What makes up a city? The people? The locale? The flavor of the food, the smell of the streets, the sounds of the crowd? When author Reyner Banham concluded his exhaustive study of the city of Los Angeles in The Architecture … Continue reading RIO, I LOVE YOU
If there is anything I have learned from watching movies, never, ever take that one last job. No matter how much money, no matter how great the chance of fame, no matter the guilt involved, never take that last gig. … Continue reading GREEN ROOM
Everyone has a story to tell, but stories are fragile and can easily be forgotten. They must be cared for and saved for future generations. And if not for historical purposes, then for cultural ones. That’s the hope behind Forgotten Jewels, … Continue reading Judith Kreith and Robin Truesdale on FORGOTTEN JEWELS
There is no greater film festival for classic movie lovers than the TCM Classic Film Fest in Hollywood, California. Every spring, throngs of moviegoers descend on the honorary capital of moviemaking for a feverish, bleary-eyed three-day celebration of the moving … Continue reading TCM Classic Film Festival — 2016
Miles Davis was a man of few words but an endless stream of music. Though the story of Davis’s meeting with then First Lady Nancy Reagan at a White House dinner in 1987 is most likely false, the punch line still … Continue reading MILES AHEAD
A dirty, but honorable, private eye with a predilection for strippers, Samson (John Hawkes), is inextricably connected to Dorothy (Crystal Reed), a stripper with a heart of gold, who winds up strangled to death in Elysian Park. From there, Samson’s … Continue reading TOO LATE
If there is a truth in life, it is a simple one: everybody is trying their best. It’s an often difficult truth to accept because it is far too easy to criticize one another for their shortcomings, mistakes, and screw-ups. … Continue reading LOUDER THAN BOMBS
There is an often-repeated anecdote that Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and came in second. It’s a popular story, one that illustrates the emptiness behind celebrity and fame, but it is just a story. No hard … Continue reading ELVIS & NIXON
Few arguments are rehashed ad nauseam quite like the debate over what is art and what is not art. In the right corner, wearing the red trunks, the Fine Arts: ars gratia artis. In the left corner, wearing the blue … Continue reading THE FIRST MONDAY IN MAY
Michael J. Cinema 
You must be logged in to post a comment.