‘Arts’ Archives
A Tribute to Robert Mitchum (1917-1997)
Robert Mitchum was born on August 6, 1917, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. (I was also born on August 6th, but not until 1948.) He was an actor with great talent and vastly underrated. At an early age he rebuffed authority by being charged with vagrancy and was sentenced to a Georgia chain gang, but found a way to escape. Mr. Mitchum”'s big break in Hollywood was a role as Lt. Walker in “Story of G.I. Joe”(1945) and received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. But in all his years of acting -- 1945 to 1997--- he never won an Oscar. He had a deliberate style of acting, charming, convincing that made him popular with audiences. As a bad boy he was up with the best of them such as Victor Mature, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Lawrence Tierney, and other actors. He was arrested for marijuana use spending time in prison in 1949. Mitchum didn”'t give up the weed though. Some of his movies: «The Night of the Hunter» (1957), “Cape [...]
“Kidnap” & “Detroit”
Kidnap “Kidnap”(2017) * out of 5 starts Thriller, Di Bonaventure Pictures It is true a child goes missing every 40 seconds in the United States. However, it is also true “ Kidnap” is a bad movie. (It had been sitting on the shelf since 2014: usually a bad sign.) Even though I sympathize with Halle Berry”'s character Karla Dyson who has her young son Frankie (Sage Correa) snatched from her in an amusement park just slightly out of eyeshot. What ensues is a hyper- octane car chase after the kidnappers Terry (Lewis Temple) and Margo (Chris McGinn) Vicky up and down Louisiana highways causing numerous car wrecks (you wouldn”'t want to be on any of these freeways), including a police officer on a motorcycle demanding her to pull over upended. “Kidnap” is one huge mess: clumsy script, lousy monologues and a painfully predictable atrocity. She”'s driving a 1980s Mustang and her antagonists are driving a Chrysler minivan. The two [...]
“Baby Driver” & “The Big Sick”
(l to r) Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza Gonzalez), Baby (Ansel Elgort) and Bats (JAMIE FOXX) discuss the next heist in TriStar Pictures' BABY DRIVER. By Howard McQuitter II “Baby Driver”(2017) **** out of five Action/Comedy/Drama/Music Rated R Director Edgar Wright”'s (I met him back when he directed “Shaun of the Dead”) “Baby Driver” is worth the ticket while lounging in a comfortable chair in a theater (or at home) on a summer day. The beauty of “Baby Driver” is the movie feels fresh, electrifying and humorous. For lack of a better word, the cast is cool. Baby is the title character played by Ansel Elgort, a twenty-something, white guy who walks around with earphones listening to pop music, such as from “Queen”. Back-ground music from old school R&B tunes Martha Reeves & The Vandellas “Nowhere to Hide” and Brenda Holloway”'s “Every Little Bit Hurts” fill the air instead [...]
