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- “[Poetry is] a way of trying to come to peace with the world.” — poet Lucille Clifton
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- A Personal Memory: or: What Dog Day Afternoon Means to Me
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- “All I actually wanted was for my work to be useful.”–Claudius Afolabi Siffre
- “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
- “People are always asking me if I thought Elvis was a handsome man and my answer is ‘I am not blind you know’!” — Millie Kirkham
- Physical Media Booklet Essay: The Podcast
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Category Archives: On This Day
“The greatest films are the ones that leave you not able to explain, but you know that you have experienced something special.” — Robert Altman
It’s his birthday today. One of my favorite film-makers, but I haven’t written all that much about him. I love my friend Dan Callahan’s piece on Prairie Home Companion. I did write the booklet essay for the Arrow Films release … Continue reading
On Ann Savage in Detour
It’s Ann Savage’s birthday today. I wrote a big piece on Substack about her one-for-the-ages performance in Detour.
“It was the Marines who taught me how to act. After that, pretending to be rough wasn’t so hard.” — Lee Marvin
“You know, as character actors we play all kinds of sex psychos, nuts, creeps, perverts, and weirdos. And we laugh it off, saying what the hell it’s just a character. But deep down inside, it’s you, baby.” — Lee Marvin … Continue reading
“I have already been accused of trying to drown a boatload of wild Irishmen on Aran!” — Robert Flaherty
Today is the birthday of the so-called “father of documentary film” Robert Flaherty, a man whose accomplishments cannot be ignored, and yet these same accomplishments are still, rightfully, debated to this day. Known mostly for his two films about “primitive” … Continue reading
X Marks the Spot
Teddy Roosevelt’s diary entry for Feb. 14, 1884. On February 12, his wife Alice gave birth to their daughter. Two days later, on February 14, Alice died. Catastrophically, his mother also died on that day.
Posted in On This Day
5 Comments
“I looked like a bad girl. But I wasn’t a bad girl, really. I was a very nice little girl, until I found out what life was.”– Harriet Andersson
It’s her birthday today. Ingmar Bergman wrote in Images: My Life in Film, “Harriet Andersson is one of cinema’s geniuses. You meet only a few of these rare, shimmering individuals.” It’s difficult to talk about Harriet Andersson without hyperbole. She … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Burt Reynolds: “My love is unironic.”
I will always be glad that I was assigned to review The Last Movie Star (2018), Reynolds’ final film, because it meant I got to pay tribute to him – not just his performance in the movie, but to HIM … Continue reading
“Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
The problem with Elvis is like the problem of, say, the sun. The sun blots out stars. The sun creates heat waves. The sun is a good thing but there’s a hell of a lot else going on besides the … Continue reading
Posted in Music, On This Day
Tagged Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, The Beatles
4 Comments
“Each of us have a gift, you see, given us freely by the universe. And each of us with every breath gives something back” — Kim Stanley
It’s her birthday today. A couple things about Kim Stanley, who only appeared in 4 films, but was a hugely influential figure in theatre, live television, and Method acting. I mean, she’s the goddess. Jon Krampner’s 2006 biography of Kim … Continue reading
“The audience will always forgive you for being wrong and exciting, but never for being right and dull.” — Burt Reynolds
A couple of years ago, during a lengthy conversation about many different stars, Mitchell and I discussed Burt Reynolds. I recorded the whole thing. It was a game we played: I would throw a name at Mitchell, ask him to … Continue reading