The Cinema Cafe

Serving Screen Stories Sweet and Savoury

Dish of the Day (A Lost Weekend Edition)

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

Friday, September 11, 2026

This weekend on TCM:

One of the Top Ten: World Cinema Treasures is The Battle of Algiers a.k.a. La battaglia di Algeri (1966).

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Dish of the Day

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

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Today on TCM:

There have been quite a few movies centred around boxing over the years from 1937’s Kid Galahad to 2018’s Creed II with plenty of standouts in-between such as 1947’s Body and Soul, 1956’s Somebody Up There Likes Me, 1962’s Requiem for a Heavyweight, 1972’s Fat City and 1980’s Raging Bull. None of these, however, get as straight to the punchline as 1949’s knockout noir The Set-Up, previously reviewed here and happening again Thursday, September 10 at 10 am PDT.

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Dish of the Day

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

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Today on TCM:

In 1966, one of the more challenging films to face off against the Production Code (mentioned in Exploring the Artefacts #3: Code Breakers) was that year’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, reviewed here, remarkably delivering all of the guttural force of its theatrical origin while creating a more intimate, and cinema appropriate, dynamic all its own.

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"Now Listen to Me..."

Just some thoughts on current happenings:

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Dish of the Day (A Long Good Friday Edition)

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

Friday, September 4, 2026

Saturday (September 5th) on TCM:

Make way for the rapturous Stanley Donen directed musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), reviewed here, Saturday, September 5th at 9 am PDT.

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Dish of the Day

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

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

Currently available at Watch TCM (until September 5th):


Next up is a “Street” fellow travellers on the road to exciting new film noir discoveries do no want to miss.

Film noir has few representatives as dourly defeatist or as forcefully communicative on the subject of human relations than 1945's Scarlet Street, previously reviewed here.

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Dish of the Day (A Lost Weekend Edition)

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

Friday, August 28, 2026

Sunday (August 30th) on TCM:

Beginning a highly recommended series of 4 films starring Joel McCrea is…

… Sullivan's Travels (1941). Preston Sturges masterfully wrote and directed Sullivan's Travels, a prior Blu-ray endorsement here.

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Dish of the Day (A Lost Weekend Edition)

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

Friday, August 21, 2026

Today and this weekend on TCM:

Stanley Kubrick took the entire film community, along with noir fans, by (a perfect) storm with his innovative 1956 take on the caper genre, The Killing previously recommended here.

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Dish of the Day

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

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Tomorrow on TCM:

Besieged with production problems, and sometimes wrongfully criticised because of them, this next TCM recommendation is, nevertheless, an accomplished and splendorous piece of dramatically dynamic adventure storytelling: the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, previously reviewed here, showing on TCM Thursday, August 20 at 10 am PDT.

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