Around the Blogosphere This Week

Miscellaneous bits of news and fun stuff from around the Internet...

...Leonard Maltin paid a couple of visits to the Noir City Film Festival. He gives his impressions of UNDERTOW (1949), HOLLYWOOD STORY (1951), WALK A CROOKED MILE (1948), and DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD (1954). I'd especially enjoy seeing UNDERTOW, with its location filming in Reno, Nevada.

...Several blogs have called attention to an excellent essay on Robert Culp by Stephen Bowie. If you haven't read it yet, it's worth the time; I especially enjoyed his perceptive comments on how Culp influenced Bill Cosby.

...TheLadyEve reviews STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) at Classic Film and TV Cafe. That's a Hitchcock film I haven't caught up with yet -- hopefully I'll rectify that in the near future.

...Mondo 70 takes a look at Robert Taylor in Anthony Mann's DEVIL'S DOORWAY (1950).

...Last week I came across a site paying tribute to actress Madeleine Carroll. I was interested to learn that three years ago a monument in Carroll's memory was unveiled in her hometown of West Bromwich, England.

...New cookbook: SARA MOULTON'S EVERYDAY DINNERS. I recently spent some time flipping through this in a bookstore. I liked the conversational style and ideas in her introduction, although I felt that a number of the international recipes might be a bit too exotic for our family at this point.

...On the other hand, I couldn't resist adding THE CAST IRON SKILLET COOKBOOK, first published in 2004, to my collection. The authors are Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis-Hearne. It had a number of appealing recipes I'm looking forward to trying. It's a paperback and thus relatively affordable.

...Fox and Universal have joined Warner Bros. in an agreement with Netflix that their films will not be available from Netflix for the first four weeks after release on DVD.

...I enjoyed this review by Erin Foster of Disneyland Paris, posted at ZannaLand...it's fun to compare notes with another American visitor since our trip there last May.

...I'd love to see Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Joan Bennett in GREEN HELL (1940), recently reviewed by Cinema OCD. George Sanders and Vincent Price are in it too...sounds like fun.

...I'd been wondering why I hadn't seen any DVD columns by Mike Clark at USA Today recently and Googled his name...turns out he left USA Today and joined Home Media Magazine, where he began reviewing DVDs last January. Clark wrote for USA Today for nearly 25 years.

...At Motion Picture Gems Tom writes about seeing Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, and Russ Tamblyn at a special screening of WEST SIDE STORY (1961) in Naperville, IL.

...I hope to go see SOUTH PACIFIC at the Los Angeles Music Center this summer...it's been over 3 decades since I last saw it on stage, starring Howard Keel and Jane Powell. The show holds a special place in my heart since I played the lead in a school production.

...Movies Unlimited has started a blog, MovieFanFare, which includes guest posts by numerous familiar names in the classic film blogging community.

...The DisneyNature film OCEANS (2010) opens this Friday, April 22nd.

...WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY (2009) has now opened in Santa Barbara and Palm Springs, California. It also recently had a showing at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Have a great week!