Oscars’ Westerns: Turner Classic Movies’ ’31 Days of Oscar’ continues with 11 titles, including John Ford’s classic Stagecoach and the so-called Worst Best Picture Winner Ever.
Movie Genres
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Oscars’ war movies: Turner Classic Movies’ monthlong Academy Award-themed series continues with nine features, including two Best Picture winners and three nominees.
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’31 Days of Oscar’: Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) series continues with an eclectic array of 12 comedies that (hopefully) will make you laugh while forcing you to ask some tough questions.
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I Remember Mama (1948 movie): George Stevens’ nostalgic immigrant family drama provided veteran Irene Dunne with one of the best roles of her career. Barbara Bel Geddes costars.
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Made and set during the COVID-19 era, Pandemic Pillow Talk and Sylvie of the Sunshine State are both thoughtful and funny.
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The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) movie review: Radha Blank’s midlife-crisis tale evokes memories of Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky.
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5 Nazi movies: Joseph Goebbels’ ‘Third Reich’ cinema - a crucial and extremely popular propaganda tool - promoted the White Nationalist German ethos.
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Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe joined forces on the problem-plagued The Misfits. See also: The playwright’s answer to On the Waterfront.
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Belfast movie: Kenneth Branagh is shooting his ‘most personal film,’ set in tumultuous 1960s Northern Ireland. Judi Dench and Jamie Dornan among stars.
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The COVID-19 positive test of actor Robert Pattinson has halted - once again - The Batman while unsettling the already wobbly film industry.
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Little Fugitive director Morris Engel was the post-WWII ‘Father of American Independent Cinema,’ inspiring John Cassavetes and the French New Wave.
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Visions of the shattered American Dream in 2 ‘Arthur Miller movies’: The subversive family dramas All My Sons and Death of a Salesman.
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Technicolor siren Virginia Mayo was most impressive as callous black-and-white women in films like The Best Years of Our Lives + White Heat.
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Actress Sandra Dee is seen as a sweet-looking but gutsy rule-breaker in the 1959 blockbusters A Summer Place and Imitation of Life.
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The Poseidon Adventure actress Carol Lynley should also be remembered for a landmark teen pregnancy drama and for a first-rate British thriller.
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As an RKO and MGM star, sassy blonde Ann Sothern had an unconventional professional trajectory: A and B movies in a decades-long film career that had no less than 2 peaks.
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Lena Horne. Lena Horne movies: Velvety-voiced singer generally relegated to specialty numbers during heyday of the Hollywood musical Had things been different, it’s anybody’s guess whether or not three-time Grammy…
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Howard Keel: Dallas resurgence as rancher Clayton Farlow following abrupt career downfall and decades-long Hollywood purgatory.
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Independence Day movies: Exuberant all-white all-Iowan marching band + lovely and talented Joan Leslie + racist British imperialism salute.
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Howard Keel height of career as a result of sleeper blockbuster that helped to revive his Hollywood standing after three consecutive MGM musical flops.
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MGM musicals box office struggle: Howard Keel Hollywood woes included 2 prestigious star vehicles that *should* have succeeded. Could his career be saved?
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Howard Keel musicals: Box office ups and downs emblematic of genre’s erratic appeal in 1950s Hollywood as a result of dramatic socio-economic changes.
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The Women remake: Critics derided + moviegoers were indifferent to writer-director Diane English’s defanged + declawed all-star all-female feminist comedy.
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Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) movie review: Ron Howard’s sci-fi adventure is kneecapped by The Force of (Disney’s) Corporate Pressure. Alden Ehrenreich and Emilia Clarke star.
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Black Panther (2018) movie review: Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan star in Ryan Coogler’s history-making entry in the superhero genre.
The Alternate (2022) movie review: Partly set in a seemingly rosier parallel universe, Alrik Bursell’s sci-fi thriller is both clever and gripping.
10 examples of theocracy in movies and TV illustrate the many forms of the inescapably authoritarian communion between religion and government.
Playwright Arthur Miller vs. Red Scare paranoia: The Crucible and the Salem witch hunts demythologize the concept of ‘American exceptionalism.’
Frank and Ava movie interview: Frank Sinatra portrayer Rico Simonini discusses the indie drama about singer’s turbulent marriage with Ava Gardner.
In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ‘best bad movie,’ The Barefoot Contessa, Ava Gardner exudes a magnetic - and underrated - mix of glamour and charisma.
4th of July Movies: From our dystopian present to John Paul Jones + Benedict Arnold and other complex American Revolutionary War figures.
Howard Keel: Actor-singer embodied brawny American manliness in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals of the 1950s such as Annie Get Your Gun + Show Boat.