by Cláudio Alves Every year, a good part of my TIFF journey involves seeking the films that will eventually compete for the Best International Film Oscar. After all, here at The Film Experience, we’ve always prided ourselves on giving in-depth coverage to a race many overlook. Sometimes, the films have already been submitted by their nations by the time I arrive. Toronto. Sometimes, the news comes midway through the fest, after I’ve watched a picture and dismissed it despite the fun we had…

The Blue Boy (1994) is a co-production between the BBC and the American public television station WGBH and was broadcast in the UK as part of the BBC’s Screen Two (1985-1998) anthology drama series but due to it being produced by the BBC, its supernatural dread filled themes and it being set at Christmas, albeit it was first broadcast in the UK on the 2nd of January 1994, it could be seen as an unofficial latter-day counterpart to the BBC’s original A Ghost Story for Christmas annual anthology…

The first recording today starts with the end of The Story of Tracy Beaker. Then it’s a repeat of What’s New Scooby-Doo? – Uncle Scooby and Antarctica. Media Centre Description: Children’s animated series about a group of teenage sleuths and their cowardly dog. The gang accompanies a penguin back to its home in Antarctica and find a finned creature from the sea dragging victims to an icy fate. Recorded from CBBC Channel on Tuesday 17th August 2010 07:58 BBC Genome: CBBC Channel Tuesday 17th…

Gerrit Graham, who appeared in such cult classics as Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Used Cars (1980), died on September 15, 2026, at the age of 77. The cause was complications from lung disease.Gerrit Graham was born on November 27, 1948 in New York City. Growing up, he lived in St. Louis; Grosse Pointe, Michigan; and Chicago. He attended Columbia University in New York City, but did not graduate. While there he was a manager of the university’s theatre company, the Columbia Players.Gerrit…

\There’s nothing wrong with good, trashy fun. That’s what I hoped to get from Verity, the fourth big-screen adaptation of a novel by the widely read Colleen Hoover. After some initial optimism, my hopes steadily dissolved. A cast composed of Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, and Josh Hartnett seemed ready to deliver a story that makes room for sexual attraction, deception and blurred identity lines. In her fifth movie this year, Hathaway portrays Verity Crawford, a popular author whose stories are…

An absolutely perfectly pitched country house drama parody. Yes it’s all very silly but it made gentle fun of the genre not meanness or nastiness and it was clear that everyone involved was having a great time. The Butler and Housekeeper played their parts to perfection and had some great lines (“I don’t sleep, I find it interferes with my duties”) and every scene was packed with detail — as well as the obvious centre stage farce there was a great deal of quite subtle background humour that…

Berlin, January 1933: Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor marks the beginning of the darkest chapter in German history. Charlotte Ritter investigates a series of murders targeting former frontline soldiers. Connections and motives trace back to 1918. Almost ten years after its debut, the fifth Season of Babylon Berlin tells the tragic story of the 1930s and the rapid descent of Germany into chaos. The cinematography is just as good as the previous seasons and in these days it’s not only a good…

The lead image, credited to Jeremy Brooks (Flickr/CC BY), for Sheila Liming’s “In Praise of Not Not Reading” at The Point (4 April 2017) features books hung together by string. ▲ Sheila Liming, “In Praise of Not Not Reading,” The Point (4 April 2017), image credit to Jeremy Brooks (Flickr/CC BY)

And Nissan huts – home for my family when they reached Australia (before my time, was exploring some in the Cantonment of Barrackpore recently though) Bardot with Marston Mats Mưa đỏ: Still more Marston Mats Marston Mats Tank Mats 1945 Mats Matty Mats One more on Marston Mats (perhaps my favourite so far because of the Melbourne Demons’ Keith “Bluey” Truscott link) More marston mats Elemental structures of memory: Marston Mats in Vietnam and beyond – preprint

English actress Anna Madeley was a reader suggestion, but a timely one as I just

James Dean in East of Eden (1955) Vitals James Dean as Caleb “Cal” Trask, angsty and entrepreneurial farmer’s son Monterey to Salinas, California, Spring 1917 Film: East of Eden Release Date: March 9, 1955 Director: Elia Kazan Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone Background Despite his profoundly lasting cultural impact as a 1950s screen and style icon, James Dean only starred in three credited films before his death 71 years ago today on September 30, 1955. Of these, Elia Kazan’s adaptation…

Despite Dancing with the Stars 35's yacht rock theme and surprising elimination, the dancers and quasi-celebs have become a family, as Marshal Knight writes in his recap here.

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

I'LL BE YOURS (1947), starring the great Deanna Durbin, is now available on Blu-ray from Universal.Durbin is one of a couple people at the very top of my list of favorite actresses, and I'LL BE YOURS was one of only three of her films I'd not yet seen. The remaining titles for me to see for the first time are CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944) and UP IN CENTRAL PARK (1948).I actually own all three movies in various formats, including VHS tapes, DVDs, and in the case of CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, a Region 2 DVD.…

Let’s take another break from those endless TIFF reviews, with Cláudio Alves and Eurocheese appointing themselves juries to choose the best of the fest, beyond Best Actress chatter. I AM ROCKY was the People’s Choice Award runner-up at TIFF, just behind LA BOLA NEGRA. Will its popularity be reflected in Cláudio and Eurocheese’s picks? EUROCHEESE: Having covered our favorite leading ladies at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, Cláudio and I will be naming our favorites in a…

It is our pleasure at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog to celebrate National Silent Movie Day with classic cartoons. Leading off: Walter Lantz! Batting second: a mosquito. Now it's INSECT TIME, courtesy of Winsor McCay.Felix The Cat is the predecessor of The International! Here, Felix the Cat tangles with a germ - not The Germs, a germ! And. . . speaking of silent era cartoons, some of the best of the best were produced by the Fleischer Studio. . . YouTube playlists for both the Out Of The…

Today’s recording starts with the end of The Story of Tracy Beaker. There’s a promo for the Beakeriser website. Then it’s What’s New Scooby-Doo? – Simple Plan and the Invisible Madman. I didn’t quite understand what the title of this episode meant, until I realised that “Simple Plan” are a pop group and they are playing themselves in this episode. They’re Canadian, apparently. And use the same barber, it would seem. (I looked them up, and in fact they are the band who played the theme to the…

Food Network's most-popular show, Tournament of Champions, starts filming season eight next week—and you can get free tickets to be in the audience.

Well, it's almost October, when Turner Classic Movies will show several classic horror movies. Of course, among these will be several from Hammer Film Productions, perhaps the most beloved studio of classic horror fans besides Universal. Unfortunately, I am somewhat disappointed in how TCM is handling the Hammer Horrors this year. The bulk of them are being shown very late at night or early of a morning, and none of them are being shown in the days leading up to Halloween. Indeed, for the first…

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Digger dances on the knife’s edge between farce, satire, physical comedy, environmental pleading, and silliness, all sketched in broad comic strokes that border on self-parody. An unrecognizable Tom Cruise portrays a bloviating oil baron who dwarfs the other characters, turning them into padding that fills an over-stuffed movie that proves heavy-handed as it evokes memories of better out-sized satires. Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant Dr. Strangelove comes to…

Recently I played Genma Taisen, published by Pony Canyon in Japan in March 1983 to coincide with the accompanying film. It was an official conversion of an animated film to a game; the “first” from Japan, maybe, although there were Space Battleship Yamato games (like this one and this one) and I don’t know if any were “official”. In the same month, Pony Canyon released another game, Happy Bushman. It was based on the live-action film The Gods Must Be Crazy, from South African filmmaker Jamie…

Warner Brothers has finally greenlit its long-gestating Game of Thrones movie. The film will by directed by Owen Harris, written by Beau Willmon and will hit cinemas on 6 June 2029.The film will tell the story of Aegon the Conqueror, the Targaryen warlord who invaded the continent of Westeros with his two sister-wives and their three dragons, and merged the warring Seven Kingdoms into one (apart from Dorne, that's a whole other story). HBO had long mooted whether to adapt this story into a…

When compiling our giant assembly of clips from the whole I would have to say panoply of silent comedians who followed the Harold Lloyd path of dangling from skyscrapers, which started with Randy Skretvedt’s exhausting but not-claiming-to-be exhaustive list, I was aided immeasurably by the mighty Dave Glass, who has seen everything I haven’t. But […]

One of the earliest programmes I featured on Curious British Telly was Mop and Smiff, a BBC preschooler's show from the mid-1980s. The reason it featured so early on was because, back when I was first starting to watch television, I was a huge fan.I also managed to get in touch with Mike Amatt, one of the show's stars. This allowed me to find out more about the series was produced, and Mike had plenty of memories to share. Accordingly, this is why I've chosen to feature Mop and Smiff in my…

Fancy an animated musical, but don’t have the time to fit one in to your busy schedule? The try Butter Boy, the new project from Amelia Kim. The story is simple – and so I will keep this quicj to allow you to enjoy the video. There’s a boy made of butter, whose life is less than perfect because basically he is unhygienic and sticky. In the great tradition of young heroes of animated musicals, he bursts into song to wonder what his life would be like if he wasn’t… made of butter. That’s it –…

A classic string board is assembled in The PrimeTime’s “I can’t believe this is happening” video (18 September 2026). From contributor Patrick Fadely.

After a hiatus, the Silent Movie Day Blogathon is back on Silent-ology! An official, yearly celebration that was kicked off just a few years ago, Silent Movie Day takes place every September 29th. Film lovers from all over the world … Continue reading →

The little pea shaped leaves look like pearls on a string. 39 String of Pearls

Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of this blog with the following contribution to the 2026 Silent Movie Day Blogathon, hosted by The Everyday Cinephile and Silentology. The spotlight's on favorite comedians who brought the laughs and no doubt would be most amused to know they are still doing so 100+ years after their heydey. We'll start with the toast of Great Britain, the most adept acrobatic comedian not named Buster Keaton or Al St. John, Lupino Lane. The stunts in Sword Points must be…