I’m Dreaming of a Selflessly Sacrificial Christmas
Review of White Christmas, Directed by Michael Curtiz By ALEXIS NEAL Once upon a time, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis were in the Army together. On Christmas Eve in 1944, Davis (an aspiring performer)...
View ArticleFaith, Reason, and the Man in the Big Red Suit
Review of Miracle on 34th Street, Directed by George Seaton By ALEXIS NEAL Young Susan Walker is an intensely practical child. Her mother Doris has only ever told her the truth—her childhood has been...
View ArticleLove Conquers All: Romance and Idolatry in ‘The Mummy’
Review of The Mummy, Directed by Karl Freund By ALEXIS NEAL You really should know better than to read aloud anything you find in an ancient tomb in Cairo. But when the long-lost Scroll of Thoth is...
View ArticleThe African Queen’s Happy Ending
Review of The African Queen, Directed by John Huston Not all movies are deep and profound, but I do expect “classics” to have something to say. Movies become “classics” because they are more than mere...
View ArticleMay the Force Be With You
Review of Star Wars, Directed by George Lucas If you ask a cinephile what his favorite decade was, chances are he will pick the 1970s. That decade was full of movies that movie lovers love to...
View ArticleHere’s Looking at You, Casablanca!
Review of Casablanca, Directed by Michael Curtiz It’s December of 1941 in sunny, depressing Casablanca, where refugees flock in an attempt to flee the ravages of Nazi-infested Europe. They flock to...
View ArticleThe General: A Train Full of Laughs
Review of The General, Directed by Buster Keaton In our effort to blog our way through the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films, I picked out one of the few movies on the list I had not only not...
View ArticleOn the Virtues of Bloodthirsty Soviet Propaganda
Review of The Battleship Potemkin, Directed by Sergei Eisenstein One of the great things about Netflix and YouTube is the instantaneous access to a wealth of old films that you used to be able to see...
View ArticleWhen Mocking Jews Was Cool
Political correctness and anti-Semitism in the Best Picture of 1947.
View ArticleTo See or Not to See: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The classic comedy that destroyed American culture.
View ArticleTyranny and Ranching on the ‘Red River’
An unsatisfying conclusion mars an otherwise enjoyable classic western.
View ArticleMary Poppins and Saving Mr. Banks: On Loving Imperfect Fathers
What a beloved classic film and the Disneyfied history of its making can teach us about honoring imperfect fathers.
View ArticleEasy Ride, Awful Film
I tried to find merit in Easy Rider. Really, I did. I found none.
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....