Archive for the ‘movies’ category
Growing Up Scarlett
True Classics, one the most loved classic film destinations in existence, has dedicated the month of June to a “Movie Memories” blogathon. I am thrilled to be able to participate in this wonderful event, the aim of which is to get classic film lovers share their favorite classic film memories. My memory is, admittedly, dysfunctional, but it comes from the heart and I hope that it does justice to True Classics webmistress Brandie– a woman who, by the way, is one of the most inspirational people I have the pleasure of being acquainted with.
2013 TCM Film Festival – My Pictorial Picks
In just over a week, Hollywood is getting, well, the Hollywood treatment with the 4th annual Turner Classic Movie Film Festival. The billboards are already up over town and, as a Hollywood local, I gotta say: forget the holidays. This is the most wonderful time of the year. For three days, I get to see Hollywood as it used to be: glamorous, sophisticated and exciting.
It’s my fourth straight year and, of course I’m looking forward to rendezvous-ing with good friends and eager to meet new film fans from all over the world. Deciding on the schedule is always torture– one I look forward to eagerly each year– and here are my picks for this year’s fest in true Pictorial fashion:
A History Lesson By Way of Franklin Pierce, Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln’s Really Great, Awesomely Bad Hair
So, there’s this obsession with the 16th president of the United States that I’ve had pretty much all my life. It hit me, all of a sudden, early in the 7th grade when for no reason at all I found myself crying because I was assigned to cover Franklin Pierce for our presidential reports instead of Lincoln. Our teacher assigned the presidents in alphabetical order and my surname came just two letters shy of “L”. And so the fate of Mr. Lincoln’s five page double-spaced, Times New Roman report was destined for a classmate who, bless his heart, was under the impression that every sentence ought to begin with a pronoun. (And, judging by his Facebook profile, this still appears to be the case. Not that I stalk old classmates on Facebook. Ever.)
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LINCOLN: A Modern Hero
“As a nation we began by declaring that all men are created equal. We now read that practically to say all men are created equal—except Negroes. Soon, it will say all men are created equal except Negroes, foreigners and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty. To Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” – Abraham Lincoln
As you’ve might have guessed by this point, I’m something of a history nerd. And history nerds tend to ruffle a bit at the assumption that history is dull, preachy, or worse: irrelevant. This is almost certainly due to the fact that all of us hated our freshman year history teachers, only to hate our sophomore history teachers even more, and third period American history was more or less along the lines of Chinese water torture.
Which is totally unfair.
As the passion, fervor, and gut-wrenching agony of the last two weeks of this Election year proved, history in the making makes for tremendously entertaining theatre. Why on earth wouldn’t we think that the moments recorded in our history textbooks were any less passionate, fervent, agonizing. Read more ►
The Director’s Cut: Past, Present & Future
So. Chances are you’re here, reading these words, because you have some sort of affinity for classic films. Black, white, color, VistaVision, CinemaScope, 35mm, 70mm, cinerama and even smell-o-vision. And as a fan of celluloid cinema (something facing extinction with the onslaught of the now commonplace DCP and the possibly soon-to-be commonplace 48 FPS) you are probably familiar with the work of director Chuck Workman, even if you don’t know his name. In 1986, Workman created a short film entitled Precious Images, commissioned to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Director’s Guild of America. The film won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 1987, where it was screened during the Oscar ceremony. Classic film-lovers, however, possibly know it better for its second incarnation: 100 Years at the Movies. Read more ►