Sugar Daddy / Sugar Baby

In our ailing economy, even Hugh Hefner is plagued by financial troubles, on top of which he’s also juggling romantic problems, perhaps for the first time in his 80-something years. The combination of the two put Hef into the news spotlight recently—so it seemed a good time to post this slightly revised excerpt of [...]

Roman Polanski

ROMAN POLANSKI: Wanted and Desired
A documentary film by Marina Zenovich 2008

I wonder if the people who’ve been calling for Roman Polanski’s head—and his body, back here in the USA—know all the confusing details of the case? I suspect not; if they did, they couldn’t possibly see the issue in stark black-and-white terms. But if they [...]

A Trio of Movies

Netflix has me covered. I’m catching up with all the films I’ve missed the past decade or so. It’s a great service, don’t you think?
So this weekend I watched a trio of movies that have nothing in common with one another: Music and Lyrics, Holiday, and The Matrix.
Music and Lyrics: I adore both Hugh Grant [...]

Farewell Ms. Chambers

Porn star Marilyn Chambers died two weeks ago, at the obscenely young age of 56. Cause of death still hasn’t been established, and I can’t help wondering if she took her own life.
Marilyn Chambers reigned supreme during what is widely considered to have been the heyday of porno movies–after the 1973 Supreme Court Miller decision [...]

Set It Off: Video Rant/Review

I am on a mission here. I make no bones about it; I’m on a mission to persuade every genteel, white moviegoer like me—the kind who eschews violent or even just action films, whose idea of movie-generated fear is River Wild—I’m telling you to go out and rent Set It Off. Chances are you [...]

Catch-Up

It’s light out longer and I leave my cave more often; Spring is about to spring me into the next number; our new Prez, both guns blazing, wasn’t kidding about change; and how come he can spin the globe on his calm little finger while I can’t manage to keep up with blogging and Writing [...]

And the Nominees are NOT…

…Gran Torino!
WTF?
No Best Actor? No Best Director?
The Academy baffles yet again. GT was one of the best movies I’ve seen in recent years. I’m still processing it. Clint’s performance was phenomenal. This might just be his last chance for a Best Actor Oscar. And it’s no chance at all.

Sorry, Clint. They know not what they [...]

Baseball Movies

As a way of getting through the lull between baseball seasons, my son Daryl and I decided to join Netflix and rent baseball movies. The descriptions that are impersonal sounding summaries were taken from the IMDB website (probably obvious).

Already Seen:
Bad News Bears (original, 1975 ONLY—no sequels or remakes, please!)
Maybe it’s because watching this with my [...]

Tropic Thunder

Update added at end of post November 24th

Offensive? Absolutely.
Should it be boycotted or otherwise censored? Absolutely not.
The only things I read about Tropic Thunder before seeing it were a WordPress blog that called it hilarious and a San Francisco Chronicle review that multiplied the sentiment by ten. Both made me want to see the film [...]

Favorite Flicks

My criteria for a favorite movie is one I can watch once a year, at least, without getting bored by it entirely—if I become bored with a scene here and there, well, that’s what the remote is for.

I first saw West Side Story, topping my list eternally, when I was 16, and since then I’ve [...]