Waltzing Matilda scene from On the Beach
An evening pause: What do you do when you know that you only have a few more weeks to live? From On the Beach (1959), one of the greatest end-of-the-world films ever made.
Tag: movies
The attack on Pearl Harbor, as seen at the time
An evening pause: This newsreel, made shortly after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, gives an honest sense of the rage felt by Americans following the attack. Or to quote the words placed in the mouth of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto from the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Though it is not clear that Yamamoto ever actually said this line, it encapsulates the consequences of Pearl Harbor quite concisely.
Animator vs Animation
Shooting scene from To Kill a Mockingbird
An evening pause: As it is Wednesday and I am at the gun range, competing in bullseye pistol competitions, let’s look at some Hollywood shooting action.
Superman – The Mad Scientist
An evening pause: The first Max Fleischer Superman cartoon, The Mad Scientist (1941), from a time when Americans believed that all things were possible, and that our nation stood for the best of those possibilities. When evil men try to destroy skyscrapers and kill innocent people, you don’t stand idly by, you fight them, and stop them.
Leslie Nielsen Dead at 84
Leslie Nielsen Dead at 84. R.I.P.
Leslie Nielsen Dead at 84. R.I.P.
Speech from Scent of a Woman
Oklahoma-Many a new day
An evening pause: “Many a New Day” from Oklahoma (1955). It is the dance choreography here that is surprising and original.
1776: He plays the violin
An evening pause: What was happening while Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, according to Broadway and Hollywood.
The Great Dictator
An evening pause: Charlie Chaplin, making glorious fun of Hitler and all egomanical dictators, in The Great Dictator (1940).
Baikonur allows its first feature film
The Baikonur space port: a movie set.
The Baikonur space port: a movie set.
The Haunting
An evening pause: From the film, The Haunting (1963), based on the story by Shirley Jackson. Stay for the closing scene in this clip.
Spirited Away
An evening pause: As it is the Halloween weekend, how about an appropriate clip from Hayao Miyazaki’s surreal masterpiece, Spirited Away (2001).
The calla lillies are in bloom again
An evening pause: This scene, from Stage Door (1937), is considered by many to be Katherine Hepburn’s greatest film moment: “The calla lillies are in bloom again.” Though powerful on its own, in the full context of the movie the scene is even more heart-breaking, and a true tour de force for Hepburn.
Bugs Bunny – Buccaneer Bunny (1948)
We’re a couple of swells…
New Zealand might lose $700 million in movie business due to union
Talk about stupid: New Zealand might lose $700 million in movie production business due to a boycott by an Australian-based actors union. Fun quote:
Fifteen hundred workers, including directors, technicians and crew who [oppose the actors union], met at . . . Miramar Studios at 5pm for an emergency meeting this evening. By 7pm, they were storming the Actors Equity meeting in the city.
Talk about stupid: New Zealand might lose $700 million in movie production business due to a boycott by an Australian-based actors union. Fun quote:
Fifteen hundred workers, including directors, technicians and crew who [oppose the actors union], met at . . . Miramar Studios at 5pm for an emergency meeting this evening. By 7pm, they were storming the Actors Equity meeting in the city.
Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling
Fort Apache (1948)
An evening pause: Henry Fonda and John Wayne in Fort Apache (1948).
“Sergeant, pour me some scripture.”
Earliest Kodak color tests
An evening pause: Though this sequence of shots from a 1922 Kodak test of Kodachrome film (possibly the earliest in existence) is hardly the stuff of drama, it is fascinating nonetheless, as it gives as an honest glimpse into the culture of its time. As you watch the different women pose for the camera, ask yourself: Has anything changed?
The Westerner
An evening pause: The Westerner (1940). Gary Cooper is wonderful, but it is Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean who steals the show.
Corny Concerto
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
An evening pause: The opening from the 1964 film, Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Though quickly dated by real events in the 1960s space race, this entertaining and surprisingly rational film shows how a determined man can survive, if he simply uses his brain.
Singing in the Rain
Marriage break up scene in Best Years of Our Lives
Lawrence of Arabia
An evening pause: Lawrence of Arabia (1962). One of the greatest epic films ever made. And though the story is heavily dramatized, it captures quite accurately the substance and reality of T.E. Lawrence’s time in the Middle East during World War I. Sadly, I wonder if anything has changed.
Bugs Bunny — Water Water Every Hare
An evening pause: Bugs Bunny in Water Water Every Hare. “In my business you meet so many interesting people.”
“Going Home” from The Snake Pit
An evening pause: The Snake Pit (1948). The story of the rescue of an insane woman (played by Olivia de Havilland). This scene expresses the longing for sanity by all the patients in the insane asylum.
Stars Wars as told with lego
The Time Machine
An evening pause: A clip from The Time Machine (1960). Though not a completely accurate adaption, this enchanting film captured the essence of H.G. Wells’ novel. As Wells wrote,
But to me the future is still black and blank — is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places by the memory of [the Time Traveler’s] story. And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers — shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle — to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man.