Close all the honky tonks

I guess it goes without saying that there was very little chance of my not hearing of Paul Newman’s passing—but as I was leafing through a Newsweek that came in the mail (or it may have been Time—I get them both confused sometimes) I came across an obit that mentioned country singer Charlie Walker’s passing this past September…

The Harold Dispatch

TCM ran a quartet of Harold Lloyd comedy shorts last night in the time slot they reserve for silent films, and since I was wide awake at the time they came on I decided to sit down and view them. I’d already seen two of the four, including the best of the bunch—a 1920 outing…

I woke up this morning to find…

…that Paul Newman has passed away at age 83. My God, this sucks. Sometimes when my father is at the wheel and I’m riding shotgun, we’ll pass a county mountie writing out a ticket to some speeding scofflaw, and that will prompt me to remark (in my best Jackie Gleason impression): “What we're dealing with here…

Tanned, rested and ready

First of all, I want to apologize for being away from the blog for so long. That old trouble of mine has been kicking up again—that’s right, pure ol’ bone-natural laziness. I ceased blogging about ten days ago because I honestly couldn’t think of anything to say and by the time I did have something to…

Me and my Shadow

I apologize for the recent drought here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, but I had to curtail posting activity in order to finish a liner notes project for the good people at Radio Spirits.  In working on this weekend’s project, I was suddenly transported back to an earlier, simpler time—though I would be remiss if I…

“Either I’m dead right, or I’m crazy!”

Even though I own a copy of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) on DVD—and even though Turner Classic Movies showcases the film on a regular basis (if memory serves me correct, it popped up in August during a day-long salute to Claude Rains)—I’m sort of surprised that it’s been so long since I revisited this landmark…

“It’s not the heat, it’s the humanity.”

Well, I ended up putting the two Disney flicks that Thad sent me on the back burner yesterday because as I was innocently flipping channels to see what else was on I saw that TCM was running Brigadoon (1954) that afternoon…followed by Cabin in the Sky (1943). While I’m not quite as “musicals mad” as my friend and frequent…

It’s not TV. It’s H…come to think of it; I don’t know what it is…

Well, the free HBO/Cinemax weekend has come and gone and I can count on one hand the number of movies that I can honestly say was worth the time and effort. To Sunday’s list, I would add The Devil Wears Prada (2006), a smart, bitchy comedy set in the world of fashion that stars Anne Hathaway as…

“Oh, I love living vicariously through the pain and suffering of others…”

Two days into the free HBO/Cinemax on Demand weekend (being provided by my cable company, CharredHer) and I’d say I’m batting about .233 with regards to the movies I’ve chosen. I started out on Friday watching a trio of HBO documentaries; the best of the bunch being The Recruiter (2008), an interesting look at the occupation of…

On demand

Last week, I got another message via my cable box that this weekend (Sept. 5-8), I was going to be rewarded with a bounty of cinematic riches due to the fact that I’ll be getting HBO and Cinemax on Demand for free, courtesy of CharredHer Communications. I glanced through the offerings last night and discovered,…