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What can be said of an ensemble drama in which Milton Berle gives the best performance? Or a searing indictment of the Oscars that couldn’t have been made without producer Joseph E. Levine first obtaining ...
My analysis of The Carpetbaggers was pitched as either a cover story or a column entry to be presented in two parts. Guess who lost the coin toss. Here’s part two. The Carpetbaggers (1964) Somewhere ...
Chicago was one of the last major markets to be wired for cable. (Everybody got their cut!) My first Jerrold Box offered 4 channels, one of which was TBS. Bill Tush hosted a Sunday morning ...
No, not that Casino Royale. The other, better one! Casino Royale (1967) We open with a postscript that can be found in the supplementary section of the DVD: it was Peter Sellers who suggested Orson ...
What’s bigger, more exciting, and two years older than Airport 1975? Airport ‘77! Airport ’77 (1977) In Airport, the Arthur Hailey original, disaster struck in the form of mad bomber Van Heflin, while the 747 ...
If this dive into Airport 1975 were any deeper, it would have crashed! Airport 1975 (1974) It was the first of three officially sanctioned sequels to Airport, the obscenely successful air-disaster soap opera based on ...
Many performers lost their careers during Hollywood’s transition to sound, but Jean Arthur literally found her voice in talkies. And don’t let the pink and squishy sounds it radiates fool you: Ms. Arthur was a ...
What was the first film to receive an R rating from the MPAA? Not The Graduate, which was classified Adults Only, but The Split, a crime drama starring Jim Brown and Diahann Carroll. Do you ...
This week’s grouping offers hope to the horizontally challenged, especially if one has a sense of humor when it comes to body image. Heavyweights (1995) The Parent Trap meets Stalag 17 when an overnight camp ...
Still reluctant to book a flight? Here are a couple of vacations you can take without leaving home. Where The Boys Are (1960) A convincingly fabricated backlot blizzard is enough to persuade four Midwestern college ...
Saturday Night Fever made something special out of white polyester and blow-dryers as an extension of one’s arm, and transformed Deney Terrio — John Travolta’s trainer and future host of Dance Fever — into a ...
As promised in last week’s review of Alexandre Rockwell’s Sweet Thing, a few words on its prequel, Little Feet. But first, let’s present two of the director’s previous films. In the Soup and Pete Smalls ...
Before we discuss three of the better Bugs and Elmer shorts contained in the numbered, limited edition blu-ray set, The Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, a word about packaging. The Looney Tunes gang has morphed ...
The movies’ one glorious footnote to disco roller-boogie can be found in Peter Bogdanovich’s awfully romantic comedy They All Laughed, wherein a klutzy John Ritter attempts to skate his way into Dorothy Stratten’s heart. That’s ...
Three comedies about critics starring Mel Brooks, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. Our first entry earned Mel an Oscar® for Best Animated Short, and in spite of that, it’s good! The Critic (1960) For many, ...
Walter Matthau? A bank robbing serial killer wanted by both good guys and bad guys alike?! Times were tough. The actor had to hock wedding presents just to pay the rent. The $2500 this minisculely ...