The Cinema Cafe

Just some thoughts on current happenings:

My aunt Marilyn Granas, who was Shirley Temple’s first “stand-in”, a co-star in some of Shirley’s “Baby Burlesque” shorts, the star of avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger’s first publicly shown film Escape Episode (1947), and later a casting agent, has passed away at age 98.

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Friday, December 12, 2025

This weekend on TCM:

‘Noiristas’, seeking a slick and twisty British Neo-noir from Hammer Studios, need look no further than Hidden Gem #35 Cash on Demand, released in 1961.

These are some of Cinema's sad departures of 2023 taken from my personal notes soon after the events took place:

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Currently available at Watch TCM (until December 16th):

“The mattress is soft and there're hangers in the closet and stationary with ‘Bates' Motel’ printed on it in case you want to make your friends back home envious.”

Still another Hitchcock artistic triumph was, at the time (including throughout its primary creator’s career), the most audacious cinematic assault ever perpetrated on the movie going public or the Motion Picture Production Code for that matter. 1960's Psycho was previously reviewed here.

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Currently available at Watch TCM (until January 7th):

… is filmmaker Luis Bunuel’s surrealistic short Simon of the Desert (1965), previously reviewed here.

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Today on TCM:

The next TCM recommendation has been reviewed in Opening Up a Treasure: The Night of the Hunter.

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Monday, December 8, 2025

Today on TCM:

Next up, is a WW II film that can only be defined by its setting. There are just too many dispersed ideas regarding tone and perspective to communicate what kind of film Kelly’s Heroes (1970) is, let alone how any of its numerous genre types are successfully represented.

Just some film musings of a more succinct, spontaneous and sometimes seditious nature:

Friday, December 5, 2025

Tomorrow on TCM:

After her breakthrough role in Joseph von Sternberg's The Blue Angel made in Germany, Marlene Dietrich made six more films with the autocratic director in the U.S. The Scarlet Empress (1934), previously reviewed here, is arguably the duo’s most accomplished.