Foster on Film

Stewart had a more varied career than most actors and far more than most leading men of the golden age. He not only was in, but was known for, comedies, dramas, melodramas, family films, romances, thrillers, and Westerns. Early in his career, he was in a string of sentimental Frank Capra movies, with It’s A

Hawks has the most masculine style of any of the great directors. His films were about men and for men. The relationships that matter were between men, and the only way a woman could have power in a Hawks film was by taking on masculine traits and becoming one of the boys. Thus was born

I’m a little late for my worst fantasy and science fiction of 2018. Still, a late warning is better than none at all.  I’ve no doubt missed some of the sand, but I’ve done my best to look at every film that had a chance to get onto this list. And I’m not counting ultra-low

With the most iconic comic book characters in their stable and a near stranglehold on pop culture heroes for decades, I’d expect DC comics to have a better success record with film. How hard can it be to take characters everyone loves, and wants to love, and bring them to life on the big screen?

We are squarely in Doctor Who season again (yes, that’s an official season of the year), which has not only focused my interest but focused the interest of others who then foolishly ranked all of the episodes. The problem with their rankings was that they were wrong–wrong in that they were not my rankngs. Yes,

Katharine Hepburn is known as one of the great actress of the golden age as well as a feminist icon. And she earned those reputations by many fantastic, meaningful, and politically relevant films. Unfortunately she made as many horrible and backward ones. Well, that happens, but for this list of her best, I’ll be avoiding

Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock Holmes in 14 films, with Nigel Bruce as a blustering, foolish Doctor Watson. When I watched these as a child—broadcast one each week by a local TV station—I treated them like a TV show, with all of the movies being approximately the same. They aren’t. The first two were made

So, I was in a mood, so decided to escape with one of the most emotive film composers. He’s also one of the best; I only place Erich Wolfgang Korngold clearly above him. Williams’s music as made films work. Without the power of this themes, many of our modern film “classics” would just be nice. He made

Lubitsch was one of the most important directors of early Hollywood, but he’s mostly known now for those he inspired, particularly Billy Wilder, who coined the term “The Lubitsch touch” to describe the perfect solution to any cinematic problem. Lubitsch started as a silent director in Germany, then moved to the US where he directed

I tried to avoid Christmas again, but am failing, so oh well, I’ll dive into this: Xmas songs. Let’s face it, most rock Christmas songs are horrible. The covers of carols are universally rotten. No Bruce Springsteen cannot put it off. Traditional carols just don’t lend themselves to a rock makeover. A few artists have

I’ve seen multiple rankings of all the Doctor Who episodes (or just all the modern ones) recently, and they all have been horribly wrong. I know this because they don’t match mine, and mine are correct. That’s just the way the universe is. Obviously I will have to fix this. OK, if I’m going to

Fred Astaire is the king of cinematic dance. No one is even close. I’ve loved watching him dance all my life, though the movies he danced in didn’t always live up to his talents. But his finest are the cream of film musicals. Astaire is best known for his paring with Ginger Rogers. They made