Remembering Celeste Holm.

Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm passed away this morning at the age of ninety-five. Though she only starred in just over two dozen movies throughout the course of her career, the beautiful and talented Holm had a long life in Hollywood, as those films spanned the course of eight decades. Holm spent her early years on…

The Silent-Puff Girls

One of the most entertaining cartoons to come out of the 1990s features a trio of sweet little girls named Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup … and despite their cutesy names, they just happen to be some seriously ass-whoopin’ superheroes. Those girls–originally called The Whoopass Girls before being renamed as the more family-friendly Powerpuff Girls–were created by Craig…

Remembering Ernest Borgnine.

The final scene of Marty (1955) opens with the title character (Ernest Borgnine) leaning against the wall of a seafood restaurant, one arm raised, loosely grasping a pole that juts out from the side of the building. He stands silently as his friends mill about in front of him, debating what they should all do next–a movie?…

Operator! Operator! Operator!

  Many of director Alfred Hitchcock’s films take place in a single setting, restricting the movement of the characters to a central locale. Movies such as Lifeboat (1944), Rope (1948), and Rear Window and Dial M for Murder (both 1954) are claustrophobic and unnerving, filled to the brim with tension and unbearable suspense. The characters cannot get away from one another, and…

Winsor McCay’s animated propaganda: The Sinking of the Lusitania

(This post was originally published on the sadly now-defunct site The Cinementals.) After the phenomenal success of Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), cartoonist Winsor McCay realized that he had found his passion in animation, and he was eager to create even more films. But his animated output was limited at the demand of his employer, publishing…

What a glorious feeling!

As many classic movie fans are likely aware, our television Lord and Master, Turner Classic Movies (in conjunction with Fathom and Warner Bros.) is following up this past spring’s successful nationwide theater screenings of Casablanca (1942) with a one-night-only showing of the incomparable 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain, which will be released in a special sixtieth-anniversary edition Blu-ray on July…