To celebrate its centennial, over the course of 2012, Universal Studios will release 13 of their masterpieces on Blu-ray after a full restoration. Titles include, “The Birds” “Bride of Frankenstein,” “All Quiet On the Western Front,” “Buck Privates, “Jaws,” “The Sting,” and “Schindler’s List.”  Appropriately enough, this campaign starts off with that most American of films, director Robert Mulligan’s stunning 1962 adaptation of novelist Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Set in the Depression-era South in 1936, our narrator (Kim Stanley) is Scout Finch (a remarkable Mary Badham), who tells the story as an adult looking back on three defining summers of her childhood as an impoverished tomboy who lives in a small town with her older brother Jem (Phillip Alford) and their father Atticus (Gregory Peck), a lawyer and widower in his middle age.

The story’s themes are as rich as they come. We see everything through the eyes of the children and though they don’t realize it at the time, this is when they lose their innocence — thanks to events that involve the very worst kind of bigotry, the kind that leads to death and murder. But they will also learn to overcome their own childish prejudices when, as children will, a man they turned into a boogeyman turns out to be just the opposite.

For his portrayal of the quietly heroic Finch, Peck would win one of the biggest no-brainer Oscars in Hollywood history. In the special features, Peck’s co-stars and others involved in the film’s production (he would remain friends with many of them, and Harper Lee, until his death in 2003) compliment the actor by saying he won an Oscar playing himself. That might well be the case, but possessing certain qualities and having the talent required to portray them on screen are two entirely different things. 

(more…)

Robert Duvall has been an American cinematic icon for nearly five decades, ever since his memorable debut as Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Since then, he’s been in some of the greatest films of all time, as well as what is considered one of TV’s greatest accomplishments with “Lonesome Dove.”

Better yet, Duvall is a proud conservative who recently made it clear in an interview on Fox News Network’s “Huckabee” show that he did not vote for Obama, and if given the chance, won’t vote for him again. That flinty sense of humor combined with an effortless modesty makes him one of the most down-to-earth and human of stars, and has carried him through work in numerous independent projects that he had his heart into and staked his reputation upon.

Another hallmark of Duvall is his Christian faith, which he won’t discuss in particulars, but which shines through in some of his films as a vibrant example of walking the walk rather than just talking the talk. He put $5 million of his own money up for the budget of 1997’s“The Apostle,” a film he wrote, starred in and directed about a tormented Pentecostal preacher who faces a period of reckoning. (more…)

My name is Bob Ewell. We’re all Bob Ewells if you check with the Left and their media mouthpieces.

Who is Bob Ewell? Well, if you’ve ever watched the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, you’d know that Ewell is the racist character who destroyed the life of an innocent man.

To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic American film, based on Harper Lee’s novel of life in 1936 Alabama and racial injustice that resided there. (more…)