I hadn’t seen the Cary Grant Vs. the Crop Duster scene from ‘North By Northwest’ in ages so I looked it up over lunch today and was surprised by how little of it I recalled. The long prelude–six minutes before the plane begins its attack–is Hitch at his methodical best,
Here’s some remarkable colorized footage of the post-World War I remains of Flanders taken from the air in an open Bi-Plane. The colorization and sound bed (vintage airplane noise of course) give it a hauntingly realistic sense. Much as grainy old black and white footage has its own eerie charm,
Last night we watched the HBO Paul Anka doc and I knew from the very beginning, which featured 85 year-old Anka on board his private jet with his sixteen year old wife, that he was a prick. Not that he said or did anything obviously prick-ish. He wouldn’t have let
Whoever thought that one day Woody Allen would be even more detested than William F. Buckley? I personally must confess to having great respect and affection for each of these freaks of nature, something that pretty much nobody I know shares anymore. Above we see them in action as they
A couple of months ago I posted about Howard Hawks 1939 movie ‘Only Angels Have Wings’. The discussion largely centered on the magnificent aerial photography by Elmer Dyer. It turns out that the Criterion Collection has included the film in their august DVD pantheon of classic cinema and provided a
Celebrate the season of the arrival of public domain with Springtime (1929)! This early Walt Disney Silly Symphonies animated short film is a exploration of nature set entirely to classical music. The cartoon features flora and fauna, including charming flowers, busy ladybugs, crawling centipedes, soaring birds, and hopping frogs. Without
This year a slew of entertainment from 1929 has entered the public domain and can now be reused, re-recorded, re-edited and re-enjoyed for free. Songs, movies, books–the world is now awash in uncopyrighted cultural riches, and the family members of the creators of those works are now shit out of
What better way to usher in the holiday that celebrates munificence, family, warmth and generosity than with two videos of Woody Allen discussing death and the meaninglessness of life. For somebody who thinks that nothing ultimately matters, Woody has certainly been prodigious in his output. In fact, it could be
It seems wholly unbelievable that the delicious, nutritious and frequently super-high end fish known as the Tuna was once so obscure to Americans that the company who first introduced a canned, chopped version of it for sandwich use–Van Kamp was their name–thought it best to explain to consumers that it
Tomorrow night I’m hosting a fiftieth anniversary screening of ‘Dog Day Afternoon’, Sidney Lumet’s terrific 1975 ‘fiasco flick’ starring Al Pacino. (What is a ‘fiasco flick’ you ask? A movie about a crime that goes instantly wrong at the very opening and which you then watch in horrified delight as