I SAw a FiLm! I wasn't even aware that Arkin took a turn at portraying the bumbling and ridiculous officer of the law, but he indeed did, and it is every bit as patently silly as any of the other famous pictures starring the late great (though famously tough to work with) Peter Sellers. Arkin,…

I Saw a Film! A fascinating animation project, allegedly 30 years in the making. Loosely based on Leviticus (a passage about how God intends to punish man for displeasing the omnipotent being. The Old Testament God, of course, owes much to the old Greek gods of Olympus, who also behaved in sharply petty and competitive…

This isn't a singular film review, it's a little statement about revisiting a handful of these old movies that I thought were such serious hard-core, man entertainment of the age. A kind of pile of those old men's action magazines brought to film life. I spent a portion of my summer vacation revisiting From Russia…

I saw a film! This is a gritty looking black and white car stealing bore, starring Arch Hall Jr., his guitar and a couple of songs. Most of the story takes place on bleak country roads, and the gang of thieves is pursued by a dull bunch of cop and journalist squares with haircuts like…

I Saw A Film! Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, and Hemingway himself would all soon be gone. While Eddie Albert would last til he was almost 100. This is the old bullfighter and Pamplona tale by Hemingway that features a group of buddies sort of doing the Beatnik thing (Kerouac style) but back in the…

I Saw A Film! And so I've been on a bit of a Hemingway kick while reading a brand new book (Just released) by favorite author Mark Kurlansky. Kurlansky tracks some of his adventures in journalism alongside those of Hem while on assignments and travels in Europe, Cuba and elsewhere. I didn't read this particular…

I Saw A Film! A well done film about the awkwardness of teenage wasteland, is less about careless adults and systems and more about the painful ineptness of developing youth. Those that play with that human tendency to review our misdeeds and misfortunes and twist justice and heroics out them, are the most fun. It's…

I Saw A Film! I don't know sometimes what to do with those child-beloved things that turn out to be rather disappointing in retrospect. Not this film, of course, but my youthful fascination with Jim Morrison and the excellent musicians who together with him were the Doors. As a teenager, the dark death of this…

I Saw A Film! In deepest Africa a mysterious red streak seems to have been painted across a thatched hut and a poor fellow resting comfortably on his belly. Is he dead? He is indeed. A British radio operator sits in agony over a radio set, a bright red paint stripe across his chest. Soon…

I Saw A Film! I realize that you need a kind of hokey premise if you want to create a fun dramatic thriller. It's not much use making a boxing movie if the opponent isn't as nasty and pre-loaded with insults about your beloved wife as possible. Basically, you gotta have the pro-wrestling "heel" if…