Archive for November, 2009
Friday, November 27th, 2009
You’ve Got Comedy
Some stories are so good, they’re worth telling over and over again. Take, for example, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Ernst Lubitsch’s romantic comedy starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart. It was remade in 1949 as In the Good Old Summertime, with Judy Garland and Van Johnson. In 1963, it was converted into a [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Cable and DVD by DavidE
Friday, November 27th, 2009
No Fighting in the War Room
It’s hard to write about Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) without resorting to superlatives. It’s the best comedy of the 1960s. It’s the best black comedy ever. It has the longest title of any Oscar-nominated film. Just as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Cable, DVD, and Blu-ray by DavidE
Friday, November 27th, 2009
An Age of Ideals
The Importance of Being Earnest (1952) is not only the definitive Oscar Wilde adaptation, it’s the definitive comedy of manners. Often acknowledged to have the best cast ever assembled for the play — either on celluloid or on stage — this is one of the best film comedies of the 1950s. Michael Redgrave (as Jack [...]