Great Movies
TV/Streaming
Home Entertainment Guide: July 2021
The latest on Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming, including Rose Plays Julie, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Criterion releases of Deep Cover and Pariah.
The latest on Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming, including Rose Plays Julie, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Criterion releases of Deep Cover and Pariah.
Scout Tafoya responds to our Movie Love Questionnaire.
"A Letter to Three Wives" (1949) is a terrific triplicate of a melodrama. It won Joe L. Mankiewicz Academy Awards for writing and directing one year before he gave the audiences one bumpy ride in "All About Eve" by suggesting that - at least when it comes to love, sex and ambition - fastening one's seat belts is for sissies only. The earlier film is tamer than "Eve"'s non-stop repartee-fest, and its focus is not as pointed. Still, it remains one of my favorite movies ever made: not only for all its brilliant rejoinders (of which Thelma Ritter gets to utter the most hilarious), but for its portrayal of what it means to be anxious about one's relationship and then to receive reassurance from the person we love. It's a story of three women envisioning the end of their marriages in the morning and feeling them strengthened by the end of the day. It goes down like an anxiety-glazed donut with a filling of hope.
This is why I sometimes love Twitter. Wednesday afternoon I stumbled upon some funny tweets with the hashtag #geriatricnoir, which was actually "trending" for a bit, thanks to contributing comedians, critics and movie lovers. Here are some of my favorites from this fleeting moment in tweeting, including some of my own:
@pattonoswalt The Big Nap #geriatricnoir
@DelilahSDawson The Postman Rang Nine Times Before I Heard It #geriatricnoir
@kriscollins The Talented Mr. Brimley #geriatricnoir
@pattonoswalt Death Wore Depends #geriatricnoir
@sfcaadam Chinamentown #geriatricnoir
@RockabillyJa The Glass Hip #geriatricnoir
@DrMadoror The Postman Always Rings Right in the Middle of Murder, She Wrote #geriatricnoir
@Ugaries Dial M for what are all these buttons? #geriatricnoir
@jondaly Vertigo #geriatricnoir
