Around the Blogosphere This Week
Miscellaneous bits of news and fun stuff from around the internet......Last week Ann Blyth turned 93 on August 16th and Debra Paget (seen here) turned 88 on the 19th. Please enjoy my past birthday tributes to these wonderful ladies, found here and here. Both posts include lovely photos, along with review links to inspire viewing their films.
...Kino Lorber has announced a November 2nd release date and shared the cover art for two films previously listed as "coming soon," THE MAD DOCTOR (1942) and THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946). THE MAD DOCTOR will have a commentary track by David Del Valle and THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK will have a track by David Schechter and Tom Weaver; the latter film will also have a brand-new featurette.
...Last weekend I shared the news that SANTA FE TRAIL (1940) will be out on Blu-ray next month from the Warner Archive Collection. The rest of the September lineup has now been announced; the list includes Anthony Mann's THE NAKED SPUR (1953), starring James Stewart, Robert Ryan, and Janet Leigh; THE WINDOW (1949) with Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, and Arthur Kennedy; and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935) starring the Marx Brothers.
...Jim Vorel of Paste Magazine has written about the difficulty searching for films on Amazon Prime...and over at Collider, William Fischer writes about films missing from the Disney+ streaming service.
...Caftan Woman has an article up on RED GARTERS (1955), a Rosemary Clooney musical I've not yet seen.
...Kevin Costner shared some nice photos playing catch with his son at the recent "Field of Dreams" baseball game in Iowa.
...Benjamin McVay of Cinema Scholars has a new article on "The Old Hollywood Homes of Palm Springs." He also wrote the article on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills which I shared last week.
...An important home in Disney history is being restored.
...Rachel lists her Top 10 favorite superhero films at Hamlette's Soliloquy.
...Last week Salena Zito published a nice interview with Hallmark Channel star Trevor Donovan, reviewed here a few months ago in USS CHRISTMAS (2020).
...Gene Kelly's daughter Kerry recently shared some memories of her late father.
...Notable Passings: Movie star biographer Joe Morella has passed on at 81. A list of his books is available at Amazon...Country singer-songwriter Tom T. Hall has died at 85.
...For additional recent links of interest to classic film fans, please check out my August 14th roundup.
posted by Laura @ 3:40 PM
18 Comments:
Thanks for all the news and the links, and for giving a nod to my piece on the fun to be found in Red Garters.
How interesting the article about how difficult it is to see all the programs on Amazon Prime. Seems ridiculous we can’t see all that is available.
Loved seeing the Palm Springs homes of the stars.
The problems of browsing Amazon Prime drive me crazy!!! It was great to see this article, to know it's not just me having trouble. It is really idiotic how difficult they make it for people to "scan the shelves" and find something fun to watch. Grrrrr.
Interestingly I have heard the song "Red Garters" lately - Cameo Kate in the Saloon at Knott's Berry Farm sings it all the time! She also sings some other, obscure western songs from little known westerns or western type musicals. Can't think of the titles right now. I had heard that the person who comes up with the shows and the songs loves these little known movies.
I just keep hoping that Disney and Buena Vista will resolve their differences so we can get Zorro either on D+ or DVD. I would also LOVE it if they would either put the rest of Five Mile Creek out on DVD, or else put it on D+. That's been such a favorite of mine since I was a kid, and I'd like to be able to show my kids the whole thing, not just the first season that's available on DVD. Sigh.
I gave up searching Prime for anything but specific titles or actors a while ago because it has just gotten so dreadfully hard to navigate. Glad I'm not alone in that frustration!
Thanks for including my top ten list :-) It was a tough one to narrow down.
You're welcome, Caftan Woman! Your post on RED GARTERS reminded me I really need to try it out at some point!
Vienna, glad you enjoyed seeing those homes. The Cinema Scholars account on Twitter told me similar articles will be coming in the future, I'll be watching for them!
Deb and Vienna, I agree, why can't there be an easy way to search for movies on Prime? I have loved the "deep cut" movies they show there but track them down can sure be challenging.
Irene, how interesting about the "Red Garters" song. Love the insight into its use. We've been talkinga bout making a Knott's trip soon -- haven't been since the summer our daughter worked there which was quite a long while ago!
Best wishes,
Laura
Hi Rachel! Disney+ has lots of great options but there sure are a number of things that it seems inexplicable they haven't made available. SO DEAR TO MY HEART, listed in the article I shared, is a really special film and I keep hoping it will turn up so more people will watch it.
I was intrigued by how many X-MEN titles made your Top 10! I've never seen any of those. Love all the Marvel titles you chose for your list.
Best wishes,
Laura
Prime UI was a pain already, didn't think it could get this much worse. I cancelled mine a few months ago, for e.g. it bothered me when they started mixing paid and ‘prime-included.’ Plus lately so much stuff has been purged or moved to ‘paid’? Stinks.
…so thank goodness for physical media, and SO many good titles coming out on blu lately, I was just thinking of watching Crime of the Century actually, eager to see what that’s like.
You know me, as an X-Men lifer I do love Rachel’s list!
Thanks for the mention!
Kristina, I thought of you and X-MEN right away when I saw Rachel's list!
It's interesting that there are so many of us eager to see older stuff on streaming services, yet they aren't especially interested in providing it, or if they do, they make it challenging to track down. I agree, I'm thankful for physical media -- I'll never run out of things to watch, and I can always start watching my collection all over again (grin).
Best wishes,
Laura
Laura, is there a reason you haven't watched the X-Men movies? They've had a few misfires over the years, but they are overall really delightful.
I have a vague memory of having seen So Dear to My Heart on VHS as a child, but I may be confusing it with something else. Hmm.
I never trust streaming platforms to keep available the things I like, so if I watch something new-to-me online and absolutely love it, I try my hardest to get a physical copy. So many movies and shows have been available for a while, and then suddenly not, and then what am I to do when I'm in the mood to watch one of them? Physical copies, for me, thanks. Which has me very much hoping they release things like The Mandalorian to DVD or Blu-ray eventually.
Hi Rachel!
I only began watching (Disney) Marvel films half a dozen summers ago, and since then I've managed to see every film (23 I think?) excepting THE INCREDIBLE HULK which all my kids told me to skip LOL. So part of the reason I haven't gotten to X-MEN is time, and also I think I've worried they'd be a little too intense (that opinion largely being influenced by knowing LOGAN is rated R). I actually have four of the films on my shelves, though, collected by our kids, and I've talked about them with Kristina (Speakeasy) a fair bit as she's a huge X-MEN fan. So...I'm thinking about it! You finding them delightful is definitely a plus for me as our tastes are often "in sync."
I was very lucky to see Leonard Maltin introduce SO DEAR TO MY HEART at TCMFF. It's hard to find on DVD, but Disney Movie Club released it years ago and I was able to get a copy from a random Amazon vendor.
I would 100% purchase THE MANDALORIAN and WANDAVISION on DVD or Blu-ray! Really wish they'd come out in that format but worry Disney will keep them permanently "streaming exclusive." However, Netflix has eventually released a couple things like THE CROWN on physical media so you never know. If Netflix put THE HIGHWAYMEN out on Blu-ray I'd snap that one up as well.
Best wishes,
Laura
Yes, Logan is unsettlingly violent, and more than earns its R rating. Which is sad, because it's also heartbreakingly beautiful. But gorily violent, with lots of foul language. However! The rest of the movies are absolutely PG-13, on par with the MCU as far as content levels. And much lighter and more hopeful than what I've seen of the DC Universe movies.
I've been an X-Men fan since I was a teen reading their comic book adventures, and I just told Kristina this in a comment over on my top ten list, but I initially refused to see the first X-Men movie because I couldn't accept their casting the tall, handsome Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, who is nasty, brutish, and short in the comics. My college bff finally basically tied me down and forced me to watch it on VHS, and I revised my opinion of Jackman's fitness for playing my favorite superhero after he'd been onscreen for about 90 seconds. Hee! But the whole cast is wonderful, especially Patrick Stewart. And Ian McKellen. And Famke Janssen. And Anna Paquin. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Now I just want to rewatch the first one again.
Anyway... I hope you'll try them out. Even just the first two.
And yeah, I'm hoping too that a couple Netflix originals will come to DVD eventually, because I don't have Netflix at all, and I really want to see The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society because I adore the book. And their new version of Rebecca had Armie Hammer as Maxim, so I've been wanting to see that too.
Thank you so much for that encouragement, Rachel! Including differentiating between LOGAN and the other films in the series. (I can't do gory violence...just the non-bloody Marvel type!) If the X-MEN films are on par with Marvel and better than DC, that sounds good to me. (Haven't seen many DC films as they mostly don't appeal. I did really like AQUAMAN a lot and look forward to another one. Love Gal Gadot and Chris Pine in the WONDER WOMAN films but the movies themselves aren't anywhere near Marvel quality. Think those are all the DC I've seen.) I started looking at the X-MEN titles on our shelves last night -- between you and Kristina being so enthusiastic, I have a feeling I'll end up seeing them!
We have Netflix and I've been meaning to watch GUERNSEY... myself but haven't gotten around to it! I really enjoyed the Jeremy Brett REBECCA remake back in the day but wasn't sure about trying this new version...
Best wishes,
Laura
I actually watched the first 25 minutes of the first X-Men last night, you'd gotten me so in the mood for it :-D
Wolverine does a lot of "slicing and dicing," as the comics used to call it, but there is very minimal blood in any of the X-Men movies, aside from Logan. It's like the MCU, where people get shot or stabbed or cut or punched, but wounds are not focused on.
I've seen both Wonder Woman movies, and they were okay, but I didn't love any of the characters. I also saw the first Henry Cavill Superman movie, and was oddly bored. Which is super sad since I really like Henry Cavill and Russell Crowe. Sigh.
Anyway, if you do watch the X-men movies, I hope you'll review them or talk about them a bit because I'm anxious to know what you think of them! The first X-men movie basically kicked off the modern superhero movie world. Some of the graphics look like they're 21 years old, but the story and characters hang together super well. And the acting -- swoon.
Lastly... oh my goodness! You've seen the Jeremy Brett version of Rebecca!!!!!!!! I thought I was like the only person in existence who had seen that! It's so good! I like the Olivier version a lot too, but the Brett version gets to go deeper because it's longer, and yeah. I absolutely love him as Sherlock Holmes, and I was worried that I wouldn't like him in a more modern-set role, but he was marvelous. Mmmmmmm.
Streaming services are a seriously seriously bad idea. They're going to kill classic movie fandom stone dead.
:) enjoying this thread.
110% to everything that Rachel said, and agree that first X-Men is where your appreciation of classic movies and seeing how things began, would come in handy since the FX and scale are smaller than the superhero movies that followed it. But the themes are big, and everything that makes it a great soap is already there.
I'm really enjoying this thread too, Kristina! I've also been following your X-MEN chat with Rachel at her blog with great interest, though I don't have much to contribute. Love learning more about this subject from the two of you. You've both also caused me to discuss more of the history of X-MEN with my daughter, who's a fan.
If I watch any I will definitely write about them here so we can all discuss it more -- thank you for asking! (Kristina, love the way you tie in classic movie appreciation with how you see I might relate to the first film.)
Incidentally, I thought of another DC superhero movie I've seen -- I really enjoyed SHAZAM.
Rachel, I was in high school when that version of REBECCA was shown on MASTERPIECE THEATRE. I remember thinking it was so cool Anna Massey was Mrs. Danvers. I'm glad you've seen it! The 1940 film is one of my top favorite Hitchcocks, to me it feels *so* much like the book, even with the key changes made toward the end...but that Brett version was definitely excellent. I'd be curious to see it again. I wonder why it's hard to come by?
(Although I haven't watched them, we have an entire shelf of Brett as Sherlock Holmes -- some of my husband's favorite TV ever.)
Best wishes,
Laura
DforDoom, I've definitely chatted with people on Twitter, etc., about how the difficulty of finding older films via streaming, as well as not making serendipitous "finds" as many of us used to do in the days when we only had a few channels, could negatively impact the development of future classic film fans...And of course there are other issues too.
Best wishes,
Laura
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