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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
- “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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- Bryce on The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)
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Tag Archives: Michael Curtiz
August 2023 Viewing Diary
Oppenheimer (2023; d. Christopher Nolan) In general, I am not a Nolan fan (the only one of his I liked was Dunkirk), and I went into this hesitantly because I read an interview with him where he said the whole … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies
Tagged animation, biopic, children's movies, coming of age, crime movies, drama, Elvis Presley, England, France, heist movies, horror, Kentucker Audley, King Creole, Michael Curtiz, Michael Mann, romantic drama, Sidney Lumet, South Korea, westerns, women directors
30 Comments
2022 Books Read
Some re-reads this year, but a lot of new-to-me authors as well. New novels written by faves. Been a year of upheaval and transitions. I’ve managed to keep up my regular reading schedule. I just don’t feel right if I’m … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Alfred Hitchcock, Anne Fadiman, art, Australia, Biography, books read, Canada, Christopher Hitchens, Edmund Burke, Elinor Lipman, England, entertainment biography, essays, Eve Babitz, friends, Germany, Greece, Hitler, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Joseph Cornell, Lorrie Moore, Machiavelli, Master and Margarita, Memoirs, Michael Curtiz, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mitford sisters, nonfiction, Paul Zindel, politics, Quentin Tarantino, Robert De Niro, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Beatles, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Victor Klemperer, Victor Serge, war, William Hazlitt, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, WWII, YA fiction
10 Comments
My talk at the old Memphian Theatre: Elvis in Hollywood
When Indie Memphis senior programmer Miriam Bale asked if I wanted to give a talk on Elvis during my time in Memphis, I was excited, but when I heard it was going to be in the Circuit, it felt almost … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, Music
Tagged Ann-Margret, Elvis Presley, Hal Wallis, Kurt Russell, Michael Curtiz, Mildred Dunnock, Tuesday Weld
24 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
— The great Wesley Morris with another slam-dunk, a piece I wish I had thought to write. But that’s why I love him so much: he writes stuff I’ve felt, in an inchoate unformed way, and he puts words to … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Movies
Tagged Elvis Presley, Germany, Jean Renoir, King Creole, Michael Curtiz, stuff I've been reading
8 Comments
Silhouettes and Shadows in Mildred Pierce (1945)
Directed by Michael Curtiz Cinematograpy by Ernest Haller
King Creole (1958): The Dreamspace of “New Orleans”
Young Danny Fisher (Elvis Presley) in King Creole (1958) is a high school flunky a couple times over (“I’m not going back to school. Before you know it, I’ll be a freshman again”), working jobs as a busboy in seedy … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, Music
Tagged Elvis Presley, King Creole, Michael Curtiz, musicals, Sam Phillips
11 Comments
A QA with Jeremy Richey about Elvis Presley As An Actor
Jeremy Richey’s site Moon in the Gutter has been an almost-daily pitstop for me ever since I discovered it years ago. He approaches his topics with passion and enthusiasm, and reminds me of one of those buttons on Facebook that … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies
Tagged Elvis Presley, interviews, King Creole, Live a Little Love a Little, Michael Curtiz, Tuesday Weld, Wild in the Country
78 Comments
The Books: The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II, by Aljean Harmetz
Next book on the Hollywood shelf: The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II, by Aljean Harmetz The book was first published under the title Round Up the Usual Suspects, which I like better, but that’s neither here … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies
Tagged books about Hollywood, Casablanca, Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Michael Curtiz, romantic drama, war
7 Comments
Iron Ladies, Hollywood-Style
This article originally appeared on Capital New York. It’s still up there, although it’s now part of Politico, and so I have reprinted the piece here, because I fear all of the dead links in my future. In lieu of … Continue reading