“We’ll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet” — My 10 Favorite Capra Movies
There’s no denying that the year 2020 was a fallow period for my blogging efforts. A set of new routines brought on by both personal and global events made it […]
Tag Archives: James Stewart
Announcing My 2021 Movie Retrospective: The Films of Frank Capra
The director of my current choice for “favorite movie of all time” was a paradigmatic American success story: a Sicilian immigrant who rose through the ranks of a booming industry […]
Claustrophobia in Winchester ’73
In 1950, the Academy ratio (1.37:1) was still the norm in Hollywood cinema, although wider image formats were just around the corner. Filmmakers could use the traditional film frame in […]
Double Feature: Shops Around the Corner
The romantic comedy, when done well, is the kind of effortless entertainment that feeds Hollywood’s reputation as a place where dreams come true. The genre first came into its own […]
My Favorite Movies: It’s a Wonderful Life
Do I love It’s a Wonderful Life so much because “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is my favorite Christmas carol, or do I love “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” so much because It’s […]
My Favorite Movies: Vertigo
A man and a woman stroll down a sidewalk by a park. They are silent. The woman looks off to her left and sees a couple lying on the grass, […]
“There’s no story. It’s just people, gestures, moments…”
I didn’t write anything on this blog last week, making it the first week in months without a proper blog post from me. The plan had been to write another […]
My Favorite Movies: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
*This film opens with a familiar disclaimer: “The names, characters and incidents used herein are fictitious. Any similarity to any name, character or incident is unintentional.” I choose to honor […]
Sight & Sound’s Greatest Films Poll, 2012: Vertigo Ascendant
Sight & Sound, Britain’s prestigious film magazine, oversees this most prestigious of film lists every ten years. Polling “critics, programmers, academics, distributors, writers and other cinephiles” from all over the […]
5 Film Characters That Speak to Me
One of the greatest and most essential pleasures of moviegoing is identification with the characters on the screen. If such identification doesn’t happen, even a great story can only be […]
Geppetto's Clocks 