Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.
November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...
November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...
- 10/24/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...
- 8/31/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Gregory Le Cava's Unfinished Business (1941) screens at Anthology Film Archives in New York on 27th - 29th January, along with the director's 1935 film She Married Her Boss in part of the on-going series, Stuck on the Second Tier: Underknown Auteurs.
The first distinguishing feature I noticed about Gregory La Cava's films, apart from his great ability with comedy, was the tension between humor and pain, which often seemed quite off-kilter, unpredictable, and liable to Whang you in the face. The happy ending of Stage Door (1937) is marred by our consciousness of the death of the most sympathetic and passionate character (some prints apparently include a quick shot of her grave at the end, not smoothing over the problem so much as highlighting it). When Lee Tracy prepares to beat up Lupe Velez at the end of The Half-Naked Truth (1932), and the soundtrack jauntily plays Mendelssohn's Wedding March, the modern sensibility rather shudders.
The first distinguishing feature I noticed about Gregory La Cava's films, apart from his great ability with comedy, was the tension between humor and pain, which often seemed quite off-kilter, unpredictable, and liable to Whang you in the face. The happy ending of Stage Door (1937) is marred by our consciousness of the death of the most sympathetic and passionate character (some prints apparently include a quick shot of her grave at the end, not smoothing over the problem so much as highlighting it). When Lee Tracy prepares to beat up Lupe Velez at the end of The Half-Naked Truth (1932), and the soundtrack jauntily plays Mendelssohn's Wedding March, the modern sensibility rather shudders.
- 1/26/2012
- MUBI
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