Gene Tierney @ 100: Leave Her To Heaven

by Jason Adams

The surface of the lake is calm -- almost, but not quite, like a mirror. It's a clinical aquamarine color, not much different from Gene Tierney's own eyes. Not that we can see her eyes -- she's just put on her sunglasses. They too act as mirrors -- dark mirrors, reflecting darkness. Ellen Berent Harland (Tierney) watches as the annoying little "cripple" Danny (Darryl Hickman) breaks the sheen of the lake's surface, as if slipping through into some unseen Wonderland -- they say repeatedly the water is warm, so warm, so very warm, but it looks to us cold, ice cold, and indeed the actor Hickman got pneumonia from the filming of this, Leave Her to Heaven's most infamous scene.

But then that's a sense that suffuses all of John M. Stahl's 1945 technicolor Noir masterpiece -- the feeling that something that sounds warm and inviting on its surface might actually be hiding an icy purgatory of horrors just beneath...

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Gene Tierney @ 100: "Laura"

by Nathaniel R

Dear reader, we had such fun doing the Montgomery Clift Centennial that we want to do more of them. Of course not every movie star inspires the same passion in cinephiles, nor has a cooperatively small enough filmography to be completist about. For instance I put out the feelers on Gene Tierney, who made 37 films in her career, and received only 2 volunteers. And herewith a confession: I, myself, despite my love of Old Hollywood, was unfamiliar. I had seen only two of her movies and so long ago that I had next to no recollection. So I queued up her most famous picture, Laura (1944), which I'd somehow never seen even when I was a uncool kid in the horrific "colorizing" days of pop culture who relished seeing old black and white movies... 

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Tweetweek: Hathaway Tea, Princess Thor, Cooper Snatched, and More

The journey of this tweet. ❤️ 

pic.twitter.com/bYZNqVF92W

— Ray Lewis (@RayLewis1997) June 5, 2018

After the jump, Barry Jenkins reacts to Steve McQueen's Widows, Marc Sneticker reminds us of the existence of Shark Tale, Thor is revealed to be a true Disney Princess, and lots of other pop culture quips and bits feat. Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Reese Witherspoon, Samuel L Jackson, Zhang Ziyi, and more...

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George Sidney Centennial: "The Three Musketeers"

by Nathaniel R

After looking at three popular musicals Anchors Aweigh (1945), Kiss Me Kate (1953), and Bye Bye Birdie (1963), in our mini George Sidney Centennial celebration, we're closing up with his other primary mode: the adventure flick. Curiously those films also feel like musicals even when they aren't. Case in point is The Three Musketeers (1948) and the subliminal feeling that at any moment a song and dance number might break out. That's not only because glorious Gene Kelly is the star. This feeling radiates outward from the ebullient movement of all of the swordsmen. It's also firmly embedded in the swooning romantic overtures that happen instantaneously between Gene Kelly and each of the women. Lana Turner is the devilish Lady de Winter and June Allyson is the saintly Constance and, in case you're wondering, no one will ever accuse this movie of subtlety or evolved gender politics. Still the love scenes are memorable for their queer duet of completely earnest and purposefully comic registers.

While The Three Musketeers, MGM's second biggest hit of the entire decade, never abandons its swashbuckler adventure commitments to make room for the theoretical song and dance number, it does make quite a few overtures to other identities. This treatment of the Alexander Dumas story is also a romantic comedy, a slapstick farce, and even a stylized melodrama...

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Stream This: Young Adult, Saved!, Weiner-Dog, and more...

It's that time again. Let's look at what's new to streaming on Amazon Prime this month, by random screengrabs wherever the scrolling bar drops us in the movie...

Oh Mary, please don't tell me you're a lesbian."

Saved! (2004)
I've never seen this Christian high school movie but given how often its devout fans bring it up or quote it perhaps I should? 

Please help us...

Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Don't do it, Brad! Kiki is BIG TROUBLE even though she comes in a tiny cute package. 

six more movies after the jump...

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