REVIEW: The Imitation Game

Directed by Morten Tyldum
2014 Historical Drama
1 hour 54 minutes
From The Weinstein Company

Starring
Benedict Cumberbatch
Keira Knightley
Matthew Goode
Matthew Beard
Allen Leech
Mark Strong
Charles Dance
Rory Kinnear
Steven Waddington

REVIEW: Big Eyes

Directed by Tim Burton
2014 Drama
1 hour 45 minutes
From The Weinstein Company

Starring
Amy Adams
Christoph Waltz
Danny Huston
Krysten Ritter
Jason Schwartman
Terence Stamp
Jon Polito
James Saito

REVIEW: Unbroken

Directed by Angelina Jolie
2014 War Drama
2 hours 17 minutes
From Universal Pictures
and Legendary Pictures

Starring
Jack O'Connell
Domhnall Gleeson
Garrett Hedlund
Takamasa Ishihara
Finn Wittrock
Alex Russell

REVIEW: Into the Woods

Directed by Rob Marshall
2014 Musical
2 hours 4 minutes
From Disney

Starring
Meryl Streep
Emily Blunt
James Corden
Anna Kendrick
Chris Pine
David Huttlestone
Lilla Crawford
Tracey Ullman
Mackenzie Mauzy
Billy Magnussen
Christine Baranski
Johnny Depp

The Directors: Don Siegel

He was best known for his tough-guy movies and more specifically for five films he made with Clint Eastwood.  (In the end credits for Eastwood's western masterpiece, Unforgiven, he gave a thumb's up to Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.)  He worked with quite a number of the Hollywood greats but for whatever reason, he never took on an auteur status nor did he ever gain any great fame with the general public.

REVIEW: Foxcatcher

Directed by Bennett Miller
2014 Drama
2 hours 14 minutes
From Sony Pictures

Starring
Steve Carell
Channing Tatum
Mark Ruffalo
Sienna Miller
Vanessa Redgrave
Anthony Michael Hall

Good 60s Films: The 7th Dawn

1964 War-Romance Drama
From United Artists
Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Starring
William Holden
Capucine
Susannah York
Tetsuro Tamba
Michael Goodliffe
Allan Cuthbertson
Beulah Quo

Newman in the Sixties

It would be a daunting task to write about Paul Newman's 80+ films, all of which I have seen and a great many of which I regard as some of America's finest films.  Along with William Holden, Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, I consider Newman one of my favorite actors and like the others, one of this country's best.  But writing about all of his work is simply not possible in this format so we need to break it down.  We'll do it by decade... and yes, we'll do "Newman in the...whatever" as we skip along.  The 60s, however, produced an amazing amount of brilliant work, 19 films in all, along with a number of duds.  This decade offers four (of the 10) films in which he costarred with his wife, Joanne Woodward.

An Embarrassment of Bitches

Valley of the Dolls

1967 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Mark Robson

Starring
Barbara Parkins
Patty Duke
Paul Burke
Sharon Tate
Lee Grant
Tony Scotti
Martin Milner
Robert Emhardt
Susan Hayward

Peppard

Always fairly lubricated and given to surliness, impatience and rudeness, George Peppard would occasionally come to my pay window for talent payroll at Universal Studios to collect a check for some TV show or movie. Most often he would send one of his minions to collect the check and funny thing... they were usually as disagreeable as he was. If I were to judge him solely by these encounters, I would have disliked him. But I was rather taken by his blond-haired, blue-eyed mischievous handsomeness and an admiration for his acting in some films I immensely liked.

Good 60s Films: The Pink Panther

1964 Comedy
From United Artists and
The Mirisch Company
Directed by Blake Edwards

Starring
David Niven
Peter Sellers
Robert Wagner
Capucine
Claudia Cardinale
Brenda de Banzie
Fran Jeffries
James Lanphier