When younger, I always had the rum luck to come in at the end of something good. When I got to Southern Connecticut State College (now University) as a freshman in 1980, the smart money in the Theatre Department said that a mini Golden Age had just ended and that they were running on fumes; when I got to New York City in 1986, I just missed out on the heyday of the Grindhouse that guys like Bill Landis and Mike Weldon wrote books about — soon, Times Square would be shuttered and still, like a boardwalk during the off-season. When I moved to Los Angeles in 2004, locals told me how traffic used to be okay around town but now… fuhgeddaboudit! For a long time I thought I was doomed to be a natural born dust-kicker, scowling at my poor fortune to never being in the middle of anything good. I turned 50 this year and the more I turn around and look back the more I see that I’ve lived through some pretty good stuff. And you, young reader, can, too. READ MORE

2011 marked the 40th anniversary of Masterpiece on PBS and I couldn’t let the year pass without making note of the show’s accomplishments and sharing some highlights from their current schedule. After 40 long and impressive years Masterpiece is better than ever and if you’re not watching you’re missing some of the most thoughtful, well-written and wonderfully acted programs on television. I also happen to think that some of the shows currently airing on Masterpiece are more interesting and entertaining than anything you’ll find playing at your local multiplex.

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Most of us have phones.   They’re convenient.  They’ve been convenient for well over a hundred years.  We use them to keep in touch with, and gather important information from, people who are otherwise inaccessible.  This is their primary charm.  Another one of their charms is that they have never, thankfully, destroyed the planet earth and wiped out all of civilization.  Television also hasn’t done this.  Whew.  In fact, most technological progress, in medicine, in computing, in entertainment – all of it – has the always welcome benefit of not destroying all that we hold dear.  For the most part, technology that is considered destructive, like, say, a nuclear weapon, was designed to be that way.  Destructive, that is.   Other things can be destructive, like cars, but since that is not they’re intention, 99.9 percent of the time, they’re good and extremely convenient.   Yes, technological progress (which is how I’m writing this and how you’re reading it) is a very good thing, most of the time.  Except in some science fiction.  Techno-thrillers, to be exact.  In that sci-fi, technology is awful, always.

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On December 6th, RaroVideo released two films from director Alberto Lattuada on DVD. Relatively unknown in the U.S., he was an eclectic talent who came up under the sway of neorealism, and who later made an uncategorizable series of literary adaptations and bitterly satirical farces. I have asked a Ph.D candidate in Italian Studies at NYU, Alberto Zambenedetti, to help me discuss his work. Mr. Zambenedetti will write about The Overcoat (1952), widely considered his masterpiece, and I will look at Come Have Coffee With Us (1970), one of his late sex comedies.

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I have a difficult time remembering film titles that are clichés. It is one thing if a title encapsulates the theme or point of the film, such as Field of Dreams or Unforgiven, or if it is a pun or twist on a familiar phrase, such as Pillow Talk or Dolphin’s Tale. But, unimaginative titles with little tie-in to the movie’s theme or storyline go in one ear and out the other. Contemporary comedies are the worst offenders, particularly romantic comedies:  Something’s Gotta Give, My One and Only, New in Town, No Strings Attached, Morning Glory, You Again, Just Go With It. I can’t remember the titles when I am trying to think of the films, and I don’t remember the films when I see the titles. As someone who writes about the movies, I always consider the connection between title and content, so perhaps I take them too seriously.

But, I do get a kick out of the stories behind the titles; that is, the journey from script to working title to the final version. Though it’s hard to believe that “Something’s Gotta  Give” would go through endless meetings and discussions, especially considering it was the well-known name of Marilyn Monroe’s unfinished last film, a great deal of effort does go into each Hollywood title. I thought I would offer a few behind-the-scenes rumors and tales about the evolution of some very familiar titles.

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That was how Preston Sturges described his screenplay for REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940), directed by Mitchell Leisen. Overlooked and underrated for years, this small scale but intimate romantic drama has become a new Yuletide favorite thanks to frequent airings on TCM and its availablity on DVD.        READ MORE

“I didn’t know you could mix Santa Claus and horror movies,” my son Max told me this morning (y’all met him last week when he guest blogged on my behalf). He was referring specifically to his and my current obsession, a movie that has been inaugurated as a holiday viewing tradition in our home: Jalmari Helander’s looney cult flick Rare Exports.

Never heard of it? Well — as Max said, it is a (mildly gory) horror movie about Santa Claus.

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Some of us like to cut our Christmas with a little drop of poison – don’t judge. Or go right ahead and judge — we don’t care! The British have long had a tradition of ghost stories for Christmas and I wish Americans could get in line with that because I think it’s a capital idea, what? There is encoded in the gloss and pageantry of Christmas something sad and spooky, gloomy and melancholy. Dickens knew it. Joyce knew it. M.R. James walked it like he talked it and even Shakespeare knew that winter was the best time for sad tales full of sprites and goblins. Don’t get me wrong – I love CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945) and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) and MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) as much as the next guy. I love the holidays and the primary colors and the tinsel and the snap in the air and the smell of pine and the crackle of the old Yule log… but after the revelers have gone home and the children have been put in their beds, I don’t mind a pretty little chill. Having said that, I’d like to suggest a few ghost movies to supplement your holiday experience, ones that I think are particularly well-suited for the Yuletide.  READ MORE

Last week I included Marcus Hearn’s latest book, The Hammer Vault: Treasures From the Archive of Hammer Films, in my two part list of Favorite Film Related Books of 2011. This week I got the opportunity to ask the author a few questions about his new book as well as discuss Hammer’s enduring legacy. The studio best known for its gothic horror films has continued to gain new fans and produce new movies including THE WOMAN IN BLACK, which is scheduled to be released in February of 2012.

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