Behold ‘James Ellroy’s Feast Of Death’, a fascinating documentary about Ellroy’s search for the person who murdered his mother in late 1950s Los Angeles, an event that he’s written an entire book about and that obviously shapes his identity in so many ways. Ellroy hired an LAPD detective to re-investigate
For those of you wondering why I didn’t post a Three Stooges short this weekend (or for those of you who wonder why I post Three Stooges shorts at all) let me explain. I began a re-reading of James Ellroy’s ‘The Big Nowhere’ on Saturday morning and more or less
Let’s closed ‘fight week’ with another George Stevens directed fight sequence. Earlier this week we watched his superb fight scene from ‘Shane’ (which took place in a bar). The day before we caught the fight from John Sturges ‘Bad Day at Black Rock’ (which took place in a diner that
In 1980 (or thereabouts) I saw William Peter Blatty’s ‘The Ninth Configuration’ on the Z Channel, LA’s now legendary first run cable channel which featured lousy prints of new-ish movies. I was perhaps fifteen at the time and was so perplexed and mesmerized by this one-of-a-kind film that I promptly
If you’re going to get into a fight, why not combine it with some drinking? It will certainly make the idea of fighting seem more rational than if you were sober. Which brings us to ‘fight week’. On Monday we watched a fight in a diner (which more than likely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4X24dPPg-8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U_jzOepc8o Yesterday we watched the excellent fight scene from “Bad Day At Black Rock” in which an aging, one-armed Spencer Tracy kicks martial arts ass. Today we’ll watch what I consider to be the Grandaddy of all fight scenes, George Stevens virtuoso bar fight from ‘Shane’. I first saw ‘Shane’
Much as I deplore seeing people physically fighting in real life–it’s always such a jarring and disgusting sight–I LOVE a good fight scene in a movie. Let’s watch a few this week. First up is this fabulous sequence from ‘Bad Day At Black Rock’ in which Spencer Tracy (who has
‘Three Little Twirps’ (1943) is the 71st short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Monday, August 3rd through Friday, August 7th, 1942 and was released on Friday, July 9th, 1943 (the 190th day of the Gregorian calendar). It marks the second and final
As we began this week with a little Benny Hill from his early, black and white BBC program, let’s end the week with another dose of Benny. (This is a practice known as ‘bookending’. Didn’t know that, did you?) Here is a parody of the then new phenomenon known as
Here’s an immensely enjoyable short film starring Cab Calloway, his orchestra and the great and unsung black actress Fredi Washington called ‘Hi De Ho’. Directed by Fred Waller (who also directed the pioneering Duke Ellington short ‘Symphony in Black’ and was–get this–responsible for the development of the Cinerama process) the