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- “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will
- “Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
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- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
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- Lyrie on “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- Maddy on “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
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- Bryan Summers on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Lyrie 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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- sheila on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- Pat on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- sheila on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
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Tag Archives: Lana Turner
“Attention equals Life.” — Frank O’Hara
“I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.” – poet Frank O’Hara It’s his birthday today. First up: I launched my column at Film Comment with a piece about American poet Frank O’Hara’s love of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O'Hara, Joan Acocella, Lana Turner, Michael Schmidt
18 Comments
September/October 2023 Viewing Diary
I moved in late September. Again. I found a little cozy apartment, the second floor of a little house, with slanted ceilings, little cubbyhole-eaves everywhere, and a big yard. It’s a 10 minute walk to the beach. I found it … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies
Tagged Bette Davis, biopic, comedy, Costa-Gavras, Dana Andrews, documentary, drama, Eli Wallach, England, Ewan McGregor, film noir, France, Fritz Lang, George Cukor, George Sanders, Germany, Gloria Grahame, Hal Wallis, historical drama, Ireland, Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Judy Blume, Kate Lyn Sheil, Lana Turner, Lee Marvin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Miriam Hopkins, Norma Shearer, Otto Preminger, Paul Schrader, River Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Roman Polanski, Rosalind Russell, Sidney Lumet, Spain, Supernatural, Vincente Minnelli, women directors, WWII
29 Comments
Dissolving telephones
Look at this gorgeous dissolve from Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, a blistering film about Hollywood, power, greed, and – most importantly – the compromises people are willing to make for fame. They’ll trade anything. It’s SO good. … Continue reading
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 Anjelica Huston, Austria, Baby Doll, Benjamin Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Carroll Baker, 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
Supernatural: Season 1, Episode 6: “Skin”
Directed by Robert Duncan McNeil written by John Shiban Dark doubles are a recurring theme in Supernatural. What is more frightening, more eerie, than to think of there being another one of you out there, someone who looks like you, … Continue reading
Posted in Television
Tagged Alain Delon, Elia Kazan, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, John Shiban, Lana Turner, Quentin Tarantino, Sissy Spacek, SPN Season 1, Supernatural
70 Comments
Seen Recently: Corman’s World (2011), Imitation of Life (1959), Viva Zapata! (1952), The Skin I Live In (2011), Undercurrent (1946)
Corman’s World directed by Alex Stapleton A great documentary about Roger Corman whose low-budget productions in the 1960s/70s basically acted as film-school and film-experience for a generation of filmmakers who now run Hollywood. The stories are legendary, but here in … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged documentary, Douglas Sirk, drama, Elia Kazan, film noir, Katharine Hepburn, Lana Turner, Marlon Brando, reviews, Robert Mitchum, Spain, thrillers, Vincente Minnelli
17 Comments
Happy Birthday, Lana Turner
You can open up George Eliot’s Middlemarch and find a gem of language on every page. Not an exaggeration. It’s almost overwhelming, you want her to slow down … because her genius is just too much, I am just a … Continue reading
The Books: “Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth” (Lana Turner)
Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography/Memoir: Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth, by Lana Turner You can open up George Eliot’s Middlemarch and find a gem of language on every page. It’s almost overwhelming, you want her to slow down … Continue reading
Lana Turner Day
Today is the Lana Turner Blog-a-thon – if you didn’t know already. Definitely go check out all of these well-written insightful essays – I’ve been having a lot of fun reading them. Here is Flickhead’s post. I liked this part: … Continue reading