“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: screwball
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 […]
Sullivan’s Travels by Preston Sturges
A message movie disguised as a frothy comedy when it isn’t a frothy comedy disguised as a message movie, Sullivan’s Travels (1941) is an inside-baseball satire on Hollywood’s self-importance and […]
The Ingredients of Arsenic and Old Lace
Sometimes, when revisiting a movie you haven’t seen since you were young, you wonder if you’ll still like it at all. I had my doubts about Arsenic and Old Lace, Frank […]
Uh … 3 ½? — The Gay Divorcee
The Introduction I had failed to see any of the Astaire-Rogers musicals until early 2014, at which time I was bulking up my working knowledge of 1930s cinema in general. […]
My Favorite Movies: It Happened One Night
There are bolder comedies from the era that produced It Happened One Night. Considering its influence on the screwball subgenre, this particular exercise in madcap mating rituals is relatively restrained and […]
Double Feature: Bringing Up Baby and What’s Up, Doc?
Between 1938 and 1972, seismic cultural shifts took place in America. The speed of change was unprecedented, thanks in part to mass communication, including movies. But the movie industry was […]
My Favorite Movies: The Social Network
Five years ago, the consensus on The Social Network was that it wasn’t so much about Facebook specifically as it was an update on the age-old concepts of genius, entrepreneurship, and […]
Double Feature: His Girl Friday and Ace in the Hole
“They ain’t human!” “I know, they’re newspapermen.” There’s always been something suspicious about reporters. They say their mission is to “tell the truth,” to write history’s first draft, to give […]
25 Funniest Movie Scenes
It was about a year ago that I put up a list of the scariest moments I’ve encountered in movies. At that time, I received a request to follow it […]
Geppetto's Clocks 