Yearly Archives: 2011
Movie Quote of the Day – The Silence of the Lambs, 1991 (dir. Jonathan Demme)
Hannibal Lecter: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
YAM Mag: Beginner’s Guide To Silent Films
Everyone be sure to head over to YAM Mag and check out the piece I wrote about Silent Cinema for them. It’s part of a new feature for them called “Beginner’s Guide.” Really, their whole site is worth a look over.
Movie Quote of the Day – Groundhog Day, 1993 (dir. Harold Ramis)
Phil: Don’t drive angry. Don’t drive angry!
111 New-To-Me Films in a Month? I Don’t Call Myself A Fanatic For Nothing.
As I’ve said many times now, I work as a substitute teacher. But I’m only called in to work an average of 3 to 6 days a month. This leaves me A LOT of free time. I also recently got a DVR, which allows me to tape TCM (the best channel in the world) while I’m sleeping. So now it doesn’t matter when a film is being shown, if I want to watch it odds are I’ll watch it. Which brings me to my whopping new-to-me count for January. 111. Triple digits in one month. I’m pretty sure I’ve had some years where I didn’t even watch that many films in twelve months. I just really love film, okay? And I would love to watch every movie ever made. Well, maybe not every movie, but lots anyhow. After the cut I’ll post the entire list, as well as point out a few new favorites and do a breakdown by decade (spoiler alert: it’s mostly pre-70s films).
How My Readers Keep Me In Good Books On Film
As many of you know I add links at the end of most of my posts to my Amazon aStore where you can purchase whatever film it is I just wrote about. You can also go through that store to purchase anything on your own Amazon wishlist. Basically, I get anywhere from $0.50 to $1.00 from every purchase. I then get Amazon giftcards, with which I buy things off of my Books On Film wishlist. Well, actually, I’ve only gotten enough referrals from my aStore to buy one book so far:
It just arrived today and I am excited to read it. So I guess the point of this post is a) to say THANK YOU for helping me get this great book and perpetuate my growing knowledge on film and b) to beg you to continue to buy things from my aStore whenever you intend to get something from Amazon. Because, really, it doesn’t cost you anymore than you’d already be spending, but it does help this cinephile out just a little bit. It’s a win-win for all involved.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Maltese Falcon, 1941 (dir. John Huston)
Detective Tom Polhaus: [picks up the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
Sam Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.
We’ve Been Added To LAMB – The Large Association of Movie Blogs!
We’re very excited to announce that we’re are now part of the Large Associations of Movie Blogs! We applied to be added a little over a month ago, so the info on our profile is a little off (we just had week 39 of Oscar Vault Monday, not 34). LAMB is a really great directory of movie blogs and if you ever get a chance to check out some of the other blogs listed, please do.
TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar Begins Tomorrow!
31 Days of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated films? This is why I love Oscar season so much. Turner Classic Movies doesn’t stick with just classics, they’ve got things as new as 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on their schedule. 31 days of non-stop Oscar is a lot to handle, so I thought I’d give y’all a little help. So with this post I’ll go from February 1st through the 7th and tell you what I’m looking forward to the most. Some of these picks are films I’ve already seen, but recommend you watch if you haven’t, and some are films that I’ll be watching for the very first time. I’ll do the same for the other three weeks of their schedule as well.
Oscar Vault Monday – The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942 (dir. Orson Welles)
It took A LOT of searching to find this movie. It is not available on DVD in the United States (click here if you want to try to do something about that). While probably not as well-known as Citizen Kane, I think this film is just as much a masterpiece Welles’ more famous film, though probably less universally approachable. I’m going to talk a little later about some of the production (and the headaches it caused). The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, though it went home empty-handed: Best B&W Art Direction, Best B&W Cinematography, Best Supporting Actress Agnes Moorehead and Best Picture. The other nominees for Best Picture that year were 49th Parallel, Kings Row, The Pied Piper, The Pride of the Yankees, Random Harvest, The Talk of the Town, Wake Island, Yankee Doodle Dandy and winner Mrs. Miniver.
R.I.P. Five-Time Oscar Winning and James Bond Composer John Barry
John Barry Prendergast, OBE was born on 3 November 1933 and died of a heart attack on 30 January 2011. Barry worked on over 100 films, including eleven in the James Bond series. He was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning five times: Best Original Song and Best Original Score for Born Free (1966), Best Original Score for The Lion in Winter (1968), Best Original Score for Out of Africa (1985) and Best Original Score for Dances With Wolves (1990).
the diary of a film history fanatic 