It started with this retweet:
Just a reminder that the rarely-screened TWICE UPON A TIME airs this Saturday night (at 2:15am!) on @tcm: http://t.co/oKpQkZhdxn
— Matthew Kiernan (@HQ10) January 29, 2015
Now, this is a HUGE deal for me, and might be for you as well. But considering how few people may even remember this film, let alone have seen it, a little backstory is likely still in order…
The thing I’ve noticed about my Favorite “Forgotten” Films series isn’t that most readers actually remember the films I’m writing about (the series began when I realized that everyone I know seems to recall these films, hence the use of quotation marks). It’s that nobody is surprised I love them. I’m not sure whether that’s a comment on how great these films are or on how well you really know me, though I appreciate it as a compliment either way.
That in mind, I’m fairly sure today’s entry will maintain the streak, as the film in question occupies a special place in a lot of hearts beyond my own… Continue reading
I’ve written before about the whole concept of certification, the idea (put forth by Walker Percy in The Moviegoer) that some places only become real to us once we’ve seen them onscreen. And I’m hard pressed to think of a place for which that’s more true than New York.
Of course I’ve never actually been there. But I can’t be the only one who feels like he has, because I’ve seen it in so many films and shows, heard it in so many songs, read it in so many stories. In the best of those, the city becomes a living character in his own right.
Which brings me to a certain subway train… Continue reading
Even in my younger days, as I remember them, my favorite Westerns were always the films that dealt with the passing of the West. I’ve always been drawn to stories of cowboys who struggle to come to terms with a time and place that no longer seem to have time or place for them or their values. John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and – more subtly – The Searchers are classic examples of this kind of tale.
The one that has really stuck with me, though, is a film that distills that theme to its essence. Its star still cites it as one of his favorite performances. It helped launch the career of one of film’s greatest composers. And it might just be my favorite Western. Continue reading
I really should know better by now.
For years I’ve repeatedly been able to convince myself that I’m one of but a happy few who know about Silent Running. Yet when I try to introduce it to people, the response is almost invariably “Oh, I LOVE that movie!” If a film screens in the forest and everyone’s there to see it, is it still a cult film?
This time, I think it is… Continue reading
Lee Hurtado, Writer 