Cinema Essentials

The General is probably Buster Keatons's most famous film, regarded by many as a silent comedy masterpiece. But it was also a disastrous one as far as Keaton was concerned, an expensive box office failure that led to his moving to MGM and losing his creative freedom.

Five Favorite Films of the '50s is a nice straightforward blogathon run by the Classic Film & TV Cafe, to coincide with National Classic Movie Day on 16th May. As the name suggests, writers are invited to choose their five favourite films of the 1950s and say a bit about their choices. So, as you probably guessed, these are my five picks.

In September 2019 it will be 80 years since the outbreak of the Second World War. To mark this anniversary, I will be joining my friend Maddy, of Maddy Loves Her Classic Films, to host a blogathon of portrayals of World War II in film and television.






We will be accepting articles and reviews on feature films, documentaries, TV movies and TV series, as well as articles on the WWII experiences of actors or film makers. As there are so many possible choices for this blogathon, we will be asking that there be no duplicate entries. So please sign up early if you want to claim a particular topic.

The blogathon will run from 1st - 3rd September 2019. You can sign up by leaving a comment here or on Maddy's blog. Please grab one of our banners to publicise the blogathon. I hope you will join us in marking this anniversary.


Participation List

Cinema Essentials - The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

Maddy Loves Her Classic Films - Danger UXB (TV series) and Battle of Bri…

A screen legend, Michael Caine has made over 100 films spanning more than 60 years. In amongst those are plenty of solid gold classics, including Zulu (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), Get Carter (1971) and The Man Who Would be King (1975). Admittedly, there are quite a few not very good ones too, including stinkers like The Swarm (1978), Jaws - The Revenge (1987) and Bullseye! (1990).




But in between those two extremes there are plenty of Michael Caine films that get unfairly overlooked. As Gill from Real Weegie Midget Reviews has brought back the Michael Caine Blogathon, I've decided to take a look at some of those films. For this article, I have chosen twelve Michael Caine films that I think are underrated, unfairly maligned or just need some more love.

Renowned Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is called in by a London insurance company when wealthy industrialist Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely) attempts to have a cheap piece of costume jewellery insured for £50,000. Puzzled by this very wealthy man attempting to perpetrate such an obvious fraud, Poirot is sent to meet him on his yacht in the south of France.

When the two men meet, Sir Horace tells Poirot that the jewel was a gift to a mistress, former actress Arlena Marshall (Diana Rigg), who has obviously had the original jewellery replaced with a fake. Poirot heads to an exclusive hotel on a small island in the Adriatic to meet Arlena and to investigate.

While there he encounters an assortment of wealthy guests, including Arlena and her husband Kenneth (Denis Quilley), her lover Patrick Redfern (Nicholas Clay) and her former associate Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith), who now runs the hotel. Also present are waspish gossip columnist Rex Brewster (Roddy McDowall), Redf…

Ah, the 1980s. It's long enough ago now that we can all get nostalgic about the decade, and while the '80s produced a lot of dross, there were some great films in there too. Here are 25 famous films from the 1980s. How many can you name?