It may be the end of 2011, but I have no year-end lists or resolutions or anything of substance to say, really. Just a few goals for SBBN, a slight modification to my previously-announced plans, and a bit of randomness. One of the best and first film bloggers I have encountered in our vast blogoverse…
All posts in 2011
Book Review: The Hammer Vault
On Tuesday, Marcus Hearn’s new Hammer compilation The Hammer Vault will be released in the U.S. I was lucky enough to snag a copy of this extensive book before the official drop date, and I’m glad I did. It’s a hefty thing, nearly 13 inches by 10 inches in size with 175 thick pages. The…
TCM Remembers 2011
The TCM Remembers memorial video for 2011. Another difficult year, but to be honest, we feel this way every year. The song is “Before You Go” by OK Sweetheart.
Harry Morgan: 1915-2011
Character great Harry Morgan passed away today at his home. He was 96. Courtesy Bright Lights Films. It’s no exaggeration to say that I grew up with Harry Morgan. His character of Colonel Potter on “M*A*S*H” was important to me during my childhood where (for good or ill) television parental analogs were as comforting to…
The Marie Prevost Project: Nana (1926)
For anyone interested in using these posts for research, please read the notes at the bottom of this post. Thank you. *** Don’t watch Jean Renoir’s Nana (1926) if you’re looking to see Marie Prevost, ’cause she ain’t in it. Marie is supposed to have played Gaga, a character who, in Emile Zola’s novel, is…
Matter of fact, it’s all dark.
“One of these days I’m going to write a song that makes someone want to cry.” — Neil Diamond, Teen Screen Magazine, March 1967 When The Neil Diamond Collection arrived in the mail last month, I had forgotten I ever ordered it. For most of my 39-ish years, Neil Diamond was simply never on…
The Italian Horror Blogathon: Dario Argento’s Jenifer and Pelts
Italian director Dario Argento is known for his giallo films featuring excessive style, bloodshed and sex. His surrealist and controversial horror thrillers of the 1970s are often cited as some of the most influential films by modern horror filmmakers. In the mid-2000s, Argento directed two episodes of the Showtime “Masters of Horror” series. While not…
The Torture in Store: Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986)
Gothic is a wild mix of the beautiful and the grotesque, intriguing philosophical questions and empty MTV-era visuals, cloaked in an impossible melange of cobwebs and goats and sex and leeches. The film borrows thematic styles at whim, everything from David Lynch to Fellini’s exquisitely debauched Casanova (1976) to Hammer studios’ signature colorful lighting palette.…
Carole Lombard
Five hours late and short on promised content, I offer some lovely Carole Lombard photos in humble apology for flaking out on the Caroletennial (+3) held at Carole & Co. To explain why my offering is so late would take away from the blogathon, so look for a post later this week on that. Meanwhile,…
Berserk (1967)
In 1962, the cult mainstay Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? launched a genre of campy horror films starring actresses who were best known for their classic Hollywood films of two, three, or even four decades earlier. Joan Crawford was one of the queens of this new genre and starred in several B-grade horror flicks. Berserk…