UPtv is your place for a festive night of songs and celebrations with a Grammy nominated country artist this holiday season. Multi-platinum selling country star Josh Turner is coming to UPtv with his King Size Manger Christmas special, premiering on Friday, November 18 at 7/6c, and TV Insider has your exclusive first look at the trailer. The special is part of the network’s Most Uplifting Christmas Ever. As you can see in the video above, Turner will be performing his unique interpretation of iconic holiday classics and originals from his first-ever Christmas album, King Size Manger, on a night promised to be festive and full of songs and celebration. He’ll discuss special holiday traditions with hosts Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase. And he’ll be joined by special guests Pat McLaughlin, Rhonda Vincent, and the Turner family. Watch the video above for a look at all that, including clips from his performances.
- 11/4/2022
- TV Insider
It's astonishing to see how the roster of silent clowns are still influencing how an entire medium is portrayed. From Charlie Chaplin to Harold Lloyd, each of them played an integral part in the pantheon of comedy in the silent era. The stone-faced Buster Keaton always ended up being my favorite. No one could replicate the dispirited look in his eyes, which usually hoodwinked anyone who came across his path.
Buster's experience on the vaudeville stage would ultimately prepare him for one of the most illustrious runs of the silent era. His brand of expressionless deadpan usually kept you at arm's length. You wouldn't know quite what he was thinking until he showed you with the kind of body language only he could pull off. He wasn't the only silent clown that got into stunt escapades. Out of all their daredevil exploits, however, Keaton's were among some of the most insane.
Buster's experience on the vaudeville stage would ultimately prepare him for one of the most illustrious runs of the silent era. His brand of expressionless deadpan usually kept you at arm's length. You wouldn't know quite what he was thinking until he showed you with the kind of body language only he could pull off. He wasn't the only silent clown that got into stunt escapades. Out of all their daredevil exploits, however, Keaton's were among some of the most insane.
- 9/4/2022
- by Matthew Bilodeau
- Slash Film
Go-go music is the soundtrack of Washington, D.C. Despite a four-decade history and a few national hits like “Da Butt,” by Experience Unlimited (E.U.), and “Shake Your Thang,” by Salt-n-Pepa with E.U., the funk offshoot, often referred to as a cousin of hip-hop, is a proudly regional music — born in the nation’s capital and embraced and supported by fans in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. A trip to the city will reveal the music blasting from automobiles and businesses as new bands carry on the...
- 6/16/2022
- by Jay Quan
- Rollingstone.com
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has revealed that it will debut six more of its classic films restored on 4K Ultra HD disc for the first time ever.
The “Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2” will include “The Social Network,” “Taxi Driver,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Anatomy of a Murder,” “Oliver!” and “Stripes.”
In addition to the six restored films, the set will include an exclusive Blu-ray bonus disc that will feature 20 short films from the Columbia Pictures library all presented in high definition. Curated from over 80 years of the studio’s history, this selection of shorts will showcase a wide scope of creative output across both live-action and animation mediums.
The library of short films will include “Umpa,” “The Three Stooges: Disorder In The Court,” “Charley Chase: Man Bites Lovebug,” “Color Rhapsodies: The Little Match Girl,” “Charley Chase: The Sap Takes A Wrap,” “Color Rhapsodies: Dog, Cat and Canary,...
The “Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2” will include “The Social Network,” “Taxi Driver,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Anatomy of a Murder,” “Oliver!” and “Stripes.”
In addition to the six restored films, the set will include an exclusive Blu-ray bonus disc that will feature 20 short films from the Columbia Pictures library all presented in high definition. Curated from over 80 years of the studio’s history, this selection of shorts will showcase a wide scope of creative output across both live-action and animation mediums.
The library of short films will include “Umpa,” “The Three Stooges: Disorder In The Court,” “Charley Chase: Man Bites Lovebug,” “Color Rhapsodies: The Little Match Girl,” “Charley Chase: The Sap Takes A Wrap,” “Color Rhapsodies: Dog, Cat and Canary,...
- 6/14/2021
- by Antonio Ferme
- Variety Film + TV
One of the simultaneous joys and embarrassments of attending festivals that include retrospective or revival sections is the haltingly thrilling sensation of discovering a film or personage that, for some, may not be a discovery at all—that for you, may just be your own humbling ignorance. Here at Locarno, I’ve already found my favorite film, though it may be one others already know about: Manfred Blank and Wolf-Eckart Bühler’s Leuchtturm des Chaos (Pharos of Chaos), a happenstance documentary made in 1983 when Bühler tried to find Hollywood actor Sterling Hayden to get permission to adapt one of his books. The film is essentially a two-hour interview with the great actor, who, at the age of 67, is still a physical giant and gorgeous, speaking with booming voice and staccato enunciation; though at this point in life, he is sodden with alcohol and has retreated to his clutterbox houseboat moored in a quay in France.
- 8/10/2018
- MUBI
Hollywood child actor who was one of the last surviving performers from the silent film era
Lassie Lou Ahern, who has died aged 97, enjoyed a substantial career as a child actor in 1920s Hollywood, and was one of the last surviving performers from the silent film era.
She made her debut aged three, in Hal Roach’s first full-length movie, an adaptation of The Call of the Wild (1923), and soon was regularly cast in Charley Chase comedies and as the object of rescue in the popular serials of Helen Holmes. In pictures such as Webs of Steel (1925), Ahern and Holmes carried out their own dangerous stunt work. She appeared in productions by independent producers (The Dark Angel for Samuel Goldwyn, Hell’s Highroad for Cecil B DeMille, Robes of Sin for William Russell, all in 1925), and features at major studios (John Ford’s now lost film Thank You and Excuse Me starring Norma Shearer,...
Lassie Lou Ahern, who has died aged 97, enjoyed a substantial career as a child actor in 1920s Hollywood, and was one of the last surviving performers from the silent film era.
She made her debut aged three, in Hal Roach’s first full-length movie, an adaptation of The Call of the Wild (1923), and soon was regularly cast in Charley Chase comedies and as the object of rescue in the popular serials of Helen Holmes. In pictures such as Webs of Steel (1925), Ahern and Holmes carried out their own dangerous stunt work. She appeared in productions by independent producers (The Dark Angel for Samuel Goldwyn, Hell’s Highroad for Cecil B DeMille, Robes of Sin for William Russell, all in 1925), and features at major studios (John Ford’s now lost film Thank You and Excuse Me starring Norma Shearer,...
- 2/26/2018
- by Jeffrey Crouse
- The Guardian - Film News
The Notebook is the North American home for Locarno Film Festival Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian's blog. Chatrian has been writing thoughtful blog entries in Italian on Locarno's website since he took over as Director in late 2012, and you can find the English translations here on the Notebook as they're published.Appreciated and admired though he was by the greatest American filmmakers of his time (Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch), Leo McCarey isn’t held in the same regard today. While far from an obscure director, he isn’t considered a master of comedy by critics and audiences. The man who launched the careers of Laurel & Hardy and Cary Grant, and let the Marx Brothers make their zaniest film (Duck Soup), is not as well known as the performers he worked with. This lack of recognition may be due to the difficulty in finding a through-line in his work. While...
- 12/12/2017
- MUBI
The marvelous season of Leo McCarey films at New York's Museum of Modern Art features a few real rarities and a whole passel of acknowledged classics: features like Duck Soup and Make Way for Tomorrow and hilarious shorts programs featuring Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase and others. Perhaps the rarest item is Part Time Wife, a 1930 rehearsal for the greatness of The Awful Truth, complete with Airedale, but only slightly less obscure is late-career entry Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), a strange quasi-satire which folds together several late-fifties concerns without actually addressing them or working out what it is, or what it's for.Whether it's actually true that right-wingers can't do satirical comedy, McCarey certainly lost the fire that made Duck Soup so truly anarchic during the years when he moved away from comedy to make beloved, sentimental and sincere dramas. Returning to broad comedy is something many of his fan probably wished he would do,...
- 7/21/2016
- MUBI
It’s been a while since I shared some seasonal pin-ups, so why not ring in the new year with a sampling of fun photos from decades past? It was a publicity department’s job to round up actresses under contract and set up photo shoots for every holiday, which resulted in free publicity for the stars and studios in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the globe. We are the latter-day beneficiaries of this tradition and I’m happy to offer some stills I’ve never used before. Enjoy! Four cuties salute the arrival of 1934 at Hal Roach studios. Since the caption is missing from this still I must resort to guesswork, but that looks like Charley Chase’s leading lady Betty...
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- 1/1/2015
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Talk about a calm before the storm. This is one of those rare weekends where there are no new wide releases hitting multiplexes, but that means there are a lot of specialty films taking advantage of that fact and sneaking into area theaters. You can see all of this week's new releases below, but first we'll take a look at some of the unique repertory screenings booked around town over the next week.
The Austin Film Society is starting a three-week series turning the spotlight on comedian Jerry Lewis. It begins tonight at the Marchesa with one of his biggest hits, 1963's The Nutty Professor. Screening from a Dcp (digital print), it also plays again on Sunday evening. On Wednesday, they'll feature Rodrigo Reyes' Purgatorio for Doc Nights. The Afs website describes it as a "lyrical meditation on the border between the Us and Mexico." Thursday night brings another...
The Austin Film Society is starting a three-week series turning the spotlight on comedian Jerry Lewis. It begins tonight at the Marchesa with one of his biggest hits, 1963's The Nutty Professor. Screening from a Dcp (digital print), it also plays again on Sunday evening. On Wednesday, they'll feature Rodrigo Reyes' Purgatorio for Doc Nights. The Afs website describes it as a "lyrical meditation on the border between the Us and Mexico." Thursday night brings another...
- 12/5/2014
- by Matt Shiverdecker
- Slackerwood
Lucky Star is the Friday night gala. The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Film has begun in Bo'ness, West Lothian, and celebrates its fourth edition with a gala screening of Frank Borzage's Lucky Star tonight, featuring live accompaniment by Neil Brand.
Other highlights include a Jeely Jar Saturday morning screening (March 15) featuring Buster Keaton’s The Blacksmith (showing for the first time with half a reel of lost footage) alongside two unsung comedy heroes of the silent screen- the anarchic and inventive Charley Bowers and master of the comedy-of-embarrassment Charley Chase.
They will also host the first ever Scottish performance by The Aljoscha Zimmermann Ensemble with Nosferatu director F.W Murnau’s influential masterpiece of German cinema Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) (March 15)
Plus Jane Gardner has created and will perform an exclusive new score for Yasujirô Ozu’s take on the American gangster genre Dragnet Girl (Hijôsen No Onna) (March 15). Featuring good-time gals,...
Other highlights include a Jeely Jar Saturday morning screening (March 15) featuring Buster Keaton’s The Blacksmith (showing for the first time with half a reel of lost footage) alongside two unsung comedy heroes of the silent screen- the anarchic and inventive Charley Bowers and master of the comedy-of-embarrassment Charley Chase.
They will also host the first ever Scottish performance by The Aljoscha Zimmermann Ensemble with Nosferatu director F.W Murnau’s influential masterpiece of German cinema Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) (March 15)
Plus Jane Gardner has created and will perform an exclusive new score for Yasujirô Ozu’s take on the American gangster genre Dragnet Girl (Hijôsen No Onna) (March 15). Featuring good-time gals,...
- 3/14/2014
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Review Anastasia Klimchynskaya 31 Oct 2013 - 07:13
Supernatural restores Anastasia's faith with a bonkers but very enjoyable episode. Here's her review of Slumber Party...
This review contains spoilers.
9.4 Slumber Party
I was a little wary of what Supernatural would offer me this week after the rather unfortunate episode of last week. Thankfully, Slumber Party was a marked improvement over I’m No Angel, and while it may have had a rather lacklustre plot, it’s a stunning episode in a lot of other respects.
Slumber Party sees the return of Charlie Bradbury, a fan favorite since her introduction on the show (and who doesn’t like Felicia Day?). She always brightens up the show with her geekiness and the quirkiness of her episodes, and Robbie Thompson, who has so far written all of her appearances, really gets her – and us viewers. He’s always managed to use her character to great...
Supernatural restores Anastasia's faith with a bonkers but very enjoyable episode. Here's her review of Slumber Party...
This review contains spoilers.
9.4 Slumber Party
I was a little wary of what Supernatural would offer me this week after the rather unfortunate episode of last week. Thankfully, Slumber Party was a marked improvement over I’m No Angel, and while it may have had a rather lacklustre plot, it’s a stunning episode in a lot of other respects.
Slumber Party sees the return of Charlie Bradbury, a fan favorite since her introduction on the show (and who doesn’t like Felicia Day?). She always brightens up the show with her geekiness and the quirkiness of her episodes, and Robbie Thompson, who has so far written all of her appearances, really gets her – and us viewers. He’s always managed to use her character to great...
- 10/31/2013
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
If I had to choose an all-time favorite movie studio, it would be Hal Roach’s, where comedy was king in the 1920s and ‘30s. Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase, and Thelma Todd were among his brightest stars. They were surrounded by directors, writers, cameramen, prop men, and other specialists who knew comedy inside and out. Professor Richard L. Ward examined the business history of this enterprise in his 2006 book A History of the Hal Roach Studios, and decades ago William K. Everson wrote an eloquent monograph for the Museum of Modern Art on the movies themselves. Now, silent comedy expert Richard M. Roberts has undertaken the formidable task of exploring all...
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- 9/25/2013
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Sunday’s Toronto Silent Film Festival screening brought together five sight-gag laden comedy shorts handpicked by programmer Chris Seguin. This wild and quazy quintet covered a lot of banana peel-littered ground, showcasing a very nice cross section of silent comedy immortals and candidates for rediscovery. The event benefited immensely from its venue (the nearly 100-year old Fox Theatre, which still has its washrooms inside the cinema) and the accompaniment of jazz notable Fern Lindzon, who worked a number of ironic pop melodies and dark variations on the Wedding March into her nimble piano kibitzing.
The Waiters’ Ball
Directed by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle
Produced by Mack Sennett
USA, 1916
The program began with a zany item from the formative days of comedy two-reelers. Here, star/director Arbuckle runs a grungy diner kitchen with all of the health code conscientiousness of a crack den concierge. The genial cook good-naturedly licks things he shouldn’t,...
The Waiters’ Ball
Directed by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle
Produced by Mack Sennett
USA, 1916
The program began with a zany item from the formative days of comedy two-reelers. Here, star/director Arbuckle runs a grungy diner kitchen with all of the health code conscientiousness of a crack den concierge. The genial cook good-naturedly licks things he shouldn’t,...
- 4/8/2013
- by David Fiore
- SoundOnSight
Charley Chase is a favorite of comedy connoisseurs but for years, it was difficult to see his best two-reel comedies from the 1920s. They seemed to exist only in scattered 16mm prints, until Kino (drawing on the LobsterFilm archives) and Milestone released their welcome collections. Now Sony has gotten in on the act with Charley Chase Shorts, Volume 1, part of the Sony Pictures Choice Collection of DVDs manufactured on demand, like the Three Stooges Rare Treasures from the Columbia Pictures Vault, which I wrote about not long ago. The nine comedies in this collection may not all be great, but if you enjoy Charley Chase you’ll find something to like in each of them, even if it’s...
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- 3/28/2013
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
The National Film Registry has added 25 more films that will be preserved in the Library of Congress. To be included in the registry the film needs to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” They have to be at least ten years old and are chosen from a list of films nominated by the public.
There's some great films that have been added this year. We've got the original 3:10 to Yuma, The Matrix, A Christmas Story, A League of Their Own, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Dirty Harry, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and several more.
Check out the full list of films that were added this year below, and you can head over to the Registry website to nominate films that you think should be added in 2013!
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Considered to be one of the best westerns of the 1950s, “3:10 to Yuma” has gained in stature since its original release as...
There's some great films that have been added this year. We've got the original 3:10 to Yuma, The Matrix, A Christmas Story, A League of Their Own, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Dirty Harry, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and several more.
Check out the full list of films that were added this year below, and you can head over to the Registry website to nominate films that you think should be added in 2013!
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Considered to be one of the best westerns of the 1950s, “3:10 to Yuma” has gained in stature since its original release as...
- 12/20/2012
- by Joey Paur
- GeekTyrant
News.
Above: Cinetract 2: Revolution Is in the Eye of the Beholder, a video essay by David Phelps. The video is part of a new issue of one of our very favorite—and one of the best—film magazines in the world, La Furia Umana, which is now out. Each issue is focused on dossiers on particular directors, and this issue includes essential articles on Leo McCarey, Paul Vecchiali, Jean-Claude Rousseau and José Luis Guerín. In the McCarey dossier are pieces by our very own Daniel Kasman—on the Cary Grant & Ginger Rogers vs. the Nazis film, Once Upon a Honeymoon—and Ted Fendt on McCarey's Charley Chase comedy shorts. But don't ignore the depth and variety of articles outside this center, which include searing video pieces by Notebook regulars David Phelps—on Lang, Vertov and protest—and Gina Telaroli on Joan Bennett, Max Ophüls, The Reckless Moment and the reflections of American presidents.
Above: Cinetract 2: Revolution Is in the Eye of the Beholder, a video essay by David Phelps. The video is part of a new issue of one of our very favorite—and one of the best—film magazines in the world, La Furia Umana, which is now out. Each issue is focused on dossiers on particular directors, and this issue includes essential articles on Leo McCarey, Paul Vecchiali, Jean-Claude Rousseau and José Luis Guerín. In the McCarey dossier are pieces by our very own Daniel Kasman—on the Cary Grant & Ginger Rogers vs. the Nazis film, Once Upon a Honeymoon—and Ted Fendt on McCarey's Charley Chase comedy shorts. But don't ignore the depth and variety of articles outside this center, which include searing video pieces by Notebook regulars David Phelps—on Lang, Vertov and protest—and Gina Telaroli on Joan Bennett, Max Ophüls, The Reckless Moment and the reflections of American presidents.
- 7/4/2012
- MUBI
Imagine carrying on a correspondence with one of the original Three Stooges. I was lucky enough to do just that with Moe Howard in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. With the new Three Stooges film about to open, I realize I’ve never spoken about my brief contact with the one and only, Moe. I first wrote to him because I was researching an article on Charley Chase, the unsung comedian who directed some of the Stooges’ comedy shorts. That prompted a reply, written in ink on Stooge stationery, accompanied by an autographed photo in an official Three Stooges envelope! Needless to say, I was thrilled. (For the record, Moe wrote, “Charley Chase was not only one of...
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- 4/11/2012
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
As a little girl I loved going to the Studio Drive In in Culver City where we lived.
My older sister and I would get into our pajamas, my little baby brother would be in the car seat for babies in the front seat between the driver and the passenger. We brought out own fried chicken ot eat for dinner. We'd go get popcorn or bonbons or a Holloway sucker (the best!) at the concessions stand ahead of the movies or at the intermission if we were still awake and we'd watch a double bill – usually a western and or a comedy.
When we got older and at the age of 16, we all got cars of our own. Mine was a 53 Ford convertible repainted royal blue. Groups of us would go to the Olympic Drive In and would sneak others in in the trunk.
When I was really little my father and mother would take my sister and me to the movies. I was always making my father take me to the bathroom. That started my habit of sitting on the aisle. As a film buyer it was known as the acquisitions seat, but to my mind, the quick getaway was to the Ladies Room. And as a three or four year old, I was always asking my mother and sister, "is this real?" I was so literal minded as a child I could never figure out why the song said “Let Freedom Ring”. How could Freedom Ring? A ring was jewelry. Ring like a bell…but Freedom is not a bell. Moving on…
We saw this Bob Hope film. He was a gambler. And he put a gun into his mouth. Instead of shooting his brains out, he took a bite and it was chocolate. That really threw my literal mind into a loop. What was real? How did that happen? The movie was called Sorrowful Jones. The joke was something I had a hard time understanding. The same with the silents which we saw at the Silent Movie Theater. Laurel and Hardy were always hitting each other and falling; Charlie Chase was always in trouble as was Charlie Chaplin. I never understood what was funny about all the accidents, falling down, hitting each other and would have terrible anxiety attacks at the silent movies. I liked movies like Francis the Talking Mule. That was funny to my childish mind.
For those wonderful Disney cartoons like Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood or Peter Pan, my father would take us to Beverly Hills and we would stand in line for the Fine Arts Theater. At the corner was a shoe store which only sold sample sizes (4 ½). I would admire their high heeled shoes and couldn’t wait for the time that I would be older and could wear them. Fortunately, when my foot hit the 4 ½ size, I was in high school and so I could buy the shoes for all the formal dances we attended.
Fine Arts Theater
Every Saturday my sister and I, and later my brother would go to the ten-cent Saturday afternoon matinee at the Meralta with a newsreel, previews, cartoon, and a main feature. The Meralta introduced me to The Dream of Wild Horses.[1]"Meralta" was derived from owners' Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta's surnames. They lived above the new plush theater. But the movies there were mostly horror and genre. My brother always went there for the latest horror film.
Meralta Theater, Culver City
If we didn’t go to the Meralta, we’d go to the Culver. When we were looking to meet other kids from other schools, we'd go to the much fancier Culver Theater.
The Culver had great films, like Little Women, Gone with the Wind, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, How to Marry a Millionaire, River of No Return, There’s No Business Like Show Business, Easter Parade, A Date with Judy (My sister’s name!), The Three Musketeers, Words and Music, Force of Evil, Neptune’s Daughter, Adam’s Rib, Showboat, An American in Paris, Lili, Giant, Rebel Without a Cause. Looking at this list, except for the Marilyn Monroe movies which 20th Century Fox owned and the two James Dean films which Warner Bros. owned, all of the films were MGM films. That makes perfect sense because Culver City was a company town.
The Culver also had “loges”. These were fancier red velvet seats with ashtrays above the large aisle you would find on entering the theater and choosing your seat – below unless you went up to the loge. There teenagers would "make out" and bad girls and guys would smoke (Excuse my racism, but as a Jew growing up in a working class wasp neighborhood, I learned these kids were either Pachucos or white trash.) Not that we were such good Jewish kids...there weren’t any Jewish kids that I knew of who went to the movies. My friends were my school friends, and they were all white working class kids. If people weren’t working for Hughes Aircraft, they were in the crafts at MGM. We had one bit actor living down the street named Cameron Mitchell. And it was a pretty racist neighborhood…anti-Semitism was learned at home and in Sunday Schools where kids invited me (called a Christ Killer) to learn about bringing Jesus into my heart and there were no blacks that I ever saw. The Pachucos lived in another neighborhood and we’d see them in the movies, shopping or at the middle and high school next to my elementary school. Asians? There might have been a Chinese restaurant, but I don’t recall seeing Asians in school or at the theater or shopping.
Jewish kids made up my group of friends when I got to junior high and we had moved to Beverlywood from Culver City; 90% of the school was Jewish. Our parents would still drop us at the movies and we would go to Saturday matinees at the Picfair on Pico and Fairfax which eventually burned down around the time of the Watts Riots, or to the Lido on Pico.
The Picfair Theater burned down in 1965.
We’d see Academy Award winning films at the Pickfair. We'd cry at Carousel, Oklahoma, Midnight Lace, Peyton Place, Imitation of Life. Great films! Or we'd sometimes go to the other theater in Pico called Lido. It was just so boring. Maybe they showed Marty there or Country Girl and I wasn't up for slow drama.
For really fancy movies which held premieres, like Around the World in 80 Days, we would go to the Carthay Circle Theater. Of course I’d go in the days after the premiere itself. Rarely – though sometimes we’d go to the Hollywood palaces, Grauman’s Chinese, The Egyptian or Pantages Theaters on Hollywood Boulevard. The best thing about Grauman’s Chinese was the ladies room with a room filled with mirrors and little alcoves to sit and put on lipstick. They even had lipstick blotters, white heavy weight paper shaped like your lips to blot the lipstick.
In 1959 The Fine Arts Theatre 8556 Wilshire Boulevardin Beverly Hills showed Room at the Top, (‘The Most Daring Film in a Decade’), and it played there for over six months. I was in the 10th grade and went to see it. I liked it but am not sure how much I understood.
In high school we discovered Le Chein Andalou and the Coronet and Baronet theater where Charles Laughton had played in Brecht's premiere play Galileo produced by John Houseman. Sometimes they didn't have enough foreign films (like one about a woman who turned into a panther at night) and they'd show psychological teaching films like "Folie a Deux" when madness is shared by two, in this 20 minute short it was a mother and daughter. They'd show films on Schizophrenia, etc. and it made me want to study psychology. We saw all of Bergman, Renoir and saw La Strada and La Dolce Vida. When I moved back east and went to Brandeis then movie going got great! Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds. After that I saw every Wajda film and even knew how to pronounce his name. But after Man of Marble or Man of Steel I started to get disinterested. I have no idea what theaters we went to in Cambridge or New York except for the Bleecker Street Theater where we’d often go for the weekend.
For dates we’d go up the street (Beverwil) to Beverly Hills to the Beverly Theater or the Beverly Canon. There they had programs printed for the movies (The Young Lions). Afterward we’d go to Blum’s[2] for their crunchy cake or Wil Wrights Ice Cream Parlor for ice cream sundaes.
And a theater we would always forget except when some exceptional foreign film was showing there, was the Vagabond, way down on Wilshire Blvd. toward downtown.
[1]Wikipedia: The 1953 children's film Crin-Blanc, English title White Mane, portrayed the horses and the region. A short black-and-white film directed by Albert Lamorisse, director of Le ballon rouge (1956), Crin-blanc won the 1953 Prix Jean Vigo and the short film Grand Prix at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, as well as awards at Warsaw and Rome.[10] In 1960 Denys Colomb Daunant, writer and actor for Crin-blanc, made the documentary Le Songe des Chevaux Sauvages, "Dream of the Wild Horses". It featured Camargue horses and slow motion photography, and won the Small Golden Berlin Bear at the 1960 Berlin International Film Festival.[11]
[2]Blum's was a pink spun sugar fantasy come to life. It had a gift shop. It had shocking pink banquettes. It had surly waitresses. And it had cake. Not those plastic looking, multi colored and tasteless layered cakes offered in cafes around Union Square. No. They had Blum's Famous Coffee Crunch cake. (This legendary cake is so memorable that Nancy Silverton has included a recipe for it in her latest cookbook.)
Blum's was partly a restaurant for the ladies who didn't work and spent their days going downtown to shop, meet friends and get home before the children came home from school. (http://www.culinarymuse.com/2005/10/blums_where_are.html)...
My older sister and I would get into our pajamas, my little baby brother would be in the car seat for babies in the front seat between the driver and the passenger. We brought out own fried chicken ot eat for dinner. We'd go get popcorn or bonbons or a Holloway sucker (the best!) at the concessions stand ahead of the movies or at the intermission if we were still awake and we'd watch a double bill – usually a western and or a comedy.
When we got older and at the age of 16, we all got cars of our own. Mine was a 53 Ford convertible repainted royal blue. Groups of us would go to the Olympic Drive In and would sneak others in in the trunk.
When I was really little my father and mother would take my sister and me to the movies. I was always making my father take me to the bathroom. That started my habit of sitting on the aisle. As a film buyer it was known as the acquisitions seat, but to my mind, the quick getaway was to the Ladies Room. And as a three or four year old, I was always asking my mother and sister, "is this real?" I was so literal minded as a child I could never figure out why the song said “Let Freedom Ring”. How could Freedom Ring? A ring was jewelry. Ring like a bell…but Freedom is not a bell. Moving on…
We saw this Bob Hope film. He was a gambler. And he put a gun into his mouth. Instead of shooting his brains out, he took a bite and it was chocolate. That really threw my literal mind into a loop. What was real? How did that happen? The movie was called Sorrowful Jones. The joke was something I had a hard time understanding. The same with the silents which we saw at the Silent Movie Theater. Laurel and Hardy were always hitting each other and falling; Charlie Chase was always in trouble as was Charlie Chaplin. I never understood what was funny about all the accidents, falling down, hitting each other and would have terrible anxiety attacks at the silent movies. I liked movies like Francis the Talking Mule. That was funny to my childish mind.
For those wonderful Disney cartoons like Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood or Peter Pan, my father would take us to Beverly Hills and we would stand in line for the Fine Arts Theater. At the corner was a shoe store which only sold sample sizes (4 ½). I would admire their high heeled shoes and couldn’t wait for the time that I would be older and could wear them. Fortunately, when my foot hit the 4 ½ size, I was in high school and so I could buy the shoes for all the formal dances we attended.
Fine Arts Theater
Every Saturday my sister and I, and later my brother would go to the ten-cent Saturday afternoon matinee at the Meralta with a newsreel, previews, cartoon, and a main feature. The Meralta introduced me to The Dream of Wild Horses.[1]"Meralta" was derived from owners' Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta's surnames. They lived above the new plush theater. But the movies there were mostly horror and genre. My brother always went there for the latest horror film.
Meralta Theater, Culver City
If we didn’t go to the Meralta, we’d go to the Culver. When we were looking to meet other kids from other schools, we'd go to the much fancier Culver Theater.
The Culver had great films, like Little Women, Gone with the Wind, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, How to Marry a Millionaire, River of No Return, There’s No Business Like Show Business, Easter Parade, A Date with Judy (My sister’s name!), The Three Musketeers, Words and Music, Force of Evil, Neptune’s Daughter, Adam’s Rib, Showboat, An American in Paris, Lili, Giant, Rebel Without a Cause. Looking at this list, except for the Marilyn Monroe movies which 20th Century Fox owned and the two James Dean films which Warner Bros. owned, all of the films were MGM films. That makes perfect sense because Culver City was a company town.
The Culver also had “loges”. These were fancier red velvet seats with ashtrays above the large aisle you would find on entering the theater and choosing your seat – below unless you went up to the loge. There teenagers would "make out" and bad girls and guys would smoke (Excuse my racism, but as a Jew growing up in a working class wasp neighborhood, I learned these kids were either Pachucos or white trash.) Not that we were such good Jewish kids...there weren’t any Jewish kids that I knew of who went to the movies. My friends were my school friends, and they were all white working class kids. If people weren’t working for Hughes Aircraft, they were in the crafts at MGM. We had one bit actor living down the street named Cameron Mitchell. And it was a pretty racist neighborhood…anti-Semitism was learned at home and in Sunday Schools where kids invited me (called a Christ Killer) to learn about bringing Jesus into my heart and there were no blacks that I ever saw. The Pachucos lived in another neighborhood and we’d see them in the movies, shopping or at the middle and high school next to my elementary school. Asians? There might have been a Chinese restaurant, but I don’t recall seeing Asians in school or at the theater or shopping.
Jewish kids made up my group of friends when I got to junior high and we had moved to Beverlywood from Culver City; 90% of the school was Jewish. Our parents would still drop us at the movies and we would go to Saturday matinees at the Picfair on Pico and Fairfax which eventually burned down around the time of the Watts Riots, or to the Lido on Pico.
The Picfair Theater burned down in 1965.
We’d see Academy Award winning films at the Pickfair. We'd cry at Carousel, Oklahoma, Midnight Lace, Peyton Place, Imitation of Life. Great films! Or we'd sometimes go to the other theater in Pico called Lido. It was just so boring. Maybe they showed Marty there or Country Girl and I wasn't up for slow drama.
For really fancy movies which held premieres, like Around the World in 80 Days, we would go to the Carthay Circle Theater. Of course I’d go in the days after the premiere itself. Rarely – though sometimes we’d go to the Hollywood palaces, Grauman’s Chinese, The Egyptian or Pantages Theaters on Hollywood Boulevard. The best thing about Grauman’s Chinese was the ladies room with a room filled with mirrors and little alcoves to sit and put on lipstick. They even had lipstick blotters, white heavy weight paper shaped like your lips to blot the lipstick.
In 1959 The Fine Arts Theatre 8556 Wilshire Boulevardin Beverly Hills showed Room at the Top, (‘The Most Daring Film in a Decade’), and it played there for over six months. I was in the 10th grade and went to see it. I liked it but am not sure how much I understood.
In high school we discovered Le Chein Andalou and the Coronet and Baronet theater where Charles Laughton had played in Brecht's premiere play Galileo produced by John Houseman. Sometimes they didn't have enough foreign films (like one about a woman who turned into a panther at night) and they'd show psychological teaching films like "Folie a Deux" when madness is shared by two, in this 20 minute short it was a mother and daughter. They'd show films on Schizophrenia, etc. and it made me want to study psychology. We saw all of Bergman, Renoir and saw La Strada and La Dolce Vida. When I moved back east and went to Brandeis then movie going got great! Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds. After that I saw every Wajda film and even knew how to pronounce his name. But after Man of Marble or Man of Steel I started to get disinterested. I have no idea what theaters we went to in Cambridge or New York except for the Bleecker Street Theater where we’d often go for the weekend.
For dates we’d go up the street (Beverwil) to Beverly Hills to the Beverly Theater or the Beverly Canon. There they had programs printed for the movies (The Young Lions). Afterward we’d go to Blum’s[2] for their crunchy cake or Wil Wrights Ice Cream Parlor for ice cream sundaes.
And a theater we would always forget except when some exceptional foreign film was showing there, was the Vagabond, way down on Wilshire Blvd. toward downtown.
[1]Wikipedia: The 1953 children's film Crin-Blanc, English title White Mane, portrayed the horses and the region. A short black-and-white film directed by Albert Lamorisse, director of Le ballon rouge (1956), Crin-blanc won the 1953 Prix Jean Vigo and the short film Grand Prix at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, as well as awards at Warsaw and Rome.[10] In 1960 Denys Colomb Daunant, writer and actor for Crin-blanc, made the documentary Le Songe des Chevaux Sauvages, "Dream of the Wild Horses". It featured Camargue horses and slow motion photography, and won the Small Golden Berlin Bear at the 1960 Berlin International Film Festival.[11]
[2]Blum's was a pink spun sugar fantasy come to life. It had a gift shop. It had shocking pink banquettes. It had surly waitresses. And it had cake. Not those plastic looking, multi colored and tasteless layered cakes offered in cafes around Union Square. No. They had Blum's Famous Coffee Crunch cake. (This legendary cake is so memorable that Nancy Silverton has included a recipe for it in her latest cookbook.)
Blum's was partly a restaurant for the ladies who didn't work and spent their days going downtown to shop, meet friends and get home before the children came home from school. (http://www.culinarymuse.com/2005/10/blums_where_are.html)...
- 3/27/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Charley Chase is, I suppose, fated to remain outside the first rank of silent comics, and that's probably fair enough: leading the second rank is no disgrace, especially in a field containing authentic geniuses like Chaplin and Keaton. The problem is simply one of amnesia: a lot of people, even among hardcore cinephiles, simply don't have time for anything outside the elite circle of the very best. That's understandable: life is short and film history is both long and broad, but if you're missing Chase you're missing some serious hysteria in your life.
What should help the Chase case is his work with Leo McCarey, an auteur whose star is on the rise, thanks to the availability (at last!) of melancholy masterpiece Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) and the Timeless Classic status of Duck Soup, The Awful Truth and several others. With a bit of scrounging around, official releases can be...
What should help the Chase case is his work with Leo McCarey, an auteur whose star is on the rise, thanks to the availability (at last!) of melancholy masterpiece Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) and the Timeless Classic status of Duck Soup, The Awful Truth and several others. With a bit of scrounging around, official releases can be...
- 3/1/2012
- MUBI
London Comedy Film Festival
A quick burst of winter blues-banishing, with comedies old (1960s heist comedy Go To Blazes), new (a preview of the new Muppets movie) and both old and new (a "world premiere" read-through of The Day Off, a movie written for Tony Hancock by Galton and Simpson, which was never made). Guest of honour is Edgar Wright, who introduces a double bill: Shaun Of The Dead and Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet, with guests and a Q&A; and there are discoveries to be made in anarchic French movie The Fairy and a secret new British comedy.
BFI Southbank, SE1, Thu to 29 Jan
Steven Severin: Vampyr, Nationwide
Following the success of his spooky live soundtrack to Jean Cocteau's avant-garde 1932 film The Blood Of A Poet last year, the former Siouxsie And The Banshees bassist embarks on a tour with another freshly rescored classic. This...
A quick burst of winter blues-banishing, with comedies old (1960s heist comedy Go To Blazes), new (a preview of the new Muppets movie) and both old and new (a "world premiere" read-through of The Day Off, a movie written for Tony Hancock by Galton and Simpson, which was never made). Guest of honour is Edgar Wright, who introduces a double bill: Shaun Of The Dead and Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet, with guests and a Q&A; and there are discoveries to be made in anarchic French movie The Fairy and a secret new British comedy.
BFI Southbank, SE1, Thu to 29 Jan
Steven Severin: Vampyr, Nationwide
Following the success of his spooky live soundtrack to Jean Cocteau's avant-garde 1932 film The Blood Of A Poet last year, the former Siouxsie And The Banshees bassist embarks on a tour with another freshly rescored classic. This...
- 1/21/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
The Goodies
Amazon.com Widgets
Kieran Kinsella
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Like most people born in the 1970s, I was a huge fan of the Goodies as a kid. My personal favorite was Graeme Garden who I regarded as “the sensible Goodie.” As I grew up, I began to realize that The Goodies was just one highlight in a distinguished career during which the Scotsman established himself as one of Britain’s top comedy performers. While he is a well known entertainer, many people do not realize that Graeme Garden is also a qualified physician. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Graeme and I began by asking him how he made the transition from medical school graduate to TV funny man.
“I appeared in a couple of plays at school,...
Amazon.com Widgets
Kieran Kinsella
Click here to friend Best British TV on Facebook or here to follow us on Twitter. You can also find us on Google+ by clicking here.
Like most people born in the 1970s, I was a huge fan of the Goodies as a kid. My personal favorite was Graeme Garden who I regarded as “the sensible Goodie.” As I grew up, I began to realize that The Goodies was just one highlight in a distinguished career during which the Scotsman established himself as one of Britain’s top comedy performers. While he is a well known entertainer, many people do not realize that Graeme Garden is also a qualified physician. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Graeme and I began by asking him how he made the transition from medical school graduate to TV funny man.
“I appeared in a couple of plays at school,...
- 1/17/2012
- by admin
Our look back over the history of MGM continues, as the silent era gives way to the talkies and musicals of the 20s and 30s...
It’s 1928, and the success of Warner Bros’ musical, The Jazz Singer, has ushered in a new age of talking pictures. Audiences adored it, and it was sink or swim time for MGM. Suddenly, the silent cinema rule book was thrown out of the window and numerous opportunities opened up in Hollywood.
Composers were in demand, and song and script writers, along with voice coaches, were needed more than ever. White Shadows In The South Seas was the first MGM sound picture, although not a talkie. Originally filmed as a silent picture, MGM realised that sound wasn’t just a passing fad and, like most studios at the time, swiftly added sound effects to its music. But they did make one character speak – and that was Leo the lion,...
It’s 1928, and the success of Warner Bros’ musical, The Jazz Singer, has ushered in a new age of talking pictures. Audiences adored it, and it was sink or swim time for MGM. Suddenly, the silent cinema rule book was thrown out of the window and numerous opportunities opened up in Hollywood.
Composers were in demand, and song and script writers, along with voice coaches, were needed more than ever. White Shadows In The South Seas was the first MGM sound picture, although not a talkie. Originally filmed as a silent picture, MGM realised that sound wasn’t just a passing fad and, like most studios at the time, swiftly added sound effects to its music. But they did make one character speak – and that was Leo the lion,...
- 1/16/2012
- Den of Geek
It’s been a while since we’ve wrote about an xxx parody trailer but the porn industry keeps churning them out almost at the rate Hollywood are releasing their major motion pictures. The latest is the rather obviously titled A Wet Dream on Elm Street, a parody of the Freddy Krueger films that has turned the serial killer/possible child molester into a sex hungry fiend! One, two, Freddy’s cumming for you, we are told.
The porn film comes from Tom Byron Pictures & Lee Roy Myers who are dubbing it ” the scariest XXX movie you will ever see” and the good looking cast is made up of familiar faces; Jennifer White, Charley Chase, Gracie Glam, Giselle Leon, Sophie Dee, Tommy Pistol, Chris Johnson and Anthony Rosano.
Watch the trailer below and consider whether this one is as authentic as the Justice League and Reservoir Dogs parodies we have...
The porn film comes from Tom Byron Pictures & Lee Roy Myers who are dubbing it ” the scariest XXX movie you will ever see” and the good looking cast is made up of familiar faces; Jennifer White, Charley Chase, Gracie Glam, Giselle Leon, Sophie Dee, Tommy Pistol, Chris Johnson and Anthony Rosano.
Watch the trailer below and consider whether this one is as authentic as the Justice League and Reservoir Dogs parodies we have...
- 9/30/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
The funny thing about this porn parody of “Spartacus” is that, if you really think about it, aside from the, well, actual sex onscreen, it’ll probably end up being only slightly more racy than the show on the Starz Channel, where the guys and gals get naked and engage in wild humping pretty much on a daily basis. Except here everyone is really naked. Check out the surprisingly very respectable trailer and images for Wicked Pictures’ porn parody “Spartacus XXX: The Beginning”, which will be available at all your favorite proprietors of adult fare sometime in November. Which begs the question: if this is the beginning, where does it end? In spurts of blood and … other stuff … we presume. Starring the vast talents of Devon Lee, Miko Lee, Tanya Tate, Gracie Glam, Andy San Dimas, Jenna Presley, Melanie Rios, Carina Roman, Charlie Chase and Nicole Aniston. More pics and...
- 9/21/2011
- by Nix
- Beyond Hollywood
You know, we usually don't cover things like this, but sometimes stuff comes our way that's just too goofy to ignore. Case in point: the official trailer for the upcoming adult parody A Wet Dream on Elm Street, which exposes the world to Freddy's dildo glove. Yes, dildo glove.
Directed by Lee Roy Myers (The Human Sexipede) and starring adult film stars Charlie Chase, Sophie Dee, Giselle Leon, and Anthony Rosano as Freddy, check out your first exclusive look at the trailer and some behind-the-scenes goods below. Don't worry; it's all Safe For Work!
This is normally the area in which we'd provide you with a synopsis, but we're pretty sure you know where they're going with this one. Look for A Wet Dream on Elm Street to be released on September 29th, 2011 - just in time to have a very horny Halloween!
Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!
Got news? Click here to submit it!
Directed by Lee Roy Myers (The Human Sexipede) and starring adult film stars Charlie Chase, Sophie Dee, Giselle Leon, and Anthony Rosano as Freddy, check out your first exclusive look at the trailer and some behind-the-scenes goods below. Don't worry; it's all Safe For Work!
This is normally the area in which we'd provide you with a synopsis, but we're pretty sure you know where they're going with this one. Look for A Wet Dream on Elm Street to be released on September 29th, 2011 - just in time to have a very horny Halloween!
Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!
Got news? Click here to submit it!
- 9/13/2011
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
File this one under "What took them so long": production on the XXX parody of A Nightmare on Elm Street is underway. Wet Dream on Elm Street comes to us from director Lee Roy Meyers, the brains behind The Human Sexipede. Wet Dream stars Sophie See, Gracie Glam, Charley Chase, Mishka, Chad Alva, and Chris Johnson. Anthony Rosano stars as Freddy Fingers, the murdered sex shop clerk who is out for (sexy) revenge. Check out images, a behind-the-scenes clip and "plot" synopsis after the break. I've got to say, if porn is going to have a plot, this one is pretty good: When patrons of the local sex shop receive defective sex toys they decide to retaliate by burning the shop to the ground and...
- 9/1/2011
- FEARnet
You just never know what we'll find in our inbox. Take this latest story for example ... The director of The Human Sexipede, Lee Roy Meyer, is back dabbling within the horror genre, and this time he's parodying one of the genre's most beloved characters. That's right, pervos! Freddy is temporarily trading in his razor glove for one made of vibrators in A Wet Dream on Elm Street. Yes. You read that correctly.
Directed by Meyer and starring adult film stars Charlie Chase, Sophie Dee, Giselle Leon, and Anthony Rosano as Freddy, check out your first exclusive behind-the-scenes look below.
This is normally the area in which we'd provide you with a synopsis, but we're pretty sure you know where they're going with this one. Look for A Wet Dream on Elm Street to be released on September 29th, 2011 - just in time to have a very horny Halloween!
Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!
Directed by Meyer and starring adult film stars Charlie Chase, Sophie Dee, Giselle Leon, and Anthony Rosano as Freddy, check out your first exclusive behind-the-scenes look below.
This is normally the area in which we'd provide you with a synopsis, but we're pretty sure you know where they're going with this one. Look for A Wet Dream on Elm Street to be released on September 29th, 2011 - just in time to have a very horny Halloween!
Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!
- 9/1/2011
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Copyright© A.M.P.A.S.
Beverly Hills, CA . The 1926 Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner .Beau Geste. will be the next film screened in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. .Summer of Silents. series on Monday, July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The evening will feature live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Ronald Colman and William Powell starred in this first film version of Percival Christopher Wren.s classic adventure novel about three brothers who join the French Foreign Legion to protect their family.s honor. Film historian Frank Thompson will introduce the feature.
At 7 p.m., .Saturday Afternoon. (1926), starring Harry Langdon, will be screened as part of the evening.s pre-show festivities.
The Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®, was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine...
Beverly Hills, CA . The 1926 Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner .Beau Geste. will be the next film screened in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. .Summer of Silents. series on Monday, July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The evening will feature live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Ronald Colman and William Powell starred in this first film version of Percival Christopher Wren.s classic adventure novel about three brothers who join the French Foreign Legion to protect their family.s honor. Film historian Frank Thompson will introduce the feature.
At 7 p.m., .Saturday Afternoon. (1926), starring Harry Langdon, will be screened as part of the evening.s pre-show festivities.
The Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®, was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine...
- 7/19/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Battle Beyond The Stars: 30th Anniversary Special Edition (1980)
Synopsis: Shad must scour the cosmos to recruit mercenaries from different planets and cultures, in order to save his peaceful home planet from the threat of the evil tyrant Sador, bent on dominating and enslaving the entire universe. Joining this “magnificent seven” of mercenaries are the deadly Gelt, carefree Cowboy, and the sexy Valkyrie Saint-Exmin. (courtesy of Blu-Ray.com)
Special Features: Audio commentary with producer Roger Corman and writer John Sayles; Audio commentary from production manager Gale Anne Hurd; The Man Who Would Be Shad featurette; Space Opera on a Shoestring featurette; Still gallery; Poster gallery; Theatrical trailer; Radio spot.
Brazil (1985)
Synopsis: In the future, a clerk at the all-powerful Ministry of Information sticks to his ideals and ends up crushed by the system in this half comedy, half...
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Battle Beyond The Stars: 30th Anniversary Special Edition (1980)
Synopsis: Shad must scour the cosmos to recruit mercenaries from different planets and cultures, in order to save his peaceful home planet from the threat of the evil tyrant Sador, bent on dominating and enslaving the entire universe. Joining this “magnificent seven” of mercenaries are the deadly Gelt, carefree Cowboy, and the sexy Valkyrie Saint-Exmin. (courtesy of Blu-Ray.com)
Special Features: Audio commentary with producer Roger Corman and writer John Sayles; Audio commentary from production manager Gale Anne Hurd; The Man Who Would Be Shad featurette; Space Opera on a Shoestring featurette; Still gallery; Poster gallery; Theatrical trailer; Radio spot.
Brazil (1985)
Synopsis: In the future, a clerk at the all-powerful Ministry of Information sticks to his ideals and ends up crushed by the system in this half comedy, half...
- 7/11/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Hollywood child star who was exploited then abandoned by the movie industry
Child stars, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, who have long and successful careers as adults are the exception. Edith Fellows, who has died aged 88, had a film career longer than most – it lasted 13 years from the age of six – though it wasn't without its ups and downs. It is a familiar story: a talented child, exploited by avaricious adults, often family members, suffers in later life.
Fellows, born in Boston, had a domineering paternal grandmother, who was left to take care of the two-month-old baby, whose mother had walked out on the family and disappeared. The grandmother later barred Edith's mostly absent father, a mechanic, from seeing his daughter when she got into the movies. "She did not want anyone around me," Fellows explained. "No one. Just the two of us."
In 1935, when Fellows was at the height of her fame,...
Child stars, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, who have long and successful careers as adults are the exception. Edith Fellows, who has died aged 88, had a film career longer than most – it lasted 13 years from the age of six – though it wasn't without its ups and downs. It is a familiar story: a talented child, exploited by avaricious adults, often family members, suffers in later life.
Fellows, born in Boston, had a domineering paternal grandmother, who was left to take care of the two-month-old baby, whose mother had walked out on the family and disappeared. The grandmother later barred Edith's mostly absent father, a mechanic, from seeing his daughter when she got into the movies. "She did not want anyone around me," Fellows explained. "No one. Just the two of us."
In 1935, when Fellows was at the height of her fame,...
- 7/7/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Following their invaluable collection Female Comedy Teams, Filmmuseum Munchen rescues another forgotten comedian from the ashes of history with two discs of Max Davidson Comedies, celebrating an ethnic comedian who churned out a slew of domestic two-reelers at Hal Roach studios during the late silent era.
He's a small man with a grizzled beard and a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. Circumstances frequently reduce him to a nightshirt, but he prefers an overcoat with a derby. Circumstances also conspire to throw his household into turmoil, to which Max will react by puckering his lips in a soundless "Oy!" while placing one hand to his cheek as if nursing an impacted molar. This expression, Max's "oy face," will appear with numbing regularity in every film. Occasionally, for variety, he puts both hands to both cheeks, achieving a Kubrickian symmetry.
Somewhat more funny than Max, whose range really is as limited as the above suggests,...
He's a small man with a grizzled beard and a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. Circumstances frequently reduce him to a nightshirt, but he prefers an overcoat with a derby. Circumstances also conspire to throw his household into turmoil, to which Max will react by puckering his lips in a soundless "Oy!" while placing one hand to his cheek as if nursing an impacted molar. This expression, Max's "oy face," will appear with numbing regularity in every film. Occasionally, for variety, he puts both hands to both cheeks, achieving a Kubrickian symmetry.
Somewhat more funny than Max, whose range really is as limited as the above suggests,...
- 7/7/2011
- MUBI
Beverly Hills, CA .The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner .Humoresque. (1920) will kick off a summer-long screening series of silent films at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A restored 35mm print from UCLA Film & Television Archive will be screened with live musical accompaniment composed by Michael Mortilla, and performed by Mortilla on piano and Nicole Garcia on violin.
Directed by Frank Borzage, .Humoresque. is the film version of Fannie Hurst.s short story about a young violinist who rises from New York.s Jewish slums to international fame with the help of his doting mother. The film was the first to receive the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. The Medal of Honor was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and...
Directed by Frank Borzage, .Humoresque. is the film version of Fannie Hurst.s short story about a young violinist who rises from New York.s Jewish slums to international fame with the help of his doting mother. The film was the first to receive the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. The Medal of Honor was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and...
- 6/7/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Beverly Hills, CA . The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will kick off its summer screening series, “Summer of Silents: Photoplay Award Winners of the Silent Era,” on Monday, June 13, with a big-screen presentation of “Humoresque” (1920) with live musical accompaniment. The eight-film series, which will run through August 8, will showcase silent films of the 1920s, all of which were Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor award winners. All screenings will be held on Monday evenings at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Pre-show festivities will begin at 7 p.m.
The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor was the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. First awarded in 1920, it was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and given to the producer of the year’s winning film.
The evenings also will feature live musical accompaniment as well as pre-show presentations of such...
The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor was the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. First awarded in 1920, it was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and given to the producer of the year’s winning film.
The evenings also will feature live musical accompaniment as well as pre-show presentations of such...
- 5/23/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
A prized moment from Gene Kelly in New York, New York, a 1966 network TV special. Film buffs in Los Angeles are about to sample a wide range of films and television shows recently preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Robert Altman, Cecil B. DeMille, Cleo Madison, Gene Kelly, Charley Chase, Duke Ellington, Dorothy Dandridge, and Roy Rogers are among the directors and performers who will be showcased at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood from March 3-27. (See the full schedule Here.) Every other year, UCLA unveils its latest work in this eagerly anticipated series, which makes…...
- 3/3/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Between 1914 and 1928, people laughed longer, louder, and more often than at any other time in history. The reason why is that during those fourteen extremely turbulent years in the world, a group of comic geniuses did things on the movie screen that were more elaborately conceived for comedy, more brilliantly constructed for laughs, and, simply, funnier than anything ever done—-before or since. These extraordinary people—-among them, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Mabel Normand, Charlie Chase, and numerous others—-had four distinct advantages over all other comedians in the annals of entertainment: They could not be…...
- 12/12/2010
- Blogdanovich
Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Alida Valli, Angela Lansbury, The Man Who Laughs: Packard Campus Oct. 2010 Packard Campus schedule and film synopses (via press release): Friday, October 1 (7:30 p.m.) BBC Sunday Night Play: Colombe (BBC-tv, 1960) Library of Congress Discovers Lost British TV Treasures Based on the original Broadway production of the play "Mademoiselle Colombe" by Jean Anouilh. Directed by Naomi Capon. With Sean Connery & Dorothy Tutin. Black & White, 102 min. Saturday, October 2 (7:30 p.m.) Sons Of The Desert (Hal Roach-MGM, 1933) When Stan and Ollie trick their wives into thinking that they are taking a medicinal cruise while they're actually going to a convention, the wives find out the truth the hard way. Comedy. Directed by William A. Seiter. With Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Charley Chase. Black & White, 68 min. Also on the program: Maids ala Mode (Hal Roach, 1933) starring Zasu Pitts [...]...
- 10/8/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, Lon Chaney, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Pearl White, Evelyn Brent, Edna Purviance, Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, Harold Lloyd,Adolphe Menjou, Percy Marmont and Our Gang – might there be more stars on the Niles screen in October then in the night skies above? Perhaps that depends on the fog.For October, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont has put together a star studded schedule of films. Here’s the line-up for the month.“Saturday Night at the Movies,” with Bruce Loeb at the piano Saturday October 2at 7:30 pm (Suggested...
- 9/27/2010
- by Thomas Gladysz, SF Silent Movie Examiner
- Examiner Movies Channel
Groucho Marx, Thelma Todd in Norman Z. McLeod‘s Monkey Business Thelma Todd on TCM: The Maltese Falcon Schedule (Pt) and synopses from the TCM website: 3:00 Am Broadminded (1931) A rejected suitor leaves town and gets mixed up in an international chase. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Ona Munson, Bela Lugosi. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. Bw-72 mins. 4:15 Am Son Of A Sailor (1933) A lovesick fool bumbles into espionage and finds a stolen plane. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Jean Muir, Thelma Todd. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. Bw-73 mins. 5:30 Am Real McCoy, The (1930) Charlie pretends to be a hillbilly to impress country girl Thelma Todd in hopes of making her his girlfriend. Cast: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd Dir: Warren Doane Bw-21 mins. 6:00 Am Short Film: Whispering Whoopee (1930) Charley hires three "party girls" to help him land a business deal. Cast: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd Dir: James W. Horne Bw-21 mins. 6:30 [...]...
- 8/30/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Leo McCarey poses with ZaSu Pitts and Charles Laughton on the set of Ruggles of Red GapIf he had made only the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup, Leo McCarey would have a place in the pantheon of American comedy. He did much more, of course, from a superb series of silent two-reelers with Charley Chase and some of Laurel and Hardy’s finest comedy shorts to such great feature films as The Awful Truth and Love Affair. His name isn’t invoked as often as other giants of his era, perhaps because his later films became sentimental (Going My Way and The Bells…...
- 4/12/2010
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Above: Rigoberto Pérezcano’s border town film Northless.
With the programmers of the Middle Eastern Film Festival tasked with bringing cinema to Abu Dhabi—which has no alternative theaters beyond multiplexes—the lineup has taken several ways to introduce and encourage a cinema culture.
Masters are an obvious route; new films by Claire Denis, Alain Resnais, Steven Soderbergh, Tian Zhuangzhaung, and an omnibus of Romanian shorts as representative A-list world cinema is, I’m sure, welcome in the area, at least in theory.
Far more adventurous is Meiff’s attempt to bring silent cinema to the Arabian Peninsula. Backed by the bold statement that silent films with live musical accompaniment have never played there, Meiff has generously brought in renowned silent film pianist Neil Brand to give a master class on his background in accompanying silent film and brief but delightful examples of the pleasures and challenges of the work.
With the programmers of the Middle Eastern Film Festival tasked with bringing cinema to Abu Dhabi—which has no alternative theaters beyond multiplexes—the lineup has taken several ways to introduce and encourage a cinema culture.
Masters are an obvious route; new films by Claire Denis, Alain Resnais, Steven Soderbergh, Tian Zhuangzhaung, and an omnibus of Romanian shorts as representative A-list world cinema is, I’m sure, welcome in the area, at least in theory.
Far more adventurous is Meiff’s attempt to bring silent cinema to the Arabian Peninsula. Backed by the bold statement that silent films with live musical accompaniment have never played there, Meiff has generously brought in renowned silent film pianist Neil Brand to give a master class on his background in accompanying silent film and brief but delightful examples of the pleasures and challenges of the work.
- 10/20/2009
- MUBI
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