If advance ticket sale inquiries are any indication, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” could be the movie blockbuster of 2021.
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Author Archives: Phil Hall
Spencer (2021)
Fans of so-bad-it’s-good cinema will have a royal field day with “Spencer,” Pablo Larraín’s zany new drama – which should have been called “The Madness of Princess Diana,” as it reimagines the late Princess of Wales as an unbalanced, melodrama-prone woman fighting for control of her sanity.
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The Bootleg Files: The Bottom Line
BOOTLEG FILES 786: “The Bottom Line” (1975 corporate promotional film for Mobil starring Bill Cullen).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely.
Corporate sponsored films have been part of the motion picture experience since the silent movies, but most people have never seen the works of this genre – if only because they were never intended to be seen by the general public. These works were company-specific endeavors designed to train and invigorate employees on doing a better job and, not surprisingly, many of these offerings were not particularly entertaining.
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From SNL to the Big Screen
For every Bill Murray and Will Ferrell who made the successful transition from “Saturday Night Live” to big-screen acclaim, there were more who either never made the jump or had a spurt of movie stardom before petering out. ArmchairCinema.com’s Jerry Dean Roberts returns to the “Online Movie Show” podcast to discuss why some SNL comics became movie stars and others didn’t.
The Bootleg Files: Paradise in Harlem
BOOTLEG FILES 785: “Paradise in Harlem” (1939 all-Black feature).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: An absence of a copyright dooms the film to endless public domain duping.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Unlikely.
From the 1910s through the late 1940s, there was a distinctive cinema geared exclusively to Black American audiences. These films starred all-Black casts and were distributed only to theaters in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
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Passing (2021)
Nella Larsen’s 1929 provocative and emotionally unsettling novel about two light-skinned Black women who are able to pass for White has been adapted into a dismal and emotionally enervated film.
The Films of Richard Pryor: A Second Look
Richard Pryor is widely regarded as the greatest stand-up comic, yet his film output was erratic and he often showed himself to be a better dramatic actor than a movie funnyman. On this episode of “The Online Movie Show,” ArmchairCinema.com’s Jerry Dean Roberts discusses Pryor’s strange but often invigorating film career.