Like Fonda Anymore

by David Harsanyi

While I was growing up in the liberal New York, my father, a rock-ribbed Republican and immigrant from communist Eastern Europe, was prone to hold grudges against entertainers. Thus, The Boycott was instituted to include a wide array of comedians, singers and movie stars. Their crime: political sedition.

There was, of course, the obvious. Jane Fonda, whose anti-Americanism is legendary, was a complete non-starter. Nor was there to be any mention of the frosty anti-Zionist Lynn Redgrave* at the dinner table. (Though, it’s difficult to imagine any normal kid actually wanting to mention, or even knowing who the hell, Lynn Redgrave was to begin with.) Even lesser-known lights such as Costas-Gravas and Martin Sheen were also banned outright.

So, come to think of it, I should probably thank dad for insulating my young mind from a needlessly torturous encounter with “The China Syndrome” or “Missing.”

The problem is, this boycott began to expand at such a precipitous pace that by its height I was exclusively watching movies featuring Jim Nabors and Burt Reynolds. I’m relatively certain, there was no pre-teen Jewish kid in the entire country — perhaps the world — who knew more about Hal Needham flicks.

Today, I can’t find a single star worth boycotting. I’ve come to accept there will be some perfunctory plotline that will cast capitalism as the sapling of all evil; I accept that every month another pretty face will grace us with an angry political homily.

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | | Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , ,
Posted Jan 15th 2009 at 6:01 am in Celebrity News, Politics | 89 Comments