“We hope you have a wonderful time…come back soon…”

My most vivid memory of a drive-in involves a movie that I didn’t actually see.  In the early 1970s, my father and I took a trip to Spelter, WV for the purpose of escorting my grandparents (on Dad’s side) to the Mountain State Forest Festival in Elkins, a West Virginia celebration that gets underway in…

Starz and stripes

The folks at DISH—sensing that it might be a sensible idea to remain on my good side—offered up what they call "Kids Binge-a-Palooza" in the latter part of July this month.  (Apparently this is their second year of sponsoring this, having had a month-long celebration previously in 2017.)  What this entails is offering subscribers gratis…

My heroes have always been in documentaries

I’m sorry that the blog has been kind of quiet over the past week; the good folks at DISH were generous enough to give us an HBO/Cinemax freeview, and I spent a little time getting re-acquainted with some old favorites including Secretary (2002—with my gal Maggie Gyllenhaal) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006).  (Prada may…

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…

Adventures in Blu-ray: The Noose Hangs High (1948)

In Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's documentary Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987), there's footage of Buster reminiscing about his days as a gag writer at MGM...and in describing working with Bud Abbott & Lou Costello (who made three films at the studio while on loan from Universal) he had this to say…

“My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you!”

At the beginning of the 2008 biopic Milk, we find San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) talking into a tape recorder, making out what appears to be a will.  The timeline is November 18, 1978—nine days before Milk and Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) are assassinated by disgruntled ex-City Supervisor Dan White (Josh…

“Oh, why did I ever begin this dark deception?”

In March of this year, I made the mistake of opening an e-mail I received from Milestone Films.  (Okay, there was no gun placed to my temple...but you'd think I'd learn by now.)  They were advertising a sale on DVDs in their inventory featuring female filmmakers (to celebrate Women's History Month) and one of the…

All the Starz

DISH gave us a freeview of Starz last week...and normally, this isn't a huge deal because we're still subscribed to the Starz Encore channels (the discount is supposed to end Tuesday...but I have decided to maintain radio silence only until Mom asks me why the satellite bill has suddenly gone up).  A good many of…

From the DVR: The Memory of Justice (1973)

After directing such divertissements as Banana Peel (1964), Marcel Ophuls—the son of famed filmmaker Max (La Ronde, Lola Montès)—embarked on an ambitious documentary about the collaboration during WW2 between France’s Vichy government and Nazi Germany: The Sorrow and the Pity (1969).  Sorrow has turned up on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ within the…

“Listen to me very carefully…I shall say this only once…”

Because I decided to start a Facebook page for Thrilling Days of Yesteryear some time back, the social media behemoth takes it upon itself every now and then to remind me when I haven’t generated any new content on the blog.  (As if I wasn’t already aware of this.  Facebook must be taking guilt lessons…