You can’t go home again

Back in May of 2010, I composed a post about a brand of potato chips manufactured exclusively in my home state of West Virginia—the legendary Mister Bee.  They were my favorite chips as a kid growing up, and one of the many things I missed when we left the Mountain State to relocate in the…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Tomorrow is Forever (1946)

With the end of The Great War (WWI), Baltimore housewife Elizabeth MacDonald (Claudette Colbert) hopes to welcome home her husband of one year, John Andrew MacDonald (Orson Welles).  This reunion will not take place: Elizabeth receives a telegram informing her that John was killed in battle.  Returning to her job at the Hamilton Chemical Works—where…

What’s up, docs?

A documentary or two (or three, even!) courtesy of downloads from Epix Vault on Demand: Under the Gun (2016) - On December 14, 2012, with the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT that left 20 children and six adults dead, I convinced myself that this would be the time when this…

From the DVR: One Exciting Night (1922)

Wealthy John Fairfax (Henry Hull) returns to his family estate after a sabbatical abroad and while attending a garden party with his "Auntie" (Grace Griswold), is hit with Cupid's arrow after gazing upon one of the hostesses—a young girl named Agnes Harrington (Carol Dempster).  John's barely-disguised romantic affection towards Agnes is reciprocated in kind...though she's…

Adventures in Blu-ray: You Only Live Once (1937)

I'd like to hold my head up and be proud of who I am But they won't let my secret go untold I paid the debt I owed them, but they're still not satisfied Now I'm a branded man out in the cold Merle Haggard's classic Branded Man could easily describe Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda),…

From the DVR: Guns, Girls and Gangsters (1959)

You may recall that on Sunday (though it seems so long ago—doesn't it?) I did a post here on the blog that briefly described my happy dance over our free Epix movie channel weekend.  Meanwhile, at the paying gig, I wrote up an anniversary essay on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which made its radio debut on June 17, 1947. …

Workin’ for the (freeview) weekend

Good news, everyone!  DISH has bestowed upon us a "freeview" weekend of the Epix movie channel...and that's always most welcome here in the House of Yesteryear because while I'll admit their film offerings may suffer from a mild case of same-ol'-same-ol' (we're only getting the free weekend because Epix is promoting a new series entitled…

From the DVR: The 6th Day (2000)

After the first successful cloning of an animal in 1996—shout out to Dolly the sheep!—the race is on to try the technology out on humans...but almost immediately, there are issues addressing the ethics of such a practice (did we learn nothing from Frankenstein?).  In a credits prologue featured in the 2000 film The 6th Day,…

Grey Market Cinema: Casbah (1948)

Jewel thief Pépé Le Moko (Tony Martin) is wanted by the French police...for obvious reasons.  Pépé is the mastermind of a gang of no-accounts that operates out of The Casbah in Algiers (Casbah translates as "fortress" or "citadel"), an area where he can apparently move freely without being molested by the gendarmes.  Algiers' police commissioner…

Adventures in Blu-ray: The Addiction (1995)

Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor), an NYU student preparing for her doctorate in philosophy, is attacked one night by a mysterious woman (Annabelle Sciorra as "Casanova"), who insists that Kathleen forcefully tell her to go away and leave her alone.  Kathleen is unable to do this, and so Casanova does a number on her neck, calling…