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- Leena Myller on “It wasn’t there, and then it was there.” David Lynch on Elvis
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Tag Archives: Elia Kazan
On This Day: December 3, 1947: A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway
Blanche Dubois, scene 1, in Streetcar Named Desire: “They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!” Tennessee Williams lived in New … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams
24 Comments
April 2022 Viewing Diary
When I first got the Raging Bull gig, I began a re-watch of all the Scorsese-De Niro movies – at least the ones clustered around that period. I grew up on these films. These movies were huge to me as … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Anjelica Huston, biopic, Brian De Palma, Canada, Christopher Walken, comedy, Dana Andrews, documentary, drama, Elia Kazan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, France, historical drama, Italy, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Joan Didion, John Cazale, Liza Minnelli, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Mickey Rourke, musicals, Ray Milland, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Robert Mitchum, romantic drama, Russia, sci-fi, Tuesday Weld, Ukraine, Vietnam, women directors, WWII
12 Comments
December 2021 Viewing Diary
Nightmare Alley (2021; d. Guillermo del Toro) I will re-post here the thoughts I jotted down on Facebook after I saw it for the first time. I absolutely loved this film. Nightmare Alley is gorgeously shot, with an ominous moody … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies
Tagged animation, Anna Karina, biopic, Cate Blanchett, children's movies, comedy, Costa-Gavras, drama, Elia Kazan, film noir, France, Jane Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, John Keats, Lady From Shanghai, Orson Welles, Radu Jude, Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, Romania, romantic drama, sci-fi, short films, The Rolling Stones, women directors
4 Comments
Recommended Books: Memoirs
More recommendations: Recommended Fiction Recommended Non-Fiction MEMOIRS The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties, by Harold Clurman Probably the most famous of all the Group Theatre-related books. Harold Clurman writes his memories of that time and what those … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Music, writers
Tagged African Queen, Anjelica Huston, Austria, Baby Doll, Benjamin Franklin, Born Standing Up, Bruce Springsteen, Carroll Baker, Charles Grodin, Czechoslovakia, Diane Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Elvis Presley, Frank McCourt, Ginger Rogers, Goldie Hawn, Group Theatre, Harold Clurman, Ireland, James Salter, Jeanette Winterson, John Strasberg, Katharine Hepburn, Kathleen Turner, Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Lee Strasberg, Marlon Brando, Maud Gonne, Memoirs, Patricia Bosworth, Primo Levi, Robert Evans, Rosalind Russell, Russia, Shane Leslie, Shelley Winters, Shirley MacLaine, Stefan Zweig, Steve Martin, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Victor Serge, WWII
2 Comments
March/April 2019 Film Comment: Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd and Hollywood Jim Crow
I’ve got two things in the current issue of Film Comment (print only). First is a review of Criterion’s upcoming release of Elia Kazan’s 1957 film A Face in the Crowd – a frightening and accurate film, not just a … Continue reading
February 2019 Viewing Diary
St. Agatha (2019; d. Darren Lynn Bousman) I reviewed this nunsploitation horror film which I resisted at first for some reason, but then I got into the spirit of it. It’s fun. It’s what it needs to be. It also … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Badlands, Cuba, documentary, Elia Kazan, Gaspar Noe, Hungary, Ireland, Joaquin Phoenix, Meryl Streep, Patricia Neal, Paul Thomas Anderson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Poland, Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Steven Spielberg, Supernatural, Terrence Malick, Tom Hanks, women directors
8 Comments
On Elia Kazan’s East of Eden and the Revelation That Was James Dean: for Library of America
Recently, I wrote a small piece which could be given a High School English class title: What James Dean and East of Eden meant to me. When I wrote it, I was deep in research for a huge piece which … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies
Tagged drama, East of Eden, Elia Kazan, James Dean, John Steinbeck, reviews
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January 2017 Viewing Diary
Conspiracy (2001; d. Frank Pierson) The definition of “the room where it happens”. The awful room where something vile was decided. The TV movie starring Kenneth Branagh (so excellent) about the Wannsee Conference. It’s superb. Based on the one surviving … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Akira Kurosawa, Asghar Farhadi, Carrie Fisher, dance, documentary, Elia Kazan, Iran, Iranian film, Japan, Supernatural, Taraneh Alidoosti, Turkey, women directors
18 Comments
2016 Books Read
I’ve enjoyed myself this year with reading. I have finally bounced back from 2009 and 2010, when I was so out of my mind that I could barely read anymore. (Larry McMurtry describes a similar thing happening to him post-heart … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Baz Luhrmann, books read, Camille Paglia, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, David Thomson, East of Eden, Elia Kazan, Elvis Presley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Horton Foote, James Agee, James Salter, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Steinbeck, Katherine Dunn, Mark Danielewski, Nick Tosches, Pauline Kael, Robert Kaplan, Shane Leslie, Stephen King, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, The Great Gatsby, William Faulkner
19 Comments