The Real Kevin Bacon
Demystifying the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: the past, present, and future centers of Hollywood
John Cox
Blogs · @wyome
Tagged hollywood · everything
Why Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur & Other Hollywood Classics Still Look So Good | Open Culture
Cleopatra (1963) is argued here to be a case where the notorious expense looks justified in hindsight: its $44 million budget (about $480 million in current dollars) produced physical spectacle, from the giant sphinx and full-scale Alexandria harbor to Elizabeth Taylor's roughly 65 costumes, that still reads as convincing on screen. The piece draws a line through Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia to argue that the 65mm and ultra-wide formats forced real craft rather than shortcuts. It then closes by extending the point to RoboCop, Dick Tracy, and The Fifth Element, asking whether even a trillion dollars could buy the same tangible results today.
THE FURTHER MIS-ADVENTURES OF CLIFF BOOTH | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube
Plays from YouTube. Nothing is loaded from Google until you press play.
Brad Pitt returns as Cliff Booth, only this time it’s 1977 and it’s a very different Hollywood.Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Quentin Taranti...
1962 Kirk Douglas Classic, Which He Called His 'Favorite', Named His Best Western - Men's Journal
An article about Kirk Douglas's favorite Western film from 1962 that he considered his best work in the genre.
The 30 Greatest Action Movies of All Time
This article traces the evolution of action cinema from its roots in early silent films to the present day, arguing that action emerged as its own standalone genre rather than merely serving as set dressing for Westerns, spy thrillers, and sci-fi adventures. The piece presents thirty essential action films spanning from 1953 to 2018, organized chronologically, with the caveat that it focuses primarily on movies made after 1970 when action truly crystallized as a primary genre, while briefly acknowledging influential precursors like *The Wages of Fear* and *Seven Samurai*. Each entry describes how the film either pioneered specific action techniques, influenced subsequent filmmakers, or achieved a perfect balance between visceral spectacle and emotional or character-driven storytelling that defines great action cinema.
Lana Turner
Piece traces Lana Turner's arc from studio-manufactured glamour girl to genuinely daring actress, arguing her three peak performances—Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Imitation of Life—reveal a psychologically precise, instinctive talent hidden beneath the "cream puff" image MGM built around her. It weaves in the lurid biography (her father's unsolved murder, the Stompanato killing by her daughter Cheryl) to show how scandal shadowed but didn't define her, and closes with a close reading of Imitation of Life as a film that implicates Turner's own racial cluelessness even as she plays it with real feeling. Worth keeping for its sharp scene-by-scene case that Turner's best acting was intuitive rather than technical, especially the analysis of her unscripted breakdown in The Bad and the Beautiful.
8 Most Exciting Upcoming Sci-Fi Movies Based On Books
A ranked rundown of upcoming sci-fi film adaptations, counting down from eight to one, covering everything from Josh Holloway's One Second After and Blomkamp's grittier Starship Troopers remake to Bradley Cooper's long-gestating Hyperion and Villeneuve's still-pending Rendezvous with Rama. It puts Gosling's Project Hail Mary and Villeneuve's Dune Messiah-based Part Three at the top as the most anticipated, with release dates, directors, and casting details noted for each pick. Useful as a quick reference for what's actually confirmed versus still stuck in development limbo.
The tragic, unsolved murder of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane
An article examining the unsolved 1978 murder of actor Bob Crane, star of the classic 1960s sitcom Hogan's Heroes.
Jimmy Stewart Gave Us His Most Menacing Performance in This Western
This piece examines how "Winchester '73" marked a turning point for James Stewart, trading his wholesome pre-war persona for a morally ambiguous, violence-capable gunslinger under Anthony Mann's harsher directorial style. It traces the plot's gimmick of following a coveted rifle through various owners' hands as a device for Mann to interrogate frontier brutality, culminating in the revelation that Stewart's Lin and villain Dutch are estranged brothers, which turns a standard revenge plot into something closer to fratricidal tragedy. The write-up frames the film as the hinge between Stewart's earlier idealism and his subsequent darker collaborations with Hitchcock, making the case for why this particular western is a career-defining anomaly worth revisiting.
30 Best Robert Redford Movies, Ranked
A wide-ranging ranking of Robert Redford's acting and directing career, running from decent-but-forgettable studio fare like "Our Souls at Night" and "The Last Castle" up through more substantial work like "The Horse Whisperer" and "Brubaker." It's essentially a career retrospective published around his death in September 2025, mixing critical assessment with trivia about co-stars and collaborators (Fonda, Pitt, Gandolfini, a young Scarlett Johansson) across six decades of films. Worth keeping as a guided tour through the deep cuts of his filmography rather than just the obvious classics.
'The Chicago Code' Is Swept Out The Door During Fox's Spring Cleaning : Monkey See : NPR
'The Chicago Code' Is Swept Out The Door During Fox's Spring Cleaning #bummer with human target out as well.