Category Archives: Film

Norman Granz’s Duke Ellington At The Cote D’azur With Ella Fitzgerald And Joan Miro, And Duke: The Last Jam Session

I was surprised when I opened my new Duke & Ella CD to find no CD inside, but a two-disc DVD set. Surprised, but not disappointed. Not disappointed at all! The two-disc release, Duke Ellington at the Cote d’Azur with … Continue reading

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Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story

[The town of Hammond, Indiana, will celebrate the 40th anniversary of this movie next weekend, December 16-17, 2023, with a gathering called “Ralphie and the Gang Come Home.”] Tim Hoke wrote this review. Based on stories by Jean Shepherd, A … Continue reading

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Acorn Media’s Slings & Arrows Season 3

The Chicago Tribune exclaims, “[Slings & Arrows] can make you both LAUGH and CRY… don’t miss it.” And having just finished watching all six episodes of the third and final season of this extraordinary Canadian production, I have to admit … Continue reading

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Acorn Media’s Slings & Arrows, Season 2

The first season of Slings & Arrows told the story of the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival, a Canadian theatre company not unlike Ontario’s Stratford Festival. The season was entertaining, funny, and actually pretty sexy as the new artistic director (played … Continue reading

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Acorn Media’s Slings & Arrows Season 1

There are raves all over the cover of this DVD set. The New York Times calls Slings & Arrows “charming, complex, lively.” Newsday says “funny, romantic, sweet, thrilling.” And on it goes. Until I watched this DVD set I had … Continue reading

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FX’s Sons of Anarchy, Season One

We must have seen a promo for this show on some cable TV station a few months ago. I remember that Ron Perlman was in the clip, looking very nasty in black leather and smoking a fat cigar that would … Continue reading

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Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and its sequels, prequels and remakes: Psycho II, Psycho III, Bates Motel, Psycho IV: The Beginning, and Psycho

Psycho, the 1960 film by Alfred Hitchcock from the novel by Robert Bloch (which was in turn based on the life of Ed Gein, also the inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs), is such … Continue reading

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Johnny Cash’s At San Quentin

In the late 1960s, Johnny Cash was on a roll. He was finally getting his life together after a disastrous decade of drug abuse which led to lots of legal problems, a divorce and a growing reputation as an erratic … Continue reading

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Various artists’ The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show, 1969-1971

American musicians always have, for the most part, understood that the various categories of American music are mostly imaginary. They’re marketing tools drawn up by those in the business of selling music to the public, and they cater mostly to … Continue reading

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PBS’s Seaside Hotel (Badehotellet)

Earlier this year my household found itself without a television series to stream, having finished the available seasons of all the shows we were watching. Some friends recommended Seaside Hotel on PBS and our tastes usually agree, so we gave … Continue reading

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