Farber on film: ‘David and Lisa’ @ TCM Fest 2017

Film
by 
Many out-of-town patrons attend the TCM Festival to catch the big productions with the big stars in attendance: In the Heat of the Night, The China Syndrome, Saturday Night Fever. Or they line up for perennial audience pleasers like Casablanca, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in the large Chinese Theatre. But for some of us, ...

Worldly woman shocks small-town America! Pola Negri, you go girl.

Film
“A Woman of the World” (1925) stars Pola Negri in a comedy about a sophisticated European countess (do they make ’em unsophisticated?) who encounters culture shock during her visit to small-town America. Her continental freedoms — she smokes in public, she wears flashy makeup — clash with local morals. A crusading District Attorney enters the ...

Critic Stephen Farber’s TCM Fest 2016 movie round-up 1

Film
by 
The fun of the TCM Classic Film Festival [arts•meme has covered since 2010] is the sheer range of offerings, from obscure rarities to Oscar-anointed hits. Three of my favorite events from this year’s festival featured memorable guest appearances. The Yearling was shown in a magnificent 35mm print from The George Eastman House. Not all studio ...

Hollywood ‘pioneers, dreamers & misfits’ delight Landis, Beauchamp

Film · Ideas & Opinion
Pioneers, dreamers and misfits: this perspicacious trio of descriptors Hollywood historian Cari Beauchamp has selected to characterize the actors, artists, directors, and assorted fruits and nuts who arrived in early Los Angeles to populate the burgeoning film industry. Burgeoning may be an overstatement. This was a place where the welcome mat sometimes read, “No actors, ...

We love the women of TCM Classic Film Festival 2013

Film
This was our fourth year attending the marvelously programmed, super well-organized TCM classic film festival right in the center of our city. The Festival opened with a bang — a screening of Barbra Streisand’s powerhouse film debut in FUNNY GIRL (1968). It continued through the weekend, highlighting many admirable women of the classic Hollywood community. ...