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- NYFCC essay: “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow”
- December 2025 Viewing Diary
- Solidarity, or: The boy in the green bandana
- “Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall
- “To me, survival is the game – that’s the hardest part. I just wanna play music.” — Dave Grohl
- “When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
- “As long as they pay me my salary, they can give me a broom and I’ll sweep the stage. I don’t give a damn. I want the money.” – Kay Francis
- “I look back on my life and draw one great generalization: IT WAS MY REFUSAL TO TAKE CAUTIOUS ADVICE THAT MADE ME.” — Jack London
- “I can pick a good song, but I sure couldn’t pick a good man.” — Ruth Brown
- “I’ll stay and look you straight in the eyes like all these normal people when I scream for my rights.” — Taraneh Alidoosti
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- sheila on “It’s a situation I’ve never been able to fathom. One minute, it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next — no one wanted me.” — Sal Mineo
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Author Archives: sheila
NYFCC essay: “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow”
All of the essays included in the program for the New York Film Circle Critics awards dinner, held a week ago on January 6, are now online. I wrote on the film we voted as the winner of Best Non-Fiction … Continue reading
December 2025 Viewing Diary
Marty Supreme (2025; d. Joss Safdie) I have mixed feelings on this, especially the last scene, which is corny as hell. Not as corny as the last scene in Lady Bird, but in its way even more obnoxious. Robert Towne … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies
Tagged animation, Baz Luhrmann, Darren Aronofsky, drama, Elvis Presley, historical drama, Israel, Japan, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Julianne Moore, Kentucker Audley, Kristen Stewart, literary adaptation, Richard Linklater, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, women directors
2 Comments
Solidarity, or: The boy in the green bandana
In 2011, as a hopeless protest in response to the the arrest of Iranian director Jafar Panahi, one of my faves, I came out of my shell blog-wise and hosted an “Iranian Film Blogathon“. So many people participated and I … Continue reading
“Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall
“How else can a black writer write than out of his black experience? Yet what we tend to overlook is that our common humanity makes it possible to write a love poem, for instance, without a word of race, or … Continue reading
“To me, survival is the game – that’s the hardest part. I just wanna play music.” — Dave Grohl
“How Kurt could even think we’d make a ripple in this ridiculous mainstream world of polished pop music was beyond me. It was beyond everyone. It made absolutely no sense. It was simply unimaginable. It was the type of hopeless, … Continue reading
“When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway
Bonnie and Clyde It’s her birthday today. I haven’t written all that much about Faye Dunaway – at least in a concentrated way – although I’ve seen all of her big and rightfully iconic performances many times. I think she’s … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Arizona Dream, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Depp
9 Comments
“As long as they pay me my salary, they can give me a broom and I’ll sweep the stage. I don’t give a damn. I want the money.” – Kay Francis
“My life? Well, I get up at a quarter to six in the morning if I’m going to wear an evening dress on camera. That sentence sounds a little ga-ga, doesn’t it? But never mind, that’s my life … When … Continue reading
“I look back on my life and draw one great generalization: IT WAS MY REFUSAL TO TAKE CAUTIOUS ADVICE THAT MADE ME.” — Jack London
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent … Continue reading
“I can pick a good song, but I sure couldn’t pick a good man.” — Ruth Brown
It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s birthday today! Ruth Brown was born in 1928, one of seven children. Her father was a choir director, and she grew up surrounded by gospel, but she was drawn to chanteuses like … Continue reading
Posted in Music, On This Day
2 Comments
“I’ll stay and look you straight in the eyes like all these normal people when I scream for my rights.” — Taraneh Alidoosti
“I’ve inherited this courage from the women of my land, who for years have been living their lives, every day with resistance… I will stay, I will not quit, I will stand with the families of the prisoners and murdered … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Asghar Farhadi, Iranian film, Taraneh Alidoosti
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