Yes I know a lot of you have moved past the whole "ownership" thing when it comes to music and movies. But for those who still like to buy DVDs, you seriously have to visit Big Lots! once a month.
Today I bought BRICK (pictured) for $3.
And John Ford's THE HORSE SOLDIERS for $3.
And NIGHT COURT Season One for $6.
All brand new, remaindered by the studios who ditching inventory as fast as they can.
Well! Not to distract y'all from the shenanigans at the State Capitols (Albany and Columbia, S.C.), but today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced that number of films that will be nominated for Best Picture will be doubled from 5 to 10. The idea is that more interesting and/or popular films will get noms.
This is the way things were in the Olden Days.
Take 1934 for example. The nominated films spanned Aug. 1932-Dec. 1933:
42ND STREET (Warner Bros.) Directed by Lloyd Bacon, Busby Berkeley
A FAREWELL TO ARMS (Paramount) Directed by Frank Borzage
CAVALCADE (Fox) Directed by Frank Lloyd
I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (Warner Bros.) Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
LADY FOR A DAY (Columbia) Directed by Frank Capra
LITTLE WOMEN (RKO Radio) Directed by George Cukor
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (United Artists/London Films) Directed by Alexander Korda
SHE DONE HIM WRONG (Paramount) Directed by Lowell Sherman
SMILIN' THROUGH (M-G-M) Directed by Sidney Franklin
STATE FAIR (Fox) Directed by Henry King
This was the most economically awful year of the Great Depression, and every one of these films was a box-office hit: the smash musical the revived the genre; the deeply romantic take on Hemmingway's popular novel; the stiff-upper-Brit-lip drama by Noël Coward; the ripped-from-the-headlines prison drama; the heartwarming Capra comedy; the tasteful literary adaptation starring Katharine Hepburn; the biopic with a scene-stealing, starmaking turn by Charles Laughton as the queen-beheading monarch; the racy Mae West sex comedy (ESPECIALLY the Mae West sex comedy); the weepie love story; and the heartwarming (nonmusical) story of a farm family with the biggest star in Hollywood, Will Rogers.
But guess which one one won?
Yup, the prestigious set-in-Britain drama, CAVALCADE. Some things NEVER change. (Updated)
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Time for this week's movie reviews. (I reviewed the French romantic comedy Shall We Kiss?, but since it has vanished from theaters after only one week, I will not excerpt my scribblings here.)
Ann Morrow on Terminator Salvation:
"To add atmosphere to all the heavy-metal carnage, McG brushstrokes the dreary landscape with evocative visuals such as nighttime flare rockets reminiscent of Vietnam, oil-drum fires that could’ve come from Kuwait, and incongruously enough, Nazi-like cattle-car roundups. It’s more than distracting, as part of the film’s appeal should’ve been a feature-length travelogue to the dehumanized, machine-made apocalypse of Earth in the year 2029. Problem is, Terminator Salvation is so lacking in human interest that the machines have already won."
Laura Leon on Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian:
"For the most part, the writing is a mess, with gaping, unexplained plot holes and a completely uninspired challenge to the protagonist. In fact, in almost all ways, Night at the Museum is a mess, and yet, its individual gifts give audiences something to really enjoy."
Read both reviews in their entirety here.
A profile of my favorite poet.
From his immortal scene in a certain Mel Brooks film.
This week, I wrote an essay about a couple of Hitchcock films (Topaz and Rear Window) I saw at the GE Theatre at Proctors.
You have a few more chances to see Hitchcock at Proctors.
MONDAY(March 23):
The Trouble With Harry (3 PM)
Frenzy (5:30 PM) and Topaz (8 PM)
WEDNESDAY (March 25):
Rear Window (3 PM), Topaz (5:30 PM) and Torn Curtain (8 PM)
The Trouble With Harry is a very funny comedy about a dead man who can't stay buried. (No, he's not a zombie, it's not that kind of movie--people just keep digging him up and moving him to another grave.) Here are a couple of posters that show how Paramount had no idea how to market a Hitchcock comedy.
(click to enlarge)
It's Oscar time again, and the Oscar issue is now on the streets. I urge you to enjoy the print version, because the photos/layout are lovely, but if Web-anchored you must remain, here you go.
I don't remember a time when there was as sharp a divide on a movie as there is between Laura and John and I on Slumdog Millionaire. They love it. I do not.
Everybody loves Melissa Leo and Frozen River, however.
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