Carol (2105), dir. Todd Haynes. In 1952, a married society woman (Cate Blanchett) and a shop girl (Rooney Mara) fall in love. The men in their lives, and the rest of society, don’t agree. The film is an adaptation of “The Price of Salt” (1952), by the master of suspense Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a […]
DISCO DANCER (1982), dir. Babbar Subhash, 135 mins., filmed in Hindi. Starring Mithun Chakraborty, Rajesh Khanna, Gita Siddharth, Om Puri. Music by Bappi Lahari. You probably weren’t wondering about the first dance-competition movie to come out of Bollywood. But recently, I was. As a long-time fan of dance movies, I started to wonder about […]
Texas to Bataan (1942) Directed by Robert Emmett Tansey Written by Arthur Hoerl (co-writer of Tell Your Children/Reefer Madness, 1936) Running time: 56 min. Starring John “Dusty” King, David Sharpe, Max Terhune and “Elmer,” and Marjorie Manners. This is a classic low-budget “B” movie Western with a hybrid twist I found surprising even though I knew it […]
The Hateful Eight (70mm Roadshow version). 187 minutes, w/15 minute intermission. When the second part begins, the movie fills in the gap with a voiceover read by Tarantino, explaining what happened in during the previous 15 minutes. Although I’m happy for Tarantino giving the larger-format 70mm a boost, with 98 theaters getting the large old 70mm […]
Here’s one of my all-time favorite Latin songs. The Ray Barretto Orchestra, doing “Canto Abacua” (1975). Superb music from suburb performers. Great harmonies, solos and jazzy progression. I saw them perform this piece twice in the 70’s. Once in Los Angeles, and once in Panamá. The singer, Ruben Blades, was a classically trained musician from […]
(Feb. 14, 2016) At the movies in Times Square this evening. Anyone remember the old pre-tourist, pre-Disney, pre-Giuliani Forty-Deuce? Seedy head shops, kung-fu supply stores and trashy exploitation flicks of all kinds. Times Square was already becoming sanitized in the late 80’s, but here’s something that warmed my heart. A construction hoarding made up to […]