Feb 25, 2022
In this week's Acteurist Oeuvre-view, we're still in the early stages of Daniel Day-Lewis's career, and once again the utterly obscure (Pat O'Connor's quirky comedy Stars and Bars (1988)) is paired with a much better-known film (Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989), based on the life of disabled writer and painter...
Feb 18, 2022
For this Universal 1938 episode, we begin by again discussing the relationship between comedy, tragedy, and horror, courtesy of John M. Stahl's Letter of Introduction, featuring famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his alter ego, Charlie McCarthy. Edgar rises and Adolphe Menjou falls in a kind of Tolstoyan double plot....
Feb 11, 2022
For our Valentine's Day 2022 episode, we examine Leos Carax's unique take on romantic love, from the adolescent autocritique of Boy Meets Girl (1984) to the anarchy and ecstasy of Les amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) to the abyss-gazing of his mind-boggling musical, Annette (2021). We discuss Carax's repeated association of...
Feb 4, 2022
For RKO 1938, a Ginger Rogers double feature: Having Wonderful Time (directed by Alfred Santell - and George Stevens?), based on the play by Arthur Kober (the ex-Mr. Lillian Hellman), and Vivacious Lady (definitely directed by George Stevens), one of the best Hollywood comedies of the 1930s, but not one of the best...