I just watched an obscure, but pretty good movie with Sidney Poitier. Brother John, (1970) done around the time the civil rights movement was cooling off, but making inroads. Times were changing, but were they really? John Kane (Sidney Poitier) is a mysterious, enigmatic, well travelled man who knows of the past, present, and future of mankind. He was somehow commissioned to leave his home in Alabama at the age of 16 on a mystical journey....

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, TCM will be featuring Charles Burnett’s films tonight. Don’t know who he is? Well that is not too surprising. The New York Times put it all too well; Charles Burnett is “the nation’s least-known great filmmaker and most gifted black director.” I blogged on Charles Burnett a few months ago click here to read my post. I am stoked about watching these relatively obscure films. All his films deal...

Scene From The Cat People (1942) Turner Classic Movies will have a documentary on Val Lewton, classic horror filmmaker on Monday, January 14th at 8:00 PM EST. The documentary will be hosted by Martin Scorsese. Val Lewton is known for his “less is more school of poetic film making,” using shadows and sounds to scare us– (the unseen). This made his movies all the more chilling; imagine that, being afraid of what we cannot see....

The 1945 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is the best. It’s a macabre story of greed, lust, and destruction. A gorgeous young man, Dorian (Hurd Hatfield) makes a pact with the devil. He offers the devil his soul in exchange for eternal beauty and youth. Dorian manages to keep his youth, but as the devil may have it, at a cost. It’s not like the devil will have Dorian have many friends, and influence others....