Sunday, December 15, 2013

Joan Fontaine: Everyone's Favorite Second Mrs. de Winter, and Much More

December 15, 2013 was the last day on earth for two Hollywood legends, Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine. I felt a connection to the O'Toole because of my high school love of T.E.Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom. My connection to Joan Fontaine is through my parents. Impressionistic memories...
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Peter O'Toole--a "dangerous man"--Leaves the Stage. Now for Eternity.

I wrote this post in 2007 when Peter O'Toole earned what would be his last Oscar nomination, for the role of Maurice in the film Venus, which he would not win. This looks at his deep affinity for that first role of Lawrence of Arabia and for T.E. Lawrence himself. Requiescat in Pace. “All men...
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Thursday, December 12, 2013

The New Yorker: Rea Irvin Covering the Season for Us.

"New York City is the capital of the American Christmas. The Puritan settlements to the north banned the holiday as Popish and pagan; and so it was, descended from the ancient Roman solstitial Saturnalia." Thus saith John Updike in his foreward to Christmas at the New Yorker, a compendium of thematic...
              

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

It's an Angry Life: Capra's Confounding Holiday Classic

Several years ago Dan Eisenberg of put out a call for a one-day Blog-a-thon, when those things were happening, on It’s a Wonderful Life. He wanted people to either explain what all the fuss is about, or agree that it could be added to Mary and Yale’s Academy of the Overrated, (joining Gustav Mahler,...
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Sunday, December 8, 2013

Two Murders of John, Across the Universe, That Changed the World

There’s a cosmic intersection between John Lennon and John F. Kennedy, besides both being named John and both being murdered by guns. I first noticed it during the Paley Center for Media’s documentary festival in 2010. Its October lineup opened with two films about John Lennon: the bio pic Nowhere...
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