THE GOOD BOSS: GOOD GOING
Javier Bardem essays the title role in The Good Boss, and that is how his character would describe himself. He inherited from his father a factory that makes scales—all sizes and kinds—and presides over a hundred or so workers that he…
ABBOTT & COSTELLO, HARPO MARX AND MORE ON BLU-RAY
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (ClassicFlix) While I would never tout this as a great Abbott and Costello comedy, the vast array of bonus features on this release supersedes my interest in the film itself. Kudos to Bob Furmanek and…
BACK TO THE DRIVE-IN
April Wright has made several good documentaries, includingGoing Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace(in which I appear)and Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-in Movie. The latter film is bathed in an understandable nostalgia for the kind…
BULLET TRAIN: GOING NOWHERE FAST
If you’ve seen Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, or Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, you’ll recognize David Leitch’s style of filmmaking. He focuses on hyperkinetic action and flamboyant violence with a heaping dose of smartass humor—a flashy showcase that…
NEW AND NOTABLE FILM BOOKS JULY 2022 – PART TWO
THE FAMOUS MR. FAIRBANKS: A STORY OF CELEBRITY by Richard Schickel (Felix Farmer Press) I was happy to reacquaint myself with this book, a lengthy essay about the nature of celebrity based on the first man who embodied its…
NEW AND NOTABLE FILM BOOKS JULY 2022 – Part One
INK-STAINED HOLLYWOOD: THE TRIUMPH OF CINEMA’S TRADE PRESS by Eric Hoyt (University of California Press) This vital new book is the result of Herculean research by the man who now supervises the Media History Digital Library, where one can…
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
It’s easy to see why Dalia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing became a best-seller. It has all the ingredients to attract a wide audience: an underdog heroine with an abusive father lives in a marsh in South Carolina that makes her a…
