The Trouble With You Is…You Got No Character!: Confessions of a Charactor Actor Junkie

Sitting here, watching Sahara (Zoltan Korda, 1943) on TCM, I was struck by what we are actually missing in today’s cinema and what makes it less than what it used to be: good character actors. See, I think that what created GOOD Hollywood, the Hollywood I love and worship, the films I come back to [...]

This is the Night (and the Days!): TCM Classic Film Festival, Part II

Some people collect stamps. Others go in for Fabergé eggs. I seem to be one for collecting film viewings…on 35 or 16mm, preferably, and on the big screen (of course). Thus a film festival like the Turner Classic Film Festival is really and truly my venue. So after the amazing viewings I had already aggregated, I [...]

Made it, Ma! Top of the World!: TCM Classic Film Fest, 2011–PART 1

I guess I didn’t realize exactly how excited I was about the TCM Classic Film Festival until I got there that first day. I rolled in, locked up my bike, collected my pass, and sat down to get some food. I looked around me, and I realized that I was surrounded. It was like a [...]

We Are Nobodies: 13 Assassins and the Elegance of Miike

Elegance of Miike? The hell you say. The man who gave us Ichi The Killer? The man who shocked people’s delicate sensibilities with Visitor Q? No, surely no. You must have the wrong guy. You mean to say that he made a film that gestured with grace and style towards the works of Kurosawa? Are [...]