Who ya got: The Munsters or The Addams Family? I had just turned ten the season both shows made their network debuts, so the choice became the subject of raging schoolyard debate. It wasn’t a …

It’s all out there somewhere: the Pomona preview print of The Magnificent Ambersons; the missing reels of Eric von Stroheim’s Greed; Lon Chaney’s uncut London After Midnight; even the pie fight from Dr. Strangelove is …

The latest from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata) is being pitched as an “old-school Hitchcockian thriller.” The Master has been dead over 40 years. All this slavish delineating has long since passed the point …

“Testing! Testing!” The voice still worked. No sign of hearing impairment either. It was 3:50 p.m. and in the time it took to tilt my head clockward, a nurse was at my side. “Would you …

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 …

UPDATE: I was mistakenly sent sent a list of screeners that included Skylark and Point Symmetry. Neither film is included in the Joyce Forum. Sorry for any confusion. With the San Diego Jewish Film Festival …

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 …

The bad news is that Days is intentionally unsubtitled. The good news is that there’s barely a word spoken by our two leads. Loneliness is their universal language. More bad news: this is the only …

The Carpetbaggers (1964) Producer/distributor Joseph E. Levine had been in the picture business for a little over a decade before his success blossomed. What did he get in return for purchasing the rights to Godzilla …

Sean Penn’s latest arrived at multiplexes armed with an edict from its star/director aimed at the unjabbed among us: unless you’re vaccinated, stay away from Flag Day. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Why should …

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 …

C.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker) regularly awakened his daughter Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner) to wow the partygoers gathered in the spacious living room below with the young girl’s remarkable vocal reach. These so-called “church parties” were …

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 …

It’s been a fertile period of late for adventure films that pair tough burly movie stars opposite young unknowns — Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman in My Spy, Liam Neeson and Jacob Perez in The …

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 …

There was a time in the mid-’90s when it seemed like every other indie release owed a debt of originality to Quentin Tarantino. Hell, he produced half of them! The studio press release for Habit, …

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 …

There should never be another fictionalized account of the Holocaust put to film. The temptation to sentimentalize the atrocities too often proves impossible to resist. (As Prof. Deborah Lipstadt points out, “The minute you’re trying …

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 …

There have been movies based on 45 rpm singles (Ode to Billy Joe, Harper Valley P.T.A.) T.V. shows (Downton Abbey, Barney’s Great Adventure), toys (Ouija, The LEGO Movie), and comic books too numerous to mention, …

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 …

A careful jog of the memory might help to recall the headline-grabbing story upon which Joe Bell is based. Those who have seen the trailer should find it fairly easy to ascertain the gingerly hinted-at …

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 …

What is life but a succession of good and bad choices? There were times when Nicolas Cage’s career and personal life bounded off the rails in the direction of Charlie Sheen wackyland. But then Cage …

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 …

Thoughts of writing this one off were tempting, but the day was hot, the timing right, and the screen large. Was Marvel right to patiently ride out the pandemic by skipping the VOD route in …

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 …

Where were you on July 20, 1969? Unless you were among the thousands fortunate enough to have been in Mount Morris Park for the opening of the Harlem Cultural Festival, chances are you were glued …

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 latest family affair from Alexandre Rockwell (In the Soup, 13 Moons) is a product from another time. On the surface, it could very well have been a black-and-white low-budget indie that was left lounging …

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 …

The company Grandpa Bill Marks worked for threw an annual picnic that encouraged employees to invite family members for an afternoon of games, barbeque, and enough beer to keep back teeth at high tide. Having …

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, …

’Twas home video that first began sawing away at television’s umbilical cord. It was bad enough that stations sliced and diced movie running times quicker than a Popeil Chop-O-Matic to make room for commercial breaks. …

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 …

It was to be the first image I’d seen projected since the lockdown. The trailer pronouncement landed with the jaw-splintering force of a fist enfolding a roll of quarters: “From the director of Crazy Rich …

My original intention was to cover a couple of Woody Allen’s middle-to-modern funny films. Then I happened across this hilarious, never-broadcast, half-hour PBS mockumentary on YouTube. I hope you enjoy this Holy Grail of hilarity …

A haughty fashion designer (Emma Thompson) and the seamstress most likely to dethrone her (Emma Stone) wage battle in this, the third live-action attempt on the part of the studio to ransack the Disney Vault, …

This week’s offerings include a trio of documentaries that range in subject from the history of everyone’s favorite curse word, Miami’s cocaine cartel, and for openers, a cautionary fable for the marginally talented among us …

North Hollywood arrives with the tagline: The first ever movie about becoming a pro skater. Sonja Henie and I, Tonya to the contrary, for the sake of argument the profession referred to in the catchphrase …

Having spent 14 months in quarantine, the sudden reintroduction to the outside world left me feeling nostalgic for cramped spaces. For those having similar difficulty reacclimating, this week’s viewings selections are all sewer-based. Talk about …

What is it about playing firefighters that makes big shot movie stars agree to fiddle while the budget burns up around them? I submit the following list of A-listers who, at the peak of their …

The British Film Institute launches BFI Player Classics on May 14. The new streaming outlet promises what it calls a “collection of classic British cinema specifically for the American market.” (I’m guessing that means no …

If it seems as though it was just a couple of months ago that we spoke about the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, it was. Alas, nothing on this list comes close to topping Talking …

By the time a wave of big screen hits earned Rick Moranis household name status, he had already gained cult immortality in certain sectors of the USA and Canada for his participation in 25 episodes …

The last time I viewed a projected image was inside the Grossmont 10 on March 13, 2020. Since then, I’ve gone to bed each night asking God to spare me from covid-19, if only because …

Oscar-nominated movies...at home! Crip Camp (2020) Judy Heumann. The mere mention of her name sends shivers down the spines of all who look to cut corners at the expense of denying the disabled community equal …

It’s been over a year since most of us have set foot inside a theatre. Instead, we’ve spent the past 13 months streaming instead of screening, and so the idea of handing out movie awards …

Breakfast on Pluto (2005) Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game stands as one of the most significant films released in the past thirty years, if for no other reason than that it’s a suspense thriller that …

Over the past decade or so, the early months of the year — a time when most average moviegoers spend their days either catching up on Awards Season dross or in hibernation — have generally …