David Niven: “P. G. Wodehouse with Tears”
“What you got was what you saw, a man with a soldier’s training speaking ever so nicely and trying not to stretch himself beyond his abilities as an actor.” ~ David Niven
Category: Actors & Personalities
Actors & Personalities · Experimental & Underground · LGBT & Queer
Monster Queen: The Transgressive Body of Divine in Pink Flamingos
“Divine is as unstoppable as nature, destined to repeatedly transgress, destroy, and create.”
Actors & Personalities · Photo Essays
Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue? What Really Separates Ben and Matt
Hand me those contacts!
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Interviews · Visual Artists
“Myself as Queen”: A Profile and Interview with Anna Biller
“My interest in creating visual worlds is what led me to both painting and film.”
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
Confessions of a Hollywood Tough Guy: An Interview with Rod Steiger
“The only thing that is absolutely important for me is quality.”
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Rudolph Valentino: Dream Lover
“Valentino said there’s nothing like tile for a tango!” — Norma Desmond to Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Good night, Mr. Tikhonov, wherever you are…
Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who starred as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky in Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace (1967), died last Friday (12/4) at the age of 81. Tikhonov is one of a trio[…]
Sean Connery: A “Natural Thruster”
“Connery, never a martyr to false modesty, remains as voluble and combative as ever.”
The original inglorious bastard
In the midst of this blogospheric firestorm revolving around Inglourious Basterds, one relatively mild concession we can all make is that, for one reason or another, the movie (like all[…]
Film Buff of the Month – Tilda Swinton
Like Herzog’s opera-loving Fitzcarraldo dragging a 320-ton steamship through the jungles of Peru, Oscar-winning film buff/actress Tilda Swinton and a few followers are now driving – and occasionally dragging –[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
Astaire Reborn! Jane Powell Gives Fred a Lift in A Royal Wedding
“I hope he knew how much the world loved him.”
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
The Great Roles of Christopher Lee’s Maturity
How can anyone not marvel that two of Gothic Cinema’s greatest performers, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, were born on the same day? Christopher Lee was born on May 27,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Reviews
Josef Von Sternberg’s Super-Masochist Sublimation Power!
Reading Joseph Aisenberg’s excellent piece (below) I’m compelled to offer my understanding of the great Von Sternberg’s stylistic obsessiveness, especially since it’s something I understand and share. (This began as[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Uncategorized
Falling in love again
Recently I re-watched Josef Von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress (1934) and found myself again surprised by the sickly gushy tasteless humor of the piece; had forgotten most of the film’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Come Back To The Five And Dime Sandra Bernhard, Sandra Bernhard
Once upon a time a strange sassy redhead with a big nose and giant lips cropped up as a pathetic obsessed fan in Martin Scorcese’s heavy-handed satire The King of[…]
Celebrating 40 Years of Anne Heche
All stars are subject to fits of madness, and if you date a daytime TV talkshow host for long enough, who knows what kind of depths of self-confessional martyrdom you[…]
Actors & Personalities · Exploitation & Erotica · Pre-Code
Desperation and Divinity: “Help us, Mae!”
Hazy thoughts on the transition from real sex to digital hallucinations
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
“Strong, Righteous, and Rustic”: An Interview with Joel McCrea
“I told Hitchcock, ‘I do miss my horse.'”
Actors & Personalities · Asian · Silents
The Goddess in Her Element: Ruan Lingyu in Shanghai
“This is an actress who shows excitement down to the curl of her fingers, and whose face reveals every kind of mercurial change.”
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