It felt like it could easily be viewed in a double feature with Trumbo. I enjoy Anthony Hopkins and Brian Cranston and yet when I look at these roles it looks like we're looking at a pair of caricatures.

Certainly Hithcock and Dalton Trumbo were larger than life personalities but something gets lost in translation as their lives get transposed to the screen. Ironically, it's the care and skill they put into filmmaking whether it be directing or screenwriting is…

It's a testament to Barbara Stanwyck that she can still hold an audience and maintain top billing in an industry that often relegates older women to minor roles or passes them over for ever younger competition. But this film is made by Stanwyck a newspaper columnist who ever time becomes the devoted wife of a LA Policeman (Sterling Hayden) and yet she can the utter monotony of your everyday housewife. She has to do something ambitious and calculated, namely using…

I had forgotten how good Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo is. Most any western with John Wayne is easily watchable, but this film boasts a extraordinary cast including some mainstays of the genre like Walter Brennan and Ward Bond. However, you also have some other stars that you do not associate with westerns. Namely Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, and Ricky Nelson. Each one delivers a fun, likable, and even moving performance.

This western has been allegedly labeled as an answer to…

As cliche as it will sound this is one of those films that transcends the years for me. It is still that powerful after so many decades.

Using low angles and numerous close ups Carl Theodor Dreyer pulled me into this story early on. It was tense and claustrophobic causing the viewer to become emotionally involved in the trial and the plight that surrounded Joan.

The actors that he chose have wonderfully expressive visages that are so distinct even with…