Cooking With the French Chef: Reine de Saba Cake

Welcome back to Cooking With the French Chef, in which I review episodes of Julia Child’s original show, cook out of the new edition of the French Chef Cookbook and share the results with you. Past posts can be found here. Next to Beouf Borguignon, Julia's Queen of Sheba cake seems to be one of her most famous …

One Week Until the It’s In the Name of the Title Blogathon

One week to go already, y'all...are you ready for this? Gill and I are excited to share this event with the blogosphere, and there's going to be a lot to like, for the participant and casual observer alike. And as of this writing, Gill and I have thirty bloggers participating. Wow, that is awesome. And …

Those Fabulous Franco Brothers

I can't believe I own The Disaster Artist on Blu-ray. I can't believe I own The Room on DVD. Heck, I can't believe I've seen The Room in the first place. Strange things happen when we become film bloggers. So yeah, The Disaster Artist, the 2017 flick which stars not one, but two Portuguese American actors, James Franco and his brother, …

The Land of Un

Zoikes, April has been a busy month. Movies, school stuff, appointments, the usual things. A little cat named Brutus who climbs my leg when he's ready to eat (No, he's not mine. I just feed him sometimes when I'm at the crosswalk. He likes Sheba's seafood cuts and Rachael Ray LoveBites, in case anyone's wondering). …

A Most Unusual Midwife

Miss Agnes is back... Some movies don't deserve to be forgotten, and 1962's Jessica is one of those. While it's not a great film, it's a charmer and well-worth a watch. While our guest of honor has a pretty memorable, albeit minimal part, in it as an Italian grandmother, this is definitely Jessica's movie. The film opens …

Dealing For Life

In the nineteen-thirties and early nineteen-forties Errol Flynn was a lithe, magnetic romantic lead, but as the forties went on his reputation was tarnished by a statutory rape trial, drug abuse, rampant alcoholism, running after women, and other sordid activities. By the nineteen-fifties hard living was catching up to him, plus his finances and his …

One Month Until the Neighbors Blogathon

Zoikes, the blogoverse is hopping right now--May is going to be jam-packed. The more, the merrier, right? So yeah, thirty days to go until the Neighbors Blogathon, all, and thanks so much to everyone who's signed up for Quiggy's and my Neighbors Blogathon! Of course, if anyone would like to join us, there are tons …

Announcing the Norman Jewison Blogathon

Another blogathon! As many of you no doubt know, we lost Norman Jewison on January 20th of this year at the ripe old age of ninety-seven, and I thought it would be nice to pay tribute to his life and work. Jewison was born in Toronto on July 21, 1926 and made his screen debut …

No Room Is Truly Empty

The 1948 film, Enchantment has been on my Amazon watchlist so long that I kind of block it out, but this year I decided to take a chance on it. Put it this way: What seems familiar can still surprise us. Enchantment opens in London during the Second World War, with a towncar pulling up to a …

That Day In September

Mr. Holden is back... William Holden had a long career right up until his death in 1981, and one of his very late credits is 21 Hours at Munich, which chronicles the fateful Munich Massacre on September 5, 1972, right in the middle of what were being called Die heiteren Spiele or Die fröhlichen Spiele, which …

During World War Two: On the Air

The Second World War has been referred to as "a radio war," simply because radio was such an integral part of relaying information to the public about bond drives, rationing, the latest news, and other aspects of living on the home front, but radio was probably the most special for Americans on the frontlines. Imagine …

Thirty Days Until the It’s In the Name of the Title Blogathon

The It's In the Name of the Title Blogathon is already a month away...can you believe it? It feels as if Gill and I just announced this thing. Oh wait, we did just announce a whole three weeks ago. Anyway, Gill and I are highly gratified and flattered at how excited everyone is for this …

Hitch Films Another Play

Good evening... Hitchcock was no stranger to filming plays. His first one was the limp Juno And the Paycock, a depressing affair that was only made bearable by Sara Allgood. Almost a quarter of a century later, Hitch was feeling a little stagnant, so he decided to film another play, Dial M For Murder. Although it bears a …

It’s Wabbit Season

Here come the B's... Hollywood was desperate to bring people back into the theater starting in the fifties. There was also that pesky problem of once-guaranteed revenue streams disappearing, so belts had to be tightened in so many respects. MGM was no different than any other studio, but given what they had been for audiences …

The Sunshine Is Back (Again)

Good day, sunshine! My lovely friend, Gill, of Realweegiemidget Reviews has nominated me for another Sunshine Award...thank you, Gill! I'm starting to lose count of how many times this award has come my way and that's not a complaint. Sunshine Awards are fun because it's a nice way for us film bloggers to get to …

Cooking With the French Chef: Coquilles Saint-Jacques

Welcome back to Cooking With the French Chef, in which I make recipes from the new edition of Julia Child's French Chef Cookbook and review episodes of Julia's original TV series, The French Chef. Past installments can be found here. Coquilles Saint-Jacques is a dish I've been wanting to make for a long time but never …

Inspiration, Imagination, and Intrepidation

We all know what they say about March: It comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, or vice versa. My neck of the woods seemed to get a mixture of that this year, but in terms of movies, the "I's" had it. Lots of inspiring stories of intrepid people. Lots of …