Posted on April 11, 2020 by admin
With dozens of adaptations and even more spin-offs, Jane Austen found universally acknowledged truths that still resonate two centuries later. If I had the means, I would open an Austen-themed pub with this menu. Short of that, queue up an Austen classic and consider making a drink inspired by these Pride and Prejudice characters. The…
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Posted on February 21, 2020 by admin
Prime examples of fantastical subgenres — steampunk, surrealist, and speculative --- have little in common with one another, but they all offer a version of reality slightly askew of our own and give us another world to ponder.
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Posted on January 9, 2020 by admin
From video game rivalries to an unknown unhinged artist, the following docs explore the odd side of humanity and leave you in disbelief. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
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Posted on November 29, 2019 by admin
Spies, murder, buried treasure, cold cases. Make some scones, brew some tea and embrace your inner Anglophile with these British shows.
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Posted on November 29, 2019 by admin
Knives Out! is what it would look like if The Royal Tenenbaums were invited to dinner in Murder by Death.
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Posted on November 27, 2019 by admin
It's Thanksgiving weekend! Does the mere thought of traveling through terrible weather and traffic just make you want to commit MURDER? Instead of engaging in a terrible crime, make a pot of hot tea and curl up with the DVD set of Vera.
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Posted on November 27, 2019 by admin
Even with his impressive resume and box office dependability, the studio was hesitant to greenlight a picture like Psycho.
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Posted on November 19, 2019 by admin
Four Academy Awards, plus sixteen nominations. More than 1,500 published songs. Johnny Mercer founded a record company and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. Sometimes singer, sometimes composer, always wordsmith. He had a way with making the simple things sound fantastical and making unlikely phrases roll of the tongue. His smooth Southern drawl and his ability…
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Posted on November 18, 2019 by admin
Mercer wrote more than 1,500 songs. He won four Oscars (and was nominated for 14 more), founded Capitol Records (and gave Nat "King" Cole his first contract) and founded the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.
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Posted on October 8, 2019 by admin
In celebration of Spooktober, I'm giving away one copy of the Criterion Blu-ray of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), an underrated title in Hitchcock's library. Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains, it is a masterwork in quiet tension.
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Posted on September 23, 2019 by admin
The Wind finds terror in the simplest, and harshest, place -- the unforgiving, uninhabited prairie. A precise date isn't given, but based on clues, it is set somewhere in the American west in the mid-to-late 1800s. The audience feels for the characters who try to stave off loneliness -- and death -- everyday.
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Posted on August 29, 2019 by admin
Five billion. That's how many DVDs Netflix has shipped since it starting mailing entertainment directly to people's homes in 1998. Five billion little red envelopes have been carried by postal workers to all 42,000 zip codes in the U.S.A., and even some military bases.
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Posted on August 23, 2019 by admin
Of all the styles in film history, film noir is one of the most far-reaching and hard to pin down. A few of the things critics and historians mostly agree on are: Social degeneration which forces those who still believe in “the good” to grapple with their own alienation. A tragic protagonist who must delve…
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Posted on August 6, 2019 by admin
The son of a hardware store owner from Indiana, Pennsylvania, Stewart embodied classic Americana on film. Starring in everything from Frank Capra small-town dramas to Hitchcock nail-biters to gritty Westerns. He became the face of wholesomeness.
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Posted on August 3, 2019 by admin
Guys who talk out of the sides of their mouths, calling women “broads” and “dames.” Detectives, crime, forbidden love, doomed lives. Dark alleys, sympathetic bad guys, strong and dangerous women, stark lighting, trapped characters and dim settings are all signs you might be watching a film noir.
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