Mickey @ 100: From "National Velvet" to "The Black Stallion"

Here's Baby Clyde to conclude our brief Mickey Rooney Centennial celebration

Many years ago, as a Golden Age Hollywood obsessed tween, I dragged my poor brother up to London with me so we could stand outside the stage door of the Savoy Theatre. The West End debut of the smash hit Broadway revue Sugar Babies was playing and it starred the legendary Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller ...from actual HOLLYWOOD!!!

As a little kid from a decidedly un-glamourous council estate, who spent all his spare time poring over books about old movies stars, this was too good an opportunity to miss. It didn’t turn out quite as I’d planned. We arrived at the stage door with plenty of time before the show began to find a handful of like minded saddos also waiting. They informed us that Miss Miller was already inside which was of course unfortunate, but Mickey was still to arrive. A little while later he did...

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The Oscar Race Plot Keeps Thickening... or is it Thinning?

by Nathaniel R

For those of you who are wondering why the Oscar charts are still not updated, here's a simple fact. Every time I go to work on them, something huge changes and I have to start over. I'm fully aware that other pundits keep making breathless pronouncements of what will actually WIN the Oscars but I just can't do that. We STILL have no real sense of what will actually open since Hollywood keeps clearing and resetting the chess board. The latest upheaval is that West Side Story, Steven Spielberg's remake of the Oscar-winning classic that didn't need to be remade, has moved back an entire year to December 2021. So now both of the big latinx musicals that were originally intended for 2020 have just essentially scrawled a one over the final zero on their original calendars with The Heights in summer 2021 and West Side Story for Christmas 2021...

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Doc Corner: 'The Way I See It'

By Glenn Dunks

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that the grand ideal of America is a lie. It may then seem like the right time for a film such as The Way I See It, which appeals to the country’s more idealised image of itself through the (figurative and literal) lens of the man who was there to witness first hand one of its most historic moments. And yet watching Dawn Porter’s film is a bit like watching a fantasy film. All the money in the world may be able to create the most realistic dragons and wizardry, but it’s a total lie. This film is a fallacy of American idealism invented in the daylight among the most vile and hateful bigotry. Do I sound pessimistic? Well, I am.

If Porter’s film, as subtle as a sledgehammer, attempts to immortalize this myth of democratic optimism and goodness then she needn’t have bothered...

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New Fest Lineup!

by Nathaniel R

 Paul Bettany is "Uncle Frank" in a road trip film from Alan Ball
New York City's leading queer film festival is now in its 32nd year. And this year you don't even need to be in NYC to attend since they've gone virtual...

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The Furniture: The frozen escape of "Doctor Zhivago"

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Ten movies were nominated for Best Production Design at the 1965 Oscars, one of the last years before the Academy retired separate categories for color and black & white. There are some striking examples on the list, from the bloated (The Agony & the Ecstasy, Ship of Fools) to the bizarre (Inside Daisy Clover). But when you come down to it, there’s really no looking past Doctor Zhivago.

This was David Lean’s second consecutive film to win the category, after Lawrence of Arabia three years earlier. While their visual scope is similar, the two films actually have very different preoccupations. Lawrence of Arabia is about a man determined to shape history. Doctor Zhivago is about a man trying to escape it. Understanding the difference helps us understand the design.

We begin on the eve of the Russian Revolution, a moment of great social contrasts...

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