From the DVR: Rachel Getting Married (2008)

I've never been married, but both of my sisters are...and while the mind's memory always wants to reminisce about the fun, love, and joy that results with the nuptials, it tends to bury the familial conflicts that can surface during that special event.  (I'll remain mum about the "maid-of-honor" controversy at one of the weddings.) …

From the DVR: …and justice for all. (1979)

By any measure of the yardstick, Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) should not be a member of the legal profession.  He’s far too principled.  Which is not to disparage lawyers, you understand—it's just that Kirkland has difficulty functioning in a world where integrity and ethics take a backseat to winning at all costs.  Asked by his…

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…

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…

“This is the only place I’m happy.”

Fourteen is a painful age for any kid...but for young Duncan (Liam James), it’s a real tribulation: he’s shy and unsure of himself, and his divorced mother Pam (Toni Collette) has dragooned him into spending the summer in a coastal Massachusetts beach house with her overbearing boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) and his conceited daughter Steph…

“You poor creatures…I wish I could help you…but you’re by yourselves now…”

Back in July of last year, when The House of Yesteryear was enmeshed in that (mercifully) brief thrall of madness I jokingly called The DISH Austerity Program, there was really one outlet on our system for uncut, commercial-free movies…and that was HDNet Movies, a channel that spun-off from HDNet (now signing all correspondence as AXS TV)…

From the DVR: Honeysuckle Rose (1980)

My most vivid memory of when Urban Cowboy played in theaters in the summer of 1980…is not seeing Urban Cowboy when it played in theaters in the summer of 1980.  (This is going to require a long-winded explanation, now that I think about it.)  It was the transition period between my junior and senior year at my alma mater, Ravenswood Penitentiary High School, and that…

Movies I’ve stared at recently on TCM #70

Since I thought this past weekend was going to be a busy one, what with some projects I was working on and the like, I slacked off on last week’s Serial Saturdays and Doris Day(s) and instead finished up a couple of reviews for ClassicFlix—one of which has already been posted, Day of the Outlaw (1959).  I also peeked at some free HBO/Cinemax…

Cinematic Vegetables (Part two in a continuing series)

I’ll say this for AT&T U-Verse: in the short period of time since we switched to the service in January, the House of Yesteryear has been blessed with two, count ‘em, two free preview weekends of HBO/Cinemax.  (One of them is currently in progress this weekend, and next weekend we’ll get our second look at Showtime/The…

Movies I’ve stared at recently on TCM #67 (John Garfield edition)

With AT&T U-Verse offering a free Showtime preview this weekend, I did what I could to make what available room was needed on the DVR (it won’t be as much as what I grabbed from the Starz!/Encore or HBO/Cinemax previews, because most of what’s on Showtime is not Scottish*).  As such, it made for this dan-dan-dandy post!  East…