Even in 1924 Peter Pan wouldn’t grow up 2

Film
 So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land! — J.M. Barrie I’m very excited to see PETER PAN (1924), the delicious silent film offering of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s annual summer film fest, ...

1927 was a very good year 1

Film
Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS with 25 minutes of lost footage restored and live accompaniment by Alloy Orchestra: a huge event for cinephiles. It was the penultimate closing-night event of TCM Classic Film Festival. Everyone loved it. Everyone except arts•meme … I found it overwhelming and incomprehensible. What tickled me, however, was watching the acknowledged German masterpiece dating ...

Ernest Borgnine chats about JUBAL

Film
Cowboy actor Glenn Ford’s steady presence and a rapturous Grand Teton setting made the Technicolor ‘psychological western,’ JUBAL (1956), my favorite film of TCM Fest. Yes when arts•meme isn’t kvelling over Mozart or Balanchine, she likes a good western! Actor Ernest Borgnine, the prodigious character actor who co-stars with Ford and Rod Steiger in the ...

Icy Gene Tierney in blazing Technicolor 1

Film
We enjoyed the restored LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945) the Technicolor/noir-esque soap opera starring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde, a top-grossing 20th Century-Fox film of the 1940s that had kind of gone missing. The love story-turned-sour reminds us of the negative trajectory of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or, frankly, of the many noir potboilers in which a ...

Luise Rainer @ 100 1

Film
Yesterday at TCM Fest, I met a handsome, well dressed actor named Vincent DePaul who was still glowing after his luncheon with Luise Rainer. The 100-year old German-born actress is being honored at today’s TCM Classic Film Fest screening of The Good Earth (1937). Vincent shared this photo with me.

Bountiful schedule of classic films at TCM Fest

Film
The schedule for the Turner Classic Movies film festival is absolutely amazing. See it here. Your press representative (me) plans to spend the weekend immersed in great movies and film activity! The festival takes place in the heart of old Hollywood at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theater and its environs. Grauman’s is an extraordinary place ...

arts•meme to attend TCM classic film festival 2

Film
arts•meme will be part of the press corps at the first ever TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood for four days beginning April 22. More than 50 classic films will be screened at Hollywood’s historic Chinese and Egyptian theaters with appearances by Mel Brooks, Luise Rainer, Ernest Borgnine, Jerry Lewis, Eva Marie Saint, Tony Curtis, ...

Our exigent film-viewing life in Los Angeles 2

Film
We are truly April fools! It’s a topsy-turvy world … because the laid-back capital of the universe is on fire with film events this month. We in Los Angeles are sweating bullets trying to attend all the film festivals on offer in our city. For film alone, the April line-up is quadruple-booked. arts•meme’s good friend, ...

“King of Comedy” at TCM Film Festival

Film
The role of the (stalked) talk-show host in Martin Scorsese’s brilliant black comedy, “The King of Comedy” (1982), was first envisaged for Johnny Carson. When Carson declined, Scorsese, in a stroke of genius, turned to Jerry Lewis. Lewis is so fantastic in this movie; he skates the narrow edge of powerful, scary, and vulnerable. Really ...