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- Reviews: Currents (2026)
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- “Only the bad directors tell you how to read a line, how to define your character. The good ones let you do your job.” — Carroll Baker
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- An Acting Lesson: John Wayne and the “Reality of the Doing”
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- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
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- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
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Tag Archives: Charlie Chaplin
“All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
“The secret of Mack Sennett’s success was his enthusiasm. He was a great audience and laughed genuinely at what he thought funny. He stood and giggled until his body began to shake. This encouraged me and I began to explain … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Charlie Chaplin, Hart Crane, silent films
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“All my life I have been happiest when the folks watching me said to each other, `Look at the poor dope, wilya?” — Buster Keaton
It’s Buster Keaton’s birthday today. As a small boy with a talent for acrobatics (and a high tolerance for pain), Keaton performed with his parents in a family act (an act notorious for its wild violence) before launching off on … Continue reading
“The rhythm is jazz.” — Hart Crane
“What I want to get is … an ‘interior’ form, a form that is so thorough and intense as to dye the words themselves with a pecularity of meaning, slightly different maybe from the ordinary definition of them separate from … Continue reading
December 2023/January-February 2024 Viewing Diary
The Golden Bachelor Watched – in great hilarity – with Karen and Allison during a raucous sleepover, and Carol pulled up on FaceTime. So we could watch together. The whole thing is so ridiculous. Maestro (2023; d. Bradley Cooper) I … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Al Pacino, Aline MacMahon, biopic, Charlie Chaplin, Chile, Denmark, documentary, drama, dystopia, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Juliette Binoche, Kazuo Ishiguro, literary adaptation, Michael Mann, North Korea, Paul Schrader, Pre-Code, Radu Jude, Ray Milland, Richard Pryor, Romania, romantic comedy, sci-fi, short films, Sidney Poitier, silent films, Spain, Sylvia Sidney, Tana French, true crime, William Wellman, Wim Wenders, women directors
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“It is as easy for the mind to think in stars as in cobble-stones.” – Helen Keller
Helen Keller and Charlie Chaplin Today is Helen Keller’s birthday. Her autobiography, The Story of My Life is essential reading. In 1932, a doctor saw a photograph of Helen Keller on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. He … Continue reading
“The camera is always where it needs to be with him.” — Interview with Dana Stevens, author of Camera Man
I interviewed Dana Stevens about her wonderful book Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, after a screening of Keaton’s The General last week at the Jane Pickens Theater in Newport, Rhode … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Movies, writers
Tagged Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, interviews, silent films
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Interview with Jennifer McCabe: On-camera Acting Training and the Actor’s Process
Jennifer McCabe has been teaching acting and directing in various capacities for almost 25 years. After getting her Master’s through the MFA program at the Actors Studio, she first worked with Enact, a not-for-profit arts-in-education company which goes into at-risk … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies, Television
Tagged Al Pacino, Charlie Chaplin, Cher, interviews, Jerry Lewis, John Patrick Shanley, Lee Strasberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Michael Caine, Montgomery Clift, Robert De Niro, Sanford Meisner, Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee Jones, women directors
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February 2016 Viewing Diary
X Files, Season 10, Episode 2 “Founder’s Mutation” (2016; d. James Wong) Mythology! Now listen: I haven’t seen the finale yet. I will this Saturday with my partner-in-crime Keith. So no spoilers – it has taken superhuman strength to stay … Continue reading
On Charlie Chaplin and his Influence on Other Comedians
The Gold Rush has ben playing at The Film Forum for the past week, and here’s a 2011 essay I wrote for Capital New York about Charlie Chaplin.
Charlie Chaplin: What Lasts Is the Ebullience
This article originally appeared on Capital New York, while “The Gold Rush” had a week-long run at the Film Forum. Charlie Chaplin, “The Gold Rush” All you feel while you’re acting is ebullience. You intellectualize when you go into the … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies
Tagged Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, comedy, Johnny Depp, silent films
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