Adventures in Blu-ray: The Hired Hand (1971)

Three saddle tramps—Harry Collings (Peter Fonda), Archie Harris (Warren Oates), and Dan Griffen (Robert Pratt)—are on their way to California when they stop off at a desolate town identified as Del Norte.  Dan needs his horse shod, and while the trio down whiskey in a cantina, Harry informs Arch that he’s decided to return to…

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 (and IFC and Sundance TV) #66

Barring any cataclysmic planetary interruptions for the rest of this weekend, it will be Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s pleasure to resurrect its long dormant Doris Day(s) feature beginning tomorrow, April 21—so don’t anyone complain that they didn’t get prior warning.  In the meantime, here are a few random features that I’ve watched courtesy of (ka-ching!) AT&T U-Verse’s…

I’m always on a mountain when I fall

I hate to say I’m givin’ up but I believe Losin’s just become a way of life with me Losin’ wouldn’t be so bad at all But I’m always on a mountain when I fall He didn’t write the song—that honor goes to Chuck Howard, a songwriter who also penned Waylon Jennings’ Come with Me and Conway…

“Fish don’t fry in the kitchen/Beans don’t burn on the grill…”

I’m pleased to announce that this is the very first post composed at the new Rancho Yesteryear, into which the ‘rents and I officially moved this afternoon (though this time they were ahead of me; they brought their stuff in last night).  There will be a gradual phasing out of the old House of Yesteryear…

Risky business

The ‘rents are officially out of town as of this posting…which means I’m pretty much on my own here at Rancho Yesteryear until tomorrow evening. (They need prescriptions filled, and have journeyed to Savannah for the doctor’s appointment needed to accomplish this.) My mother has been staying with me since my release from the hospital and will probably keep…

This free movie weekend was brought to you by CharredHer…

In retrospect, I guess it’s a good thing that I was laid up with some unknown malady this weekend because it gave me the opportunity to ogle a bunch of free movies on the HBO and Cinemax channels (not to mention HBO and Cinemax on Demand) and get an idea of what modern movie audiences…

Green, green Grass of home

Despite the resolution made in May 2008 to continue on with the season box sets of Adam-12 (though Universal had to farm out the series to Shout! Factory in order to do so)—and the recent decision to continue with Quincy, M.E. sets, I’ve come to a conclusion that may be even more difficult to accept than TDOY commenters insisting Curly is funnier than Shemp. I’ve accepted…

Gerry-rigged

Saturday night, I couldn’t find anything decent on television to watch…and I had just achieved a state of comfortability on my couch that precluded my getting up and rummaging through the TDOY archives for a DVD. So I decided to scope out the On Demand channels and see if there was something I hadn’t seen. Let me…

Instant karma’s gonna get you

Bill Crider had a post up yesterday reminding his vast readership that Monday was the 28th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. With that in mind, I decided to take advantage of Sundance Channel on Demand’s showing of The Killing of John Lennon (2006) last night…something I’m still regretting today. I had reservations going into the film, because…