Only two more weeks for THE “MOVIES THAT HAVEN’T AGED WELL” BLOGATHON!

There are only two more weeks left for the “Movies that Haven’t Aged Well” Blogathon. So if you have a movie that you have revisited over the years, only to find that the film wasn’t as wonderful as you had initially remembered, share your experience here! It’s happened to all of us…maybe some wet-behind-the-ears cinephile can benefit from your life experience!

If you need some ideas, click here to visit our original blogathon announcement and see links to the entries that have already been submitted. We have some really great entries so far, so join the club and tell us about a movie that’s done you wrong over the years!

Announcing THE “MOVIES THAT HAVEN’T AGED WELL” BLOGATHON!

So you’re finished with another hot summer day. You’re cool and refreshed, you have your snacks at hand, and you’ve turned on Turner Classic Movies to watch that favorite film of yours that you haven’t had the chance to see in decades. And then, as the minutes roll on…

Your nostalgia melts like a Sno-Cone in the summer sun, as the memories of that movie you treasured for ages suddenly devolve into, “What did I ever see in this thing?”

It’s happened to all of us. Some movies only get better with age, while others remain frozen in time, their once-vibrant charms faded like a reel of nitrate film left in an outhouse in the 1930’s.

Only by writing about this wrenching event can you regain power over your movie-watching experience. Hence…THE “MOVIES THAT HAVEN’T AGED WELL” BLOGATHON!!

We don’t want you to postpone this personal growth experience — there’s no time like the present! Right this wrong by writing about the movie that’s done you wrong. Then follow these steps:

* Post the writing at your blog.

* Go to the “Comments” section below, and post the name and URL of both your blog and the movie you’ve written about.

* Grab the banner shown at the top and bottom of this blog entry, and link it back to this URL. (Be sure to link it back to the URL that references this blogathon, not just our blog’s general URL!)

* As soon as we see your listing in the “Comments” section, we’ll link back to your blog for all the world to read your movie memoir!

Again, this blogathon is running right now, through Aug. 31, 2015. You don’t have to wait for some far-off date in the future — share your cathartic movie experience with our blog’s readers ASAP. If global warming is going to keep us trapped in our homes for the entire summer, let us at least make it count for our fellow film buffs!

Here are the blogathon entries thus far:

Movie Movie Blog Blog – His Girl Friday (1940)

BNoirDetour – A Clockwork Orange (1971 – WARNING: Review includes NSFW images)

Old Hollywood Films – Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Serendipitous Anachronisms – Rent (2005)

Almost Ginger – The Carry On film series  (1958-1978)

Only one week until the BEATLES FILM BLOGATHON – Is there anybody going to listen to my story?

It’s only one week away from our Beatles Film Blogathon, and I’m…well, if not embarrassed, than certainly humbled to say that we have only three blogger entrants thus far.

Only THREE? One less member than The Beatles themselves??

I hope that this blogathon — besides honoring both Ringo Starr’s 75th birthday and his recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — will reflect the spirit of fun that The Beatles at their best provided us.

Although entries for the movies A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and Let It Be are spoken for, there are still plenty of Beatles-related movies and music videos to blog about. Click on the blogathon’s banner (above) for more information about the ‘thon, and if you’re interested in blogging for it, please leave your blog’s name and URL, and the movie or video you want to blog about, in the “Comments” section below. Show your love of The Beatles by sharing it in our blogathon!

SEX! BLOGATHON – The big finish!

It’s been a hot little weekend here at Movie Movie Blog Blog. But all good things must come to an end, so gather ’round for…

Not counting yours truly, we had one dozen delicious entries on the topic of movies that suggested sexuality rather than overtly depicting it. Our last two bloggers gave it everything they had and made it to the finish line with these entries today:

Reel Distracted held up The Thomas Crown Affair as a shining example of the games lovers play (especially chess) when they’re afraid to let down their guard with each other,

and thestopbutton.com discussed Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan doing their best to satisfy both themselves and the Production Code in Tarzan and His Mate.

If you missed these or any of the other participating blogs, click here to go to our original blogathon announcement, which provides links to all of the blog entries.

My thanks to all of the wonderful and gifted bloggers who took the time to write and post their thoughtful entries. Further thanks goes to all of the readers who visited both this blog and the participating blogs to get a wide range of viewpoints about the depiction of sex in cinema.

Lastly, if you are a fan of The Beatles and/or their movies and music videos, I encourage you to participate in this blog’s upcoming Beatles Film Blogathon, being held July 5-7, 2005 in honor of Ringo Starr’s 75th (!) birthday and his recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Click on the banner below to read more about the blogathon and how to participate in it.

Thanks once more to everyone who joined in this blogathon, and try to stay cool this summer!

SEX! BLOGATHON – Day 2 Recap

Let us prove what’s even more wonderful the second time around with our

The entries just keep getting better and better. Obviously, our bloggers have got what it takes, and they know how to use it!

Criterion Blues looks at Summers with Monika, an early Ingmar Bergman entry in which the acclaimed director details the arc of a budding relationship between two maturing youngsters.

Seville, Spain-born-and-raised Moon in Gemini examines Blood and Sand and gives it an “A+” for authenticity — although happily, she never fell head over heels for Tyrone Power, only to be tossed aside for Rita Hayworth.

And finally, The Fluff Is Raging shows how the film-noir classic Double Indemnity warns us that, when it comes to two lust-soaked lovers, even a meticulously planned murder is never fully insured.

Curious about the rest of our blogathon entries? Links to both our original ‘thon announcement and our Day 1 recap are shown below — follow the links to read every blog that has been submitted so far. As for the rest of our entrants, our blogathon ends at the end of the day today. So PLEASE post your entries as soon as possible, and post their URLs in the “Comments” section below. We need them SO BADLY!!

Links:

The original blogathon announcement

Day 1 recap

SEX! BLOGATHON – Day 1 Recap

It’s time to lie back, smoke ’em if you got ’em, and review our technique in the afterglow of the

As any pollster will tell you, the numbers don’t lie. Out of a total of 13 blog entrants, we had a whopping 62% participation in the first day. This is obviously a hot subject for a hot season!

BNoirDetour was kind enough to explain why Claire Trevor and Laurence Tierney were Born to Kill.

A Shroud of Thoughts demonstrated how an old-fashioned party line (What’s that??) allowed Doris Day and Rock Hudson to engage in a little Pillow Talk.

CineMaven shows how a couple of women could turn Maurice Chevalier into The Smiling Lieutenant in Ernst Lubitsch’s film of the same name.

Outspoken and Freckled convincingly makes the case that Mae West’s She Done Him Wrong singlehandedly ushered in Hollywood’s censorious Production Code.

Ernst Lubitsch again rears his stylish head, as Shadows and Satin lets us in on Gary Cooper and a couple of friends having a menage-a-twow in Design for Living.

portraitsbyjenni brings us another round of Gary Cooper, this time as a loquacious professor who gets introduced to modern slang (and other worldly elements) by nightclub singer Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire.

Defiant Success charts the effects that The Long, Hot Summer can have on a number of couples, including Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

And last but certainly least, your faithful correspondent chronicles the outcome of Lana Turner and John Garfield tempting the hands of Fate (and each other) in The Postman Always Rings Twice.

And the passion isn’t over yet — we still have a whole weekend left to go! If you want to read the rest of our blogathon’s participants, click here to find out who is left to post their entries. We’ll post a Day 2 recap here on Sunday!

The SEX! (now that I have your attention) BLOGATHON is finally here!

Blogging foreplay is over. It’s finally time for the SEX! (now that I have your attention) BLOGATHON!

For the uninitiated (by which I intend a light double-entendre), this blogathon’s subject is movies that are devoted to artistically suggesting the subject of sex, through imaginative dialogue and imagery, rather than graphically depicting it. Any old movie can show you a beautiful naked body, but the “horse” dialogue in The Big Sleep? Let’s see Scarlett Johansson show that off in her cleavage!

Below are the participants in the blogathon, which runs from Fri., June 19 through Sun., June 21, 2015. The only set deadline is that the participants must have their entries posted by the end of the day on June 21.

If you are one of the participants, please scroll down to the “Comments” section and post the URL of your SEX! blog entry; once you have posted it, it will be linked to the listing of participants shown below.

If you are a visiting reader, the following list has links to both the blog entries and the blogs themselves. Even if a particular entrant’s SEX! blog isn’t posted as yet, I encourage you to visit each and all of these blogs, as they all have something unique and entertaining to say about a variety of movie-related topics. (And of course, definitely check out their entries for this blogathon!)

Have fun, everyone! Here is the list of SEX! BLOGATHON entries:

Movie Movie Blog Blog – The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

BNoirDetour – Born to Kill (1947)

Criterion Blues – Ingmar Bergman’s Summers with Monika (1953)

Moon in Gemini – Blood and Sand (1941)

A Shroud of Thoughts – Pillow Talk (1959)

CineMaven – The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)

Outspoken and Freckled – She Done Him Wrong (1933)

Reel Distracted – The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Shadows and Satin – Design for Living (1933)

Portraits by Jenni – Ball of Fire (1941)

thestopbutton.com – Tarzan and His Mate (1934)

Defiant Success – The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

The Fluff Is Raging – Double Indemnity (1944)

John Hurt brings us some laughs in Mel Brooks comedies

The following is my contribution to the “Love Hurt” Blogathon, Sister Celluloid’s sterling tribute to actor Sir John Hurt who, sadly, has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This blogathon will run all through the summer of 2015. Bookmark the link on the above banner, and keep checking back to read numerous blog entries that continually prove why (as that ’80s song says) Hurt’s so good!

If some (few) would argue that John Hurt has not suffered a lot for his art, he has certainly suffered a lot in his art. Perhaps that is why Hurt took a couple of small but memorable roles in Mel Brooks comedies — to cleanse the palate, as it were.

When most people think of Mel Brooks, they think of broad, broad humor, but in Brooks’ History of the World Part I (1981), Hurt managed to contribute some big laughs by playing as small as possible. The joke was in Hurt’s offering a station of collective calm in the storm of Brooks’ burlesque shtick. And you can’t get any more calm and collected than Jesus Christ.

Just the set-up is enough to make you smile. Brooks is a waiter taking orders at the Last Supper. He yells out Judas’ name at an inopportune moment and inevitably curses, “Jesus!”, prompting Christ to do an Abbott-and-Costello-like routine with a waiter.

Hurt’s other moment of comedic glory is in Spaceballs (1987), Brooks’ painfully labored take-off on Star Wars. For my money, Hurt’s cameo provides the one genuine belly laugh of an otherwise pitiful low in Brooks’ movie career. In one fell swoop, Brooks manages to parody both Hurt’s role in Aliens (1979) and Brooks’ love for the screwball humor of Warner Bros. cartoons — more genuine satire/tribute than the movie manages in its remaining 95 minutes. And, as in History, Hurt proves to be delightfully in on the joke.

“Mel called and said, ‘Look, John, I’m doing this little movie and there’s a bit in there that has to do with Alien, so come on over.’ He made it sound like a bit of a picnic. He also did that to me on History of the World Part I. He always does that. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a couple grand, we’ll put you up in a nice hotel, you’ll have a good time, and then you can go back again.’ And when you get there, you suddenly realize, it’s a $3 million scene — God knows how much the animatronic singing and dancing alien cost — and they couldn’t possibly have done it if it hadn’t been for you. What I’m saying is, I think he got me rather cheap. [Laughs.]” – John Hurt, in a 2011 interview with A.V. Club

Only four more days until SEX! (The blogathon, that is)

I’m as worked up as any (blogging) male could be, because it’s only four more days until my SEX! (now that I have your attention) BLOGATHON!

It’s still not to late to enter the ‘thon if you’d like. What I’m looking for is a blog entry about any movie that, through dialogue and/or imagery, suggests sex rather than graphically depicting it. The blogathon is taking place this Friday through Sunday, June 19-21, 2015. Click here for more information on how to enter the blogathon.

For the dozen of you who have already entered, I do not have e-mail addresses for all of you, so here is what I plan to do. This Friday, June 19, I will post a fresh blog entry about the blogathon, including the name of your blog and the movie you plan to blog about. Once you have posted your blog entry, please visit this blog and scroll down to the bottom of my June 19 entry until you reach the “Comments” section, where I’d like you to post the URL of your blog entry. Once I receive that, I will link my blog back to your blog entry.

As I’ve previously mentioned, there will be no scheduled dates for posting. As long as you post your entry by the end of the day on June 21, I will be satisfied.

(However, with that said, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could post your blog as soon as possible after 12:01 a.m. on June 19. I have a personal hang-up about bloggers who wait until the last possible minute to post their blogathon entries. Read more about my hang-up here.)

Jane says, “Get’cher blog here on time — or else!!”

I very much look forward to reading (and linking to) your blogs this weekend!

Just two weeks until our sexy-movie blogathon

We’re just two weeks away from our sexy-movie blogathon and, Masters & Johnson-like, we’re still looking for willing volunteers. We want people to blog about movies from an era where sex had to be suggested rather than graphically depicted. So, dear bloggers, do you have what it takes to go all the way at our blogathon?

Click on the above banner to find out more about our ‘thon and to sign up for it!