I don’t know how I first came upon Stacia’s site, She Blogged by Night, but I do remember being impressed by her blog name. That’s always a good start, eh? Her posts live up to that clever moniker too. Anyone who has equal room in her heart for Marie Prevost and Bill Shatner is tops in my book. Stacia has also been writing up a storm at Spectrum Culture. Check out her articles; they’re great stuff. Thank you for agreeing to guest link Stacia!
-------------------------------
KC, I want to thank you for the opportunity to share some of my favorite links with your readers. I'm delighted to be asked to contribute, and can only hope that I live up to expectations, and by that I mean not embarrass the stuffing outta myself.
Sheila O'Malley at The Sheila Variations has embarked on an epic project to essentially rehabilitate Elvis Presley's cinematic reputation. You will not find anyone more knowledgable about Elvis than Sheila, but don't think that means her posts are dry. Everything is immensely entertaining, passionate, and she has a wonderful ability to pick out pieces of Elvis' life and arrange them in a way that adds depth to his life as an actor, a subject that has, honestly, never really been delved into properly. Recently she participated in a Q&A with Jeremy Richey of Moon in the Gutter about Elvis films. It's a terrific introduction to all of her Elvis posts, which you can get to by clicking on the Elvis tag at the bottom of the Q&A.
Radiation Cinema is unquestionably a must-read for any film buff, no matter what genre is your favorite. Mykal's posts are full of details about the films you never knew as well as the pure joy of discussing something he loves. Usually I point people to his 2009 post The Unbroken Dream of Edward D. Wood, Jr., but this time I thought I'd shake it up a bit and include a more recent essay, Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964). This is a film that has gotten a lovely treatment from Criterion and many people in the film blogosphere have seen it, but I've found a good write-up on this flick is very rare. Mykal effortlessly strips the film down and exposes just what it is we love about it, and is a joy to read while doing so.
It's tempting to tease my BBFF Ivan of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear for, well, pretty much anything, but what I can't tease him about is his love for the films, radio, and television he writes about. A recent recurring feature on TDoY is B Western Wednesdays, and trust me when I tell you that you don't have to like Westerns to like this feature. Last week, Ivan dug deep into the archives to find Rawhide (1938) starring -- get this -- Lou Gehrig. It's a fun read with great comments as usual (everyone else who comments on TDoY contributes information, I just say goofy things) and highly recommended.
It's almost comically easy to see movies nowadays. I have a stack of roughly 500 films in my To Watch pile today, yet I remember the days when I had to dig through the Sunday paper for the local TV guide to find the late late movies I wanted to see. Of course, I was forbidden from staying up late, but when we got a TV upstairs -- it was the monitor for our computer, if you can imagine -- I was able to sneak in and watch a film without waking the parents. Now so many movies are readily available, practically at a moment's notice. This is good and just and one of the things that is right in this crazy mixed-up world. We got here not overnight but through a series of gradual changes, though a big turning point was MST3K, which is where many of us had our first exposure to B movies. It's certainly where most of us first encountered 80s B-movie great and all around nifty dude Reb Brown. Many of Brown's films have been available in greymarket forms for years, but not until recently has the truly unbelievable campfest Yor: Hunter of the Future (1983) been easily obtainable. I remember clearly when it appeared on TCM, because that day the excitement lit the film blogosphere up like Jack Nicholson's Christmas tree. Over the past year since Yor became more widely available, there have been a lot of reviews online, a lot of them pale imitations of what they think MST3K would have said about the film. Yet there are terrific reviews, too, and two of the best were from my pals Mr. Gable of and Scott Clevenger. Scott of World O' Crap and Better Living Through Bad Movies fame wrote a terrific guest post on my blog last year. Meanwhile Mr. Gable of Mr. Gable's Reality, a saucy horror movie blog that is both awesome and NSFW, wrote his review last monthreview last month. Both reviews are epic, amazing, hilarious, and full of naughty words. You must read them.
And finally, a little shout out to my favorite classic Hollywood film reviewer Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times with his review of Of Human Bondage (1934). What I love about his reviews is how well they illustrate what was in vogue at the time regarding film plots and acting styles. Many people think Bette Davis is an unmitigated ham in Of Human Bondage without understanding the context of what cinema was in 1934, or without realizing that the film was one of (if not the) last film released before the enforcement of the Hays Code.
