The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

Next: two-hander

Maestro (2023) is a type of Pointillism. It zips along, achieving balance between Bernstein’s personal and artistic life. Bradley Cooper goes the adventurous route in making this biopic. The third act is more conventional, but someone going in unacquainted with Leonard Bernstein, after watching thi...

Ann Sothern

Next: left the film business while still young

Beyond Tomorrow (1940) This lovely Christmas fantasy is about three captains of industry, living under the same roof, along with their indispensable housekeeper, who befriend a young couple through interesting means: by tossing their wallets out the window to see if anyone is honest enough to return...

Joan Fontaine gives any of the great femme fatales a run for their money. Ivy is fantastic. Along with Born to Be Bad (also excellent), she manages to be refined, vulgar and erotic at the same time.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) We’ve all seen this, so there’s not much more to add. The score by Adolph Deutsch is very effective, alternating between ominous and lighthearted. I also like the set for the Hotel Belvedere (probably used in other WB productions). I wouldn’t mind spending a couple of hours...

After Hours (1985) Shows what happens when Midtown Manhattan meets SoHo, when Soho had that now-vanished counterculture elan. Things quickly unravel for Griffin Dunne, playing smug but likable office worker Paul Hackett, who ventures to SoHo to meet Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette), whom he met at...

A League of Their Own (1992)

Next: high school sports

The Holdovers (2023) Alexander Payne returns with this funny, poignant, picturesque period piece set in a tony New England boarding school. The year is 1970, and three people, for different reasons, find themselves spending Christmas break on campus: a curmudgeonly, acerbic classics professor (Paul...

George Washington Slept Here

Btw and FWIW, ever since I watched the above referenced 'Twilight Zone' episode first run as a kid on our family's old Zenith TV set... https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.Q1ePANgWIzeGp_NiFNNgqgHaEo?w=301&h=187&c=7&r=0&o=5&dpr=1.4&pid=1.7 ...I've thought the "gremlin" ou...

The Death Kiss (1932) What a nice surprise! The set up: Fictional Tonart Studio is filming a crime picture, called … The Death Kiss. In the final scene, the leading man (whom no one likes), gets shot after being kissed by the chic leading lady, (Adrienne Ames). The director yells “cut!”, but the po...

The Candidate (1972)

Next: has the word "green" in the title

Morning Glory

Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) When the president wants to lift the country’s mood, he hires a famous Broadway impresario, played by the always-appealing Warner Baxter, to head the newly created Department of Amusement. But not everyone is amused. Corrupt industrialists, profiting from the Depression, ...