Irv Slifkin
Irv Slifkin has been with Movies Unlimited for 20-plus years in different capacities with their annual catalog and website. He has also found time to write two books (Filmadelphia and Groovy Movies), review films on radio (he's currently on The Frankie Boyer show on the Lifestyles Radio Network) and recently made his debut on stage in Disney's Beauty and the Beast for the Moorestown Theater Company.
Irv's Posts
George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
We've seen a long, if mixed, record of musicians morphing into movie stars. For every David Bowie, there's a Peter Frampton. Whereas it's hard to argue Barbra Streisand hasn't enjoyed success and longevity on the big screen, Madonna's got her fair share of hits and misses. We won't get into the merits of the Neil Diamond Jazz Singer here; let's just blame all that on Lord Olivier.
Prince. Mick Jagger. Tom Waits. Mariah Carey (we're not talking Glitter, we're talking Precious). Norah Jones.
Who's next? For a while there, it looked like Taylor Swift had the inside track. Not so much now. So: Who should be the next musical artist to score on the big screen? Let's Ask Movie Irv:
Has Irv made the right discovery?
Irv Slifkin | Staff Notes
Joan Crawford was a bitch.
That may not come as a revelation to the folks who know Ms. Crawford from the image that has been perpetuated since Mommie Dearest, the book and the movie, were released in 1978 and 1981, respectively.
From the portrayal of Joan in book and film, “bitch” may have been a kind word. After all, here was a woman who was crocked most of the time, showed little regard for her kids and regularly abused them, slept with most of the men (and many of the women) in Hollywood, had a horribly violent temper and showed an unusually strong disdain for wire hangers. The book, of course, was written by Christina Crawford, her adopted daughter, who was left out of her mother’s will along with her brother Christopher, also adopted.
Irv Slifkin | Ask Movie Fanfare
Q: I recently saw a Jerry Lewis documentary on TV and saw clips from films I wasn’t familiar with. Any chance we’ll see more of Jerry’s films on DVD in the future?
A: If you are a fan of “The Total Filmmaker,” you’re in luck. Two of Mr. Lewis’s collaborations with former Warner animation wizard Frank Tashlin are on their way. It’s Only Money (1962) stars Jerry as a TV repairman with a hankering to become a detective. He gets his chance when he teams with a P.I. (Jesse White) to investigate schemers trying to get their hands on a disputed will. Joan O’Brien is the nurse Jerry falls for in this film that may best be known for a scene in which the star encounters a batch of runaway lawnmowers. Also on the way is Who’s Minding the Store? (1963), showcasing Jerry as a dog walker given a job at a department store by owner Agnes Moorehead. Her intention is to prove Jerry’s a doofus to her elevator operator daughter (Jill St. John), who happens to be his fiancée. In what has become one of Lewis’s best-known bits, he attempts to fix a vacuum cleaner in the department store with little success (but lots of plugs for Hoover). For the record, Jerry Lewis and Frank Tashlin made eight films together.
George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Sometimes, a movie question appears to present a very limited range of possible answers. Like the question, "Is Marlon Brando the Greatest Movie Actor of All Time?"
You might think the answers to a question like that would typically be limited to the following:
Yes.
Or: No.
Or: What a stupid question.
But then, you would not be a real movie fan, would you? Obsessed with estimating and re-estimating the estimable Brando's wide—ahem—range of impact and influence on the world of cinema in general, and film acting in particular. Where the star of The Godfather "places" in the annals of thespianic greatness can be, has been, and shall always remain one of "those" conversations taking place among truly dedicated film buffs. We are not talking about Charlie Sheen. Because, as we all know, Charlie Sheen Is No Marlon Brando. No, we are talking about the man who not only made A Streetcar Named Desire, but also Apocalypse Now. And Free Money. Which, uhm, also starred Charlie Sheen.
So, let's get to it and Ask Movie Irv. Was Brando, Is Brando, Will Brando Always Be...The One?
Brandophiles, wherever you are, are now free to champion or take issue with Irv's verdict.
Irv Slifkin | In the Director's Chair, Movie Buzz
Although he is only 32 years old, writer-director Ti West has five horror films under his belt and more in the planning stages. And while he is too old, perhaps, to be called a “wunderkind,” the amount of projects he has realized at his age is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
West, a native of Wilmington, Delaware, has a new film about to open in theaters called The Innkeepers. The movie was actually shot and is set in the Yankee Pedlar Inn, an aging hostelry in Torrington,Connecticut, that( in the movie) is about to close. Clerks Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) tend to the place in its final days. A woman and her young child are the sole guests, until an aging actress turned New Age psychic (Kelly McGillis) checks in. Is the place haunted…or not? Luke’s website devoted to the Inn, with live webcam feeds, may prove it is.
Irv Slifkin | Staff Notes
It was in the old Cheltenham Theater in the mid-1970s, with the pungent smells of fried chicken and Lysol wafting through the aisles, that I first got acquainted with David Cronenberg.
I was definitely in the “horror movie phase” of my moviegoing life, seeing everything and anything that smacked of scary. The movie was They Came from Within, a creepy and disgusting little Canadian shocker about tenants at a Montreal apartment who are stricken with an illness that is one part aphrodisiac, one part venereal disease.
My memories of the film are somewhat vague, but I do remember scream queen Barbara Steele taking a bath and icky cockroach-like insects creeping out of the bathtub faucet and entering her through her privates.
Irv Slifkin | Staff Notes
Blame PBS.
If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have the tsunami of auction shows populating the TV screen like we do now.
It all started with Antiques Roadshow, originally a British show on the BBC that began in the late 1970s. The premise was simple: People showed experts the stuff they thought was valuable. Experts appraised the stuff. People went home either elated or miserable.
The Americanized version started to air on PBS in 1997. The experts became regulars, while the hosts shifted every few years. Stops were made throughout the country as folks had hopes that the plate that Aunt Sally left them or the baseball card they found at the estate sale cha-chinged for big bucks. Then there was the possibility that the stain with which they finished Uncle Henry’s rocker made the value drop from $23,000 to $23.
George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
...what movies would you make? Would they be like The Matrix...or like Martha Marcy May Marlene? It was time to Ask Movie Irv this classic question, and he has a pretty clear answer:
Now it's your turn. You've just been handed the keys to a major motion picture studio. Those of you always bemoaning the quality of today's films: have at it! Let's hear your pitches. What kinds of movies would you make?
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Double Dose Of Doug: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. tackles two roles in the 1941’s The Corsican Brothers, the Edward Small (The Man in the Iron Mask) production based on the Alexander Dumas novel. He plays the siblings who are separated and regroup later to avenge the death of their father at the hands of the evil, Bolero-wearing Akim Tamiroff. Complicated matters is the fact that the brothers—one a gentleman, the other a bandit—have interest in the same woman, a beautiful Corsican countess played by Ruth Warrick. Expert swordfighting sequences and Fairbanks’ athletic prowess make this one a swashbuckling winner.
Fox Film Flashlight : While the 20th Century Fox archives hasn’t really materialized like we had hoped, the studio is busy on the VOD scene putting out tiles from MGM, which also means titles from now-defunct companies of all sorts. This gives movies that have seemingly fallen between the cracks and opportunity to see the light of day, for which we are grateful for. The latest batch is similar to the what we’ve getting from them as late—a real diverse group of films ranging from recent to vintage, from genre to genre, and from studio to studio. Take a gander at what’s on tap here:
George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Movie fans around the world have something to thank the French for (besides the movie Betty Blue): Ever since the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma promoted the idea that film directors such as Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, due to the very distinctive and identifiable style of their work, could be designated as the sole "authors" of their films—an assertion with which American critic Andrew Sarris agreed, classifying the controversial argument as the auteur theory—cineastes everywhere have argued endlessly over the idea.
Is the theory legitimate? Are movies artworks for which directors can or should be credited with birthing by virtue of their visions alone? Or, is cinema a more collaborative and industrial enterprise where every craftsperson's talents are as integral to the whole as the man (or woman) calling "action"? For some, this question has an easy answer. For others, the truth is more complex. Let's Ask Movie Irv:
Agreed? Disagreed? Irv is itching to answer another question. Take on his point of view and then give him another meaty, movie-related question to chew on:
George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Taking offense; an unexpected emergency; sheer boredom...all reasons someone might give for walking out on a movie. It's safe to say we've probably all done it at one time or another. When the exodus is not forced upon you—that is to say, when it's a matter of you making the choice to abandon the film you just plunked down some hard-earned cash to see—that's when it becomes an interesting story about the relationship between you and the cinema.
Movie Irv has seen many, many, many movies. Has he ever walked out on one? If so, why? Was he overwhelmed by the sugary content of The Sound of Music? Did he feel the shame of a city in the midst of the murky 3-D of The Last Airbender? Perhaps A Serbian Film sent him into the men's room as he lost his lunch? It's time to Ask Movie Irv:
So ends Irv's confession. He's already taken on How You Shop for a Movie Collector and Do You Read the Book Before Seeing the Movie, and now he needs a few more questions. If you want to know when such-and-such is coming out on DVD or Blu-ray, go ask Irv on the DVD Beat and TV Tip Sheet posts. Got a trivia nugget you think will stump us? Ask MovieFanFare or visit our Facebook page. In this arena, we seek the movie-related inquiries that are unusual or challenging. Go for it in the comments:
Irv Slifkin | Staff Notes
“Speech is silver; silence is golden.”
--Ancient Egyptian proverb.
Who would have thunk it? Two films about the world of silent movies, showing in theaters at the same time.
We have Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s mesmerizing 3-D adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the graphic novel/kid’s book about an orphan living in a in a Paris train station who encounters a toy store proprietor with a mysterious past. The boy uses a robot that his late father gave him to find out the secret of the toy salesman, who turns out to be none other than—SPOLIER ALERT!—Georges Melies, the French pioneer of early fantasy and science fiction films.
Then there’s The Artist, the delightful, heavily praised silent black-and-white picture from French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius, in which dashing silent screen star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) fears his career may be in danger when talkies are introduced in the late 1920s. At the same time, a female fan (Berenice Bejo) with aspirations of becoming a movie actress finds her stock rising as his descends in the new era of sound motion pictures. Any similarities between the lead character and real actor John Gilbert are probably not coincidental.
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