“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.” These are the opening lines to Charles Dickens’ timeless holiday tale “A Christmas Carol.” And while quintessential pinchpenny Ebenezer Scrooge is indeed the main character of the…
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Who’s Your Favorite Movie/TV Snowman?
Few things symbolize winter–at least, above and below certain lines of latitude–better than a snowman. And when one of these childhood favorites comes to life in films or on TV, the results can be delightful (2013’s Frozen), emotional (1998’s Jack…
Read more →The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Turns 40? “So What? Big Deal.”
As a longtime film fan who is entering “the September of my years,” I’ve come to realize there are some movie-related moments which I’ll never get to experience. Odds are I’ll never watch the lost Lon Chaney silent shocker London…
Read more →The Top 10 Films of 1999: Of Binks, Buzz, Bond, and the Burnhams
Well, it looks as though we avoided the “Y2K” shutdown fears that swept the globe in 1999 (we must have, or else you wouldn’t be reading this now). Yes, the world a quarter-century ago was a simple, more innocent…
Read more →In Passing: Jonathan Haze/Tony Todd/Earl Holliman/Silvia Pinal
The plant-loving nebbish who fed his enemies to his ever-hungry Audrey Jr. in The Little Shop of Horrors; the undead, hook-handed killer known as Candyman; the interplanetary cook who later appeared as Police Woman Pepper Anderson’s boss; and the Mexican…
Read more →What’s Your Favorite Rankin/Bass Christmas Special?
Believe it or not, this year marks the 60th annual broadcast of Rankin/Bass’s first Christmas TV special, the stop-motion animation favorite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Its success led producers Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass and their eponymous studio, originally known…
Read more →After the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz in Film Since 1939
Author’s Note: This is an updating of an article which originally ran on MovieFanFare in September of 2009. In last week’s first half of this two-part retrospective, I told you about the various silent and early animated film versions of…
Read more →Thanksgiving Greetings from MovieFanFare
Whether you’re traveling by plane, train, automobile, or on foot (like Steve Martin and John Candy)… about to carve the turkey (like Jane Russell)… …or getting in touch with your inner Pilgrim (like Laurel and Hardy), we at MovieFanFare would…
Read more →The Top 10 Films of 1974: Fire, Earthquakes, Mid-Air Collisions, and Mel Brooks
Ah, 1974. Remember back a half-century ago? President Richard M. Nixon abruptly resigned in the wake of Watergate; Hungarian professor Erno Rubik invented his eponymous cube; and the IMAX movie format made its debut at Expo ’74 in Spokane, the…
Read more →What’s Your Favorite Movie Set in Ancient Rome?
With last weekend’s release of Gladiator II, we thought we’d look back at the many feature films set in the days of Hannibal, the Caesars, Caligula, and Nero. From historical epics to swordplay sagas to musical comedies, lend us your…
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