The Friday 4/16/2021

Poitier/Belafonte

Skipping a week on my contribution to the Scarecrow blog. Instead:

I am hosting a radio show. That’s right, not a podcast, a radio show. Produced by Voice of Vashon, it’s called “The Music and the Movies,” a weekly emanation in which I look at different ways music has informed film. Each show stays online for two weeks after its initial Sunday-night (7 p.m. Pacific Time) broadcast. Right now you can listen to my latest episode, on music related to the films of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte; and the previous one, about Bernard Herrmann’s music for fantasy/sci-fi films. On Sunday, that one disappears, and we debut a show about this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Score.

Tomorrow, Saturday 4/17, join us online at 2 p.m. Pacific Time for Scarecrow Academy, where we wind up our ten-week semester on “The Art in Noir: Film Noir and the Director.” We’ll discuss Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly this time. Go to Scarecrow Academy and sign up for the free Zoom session, and do it now. Meantime, I introduce the movie here:

I’ve got more vintage 80s reviews at my other website, What a Feeling!, specifically: Jeff Bleckner’s White Water Summer, with Kevin Bacon tormenting Sean Astin in a teen Deliverance; Alex Cox’s Walker, a punk true-story Western with Ed Harris as the Oliver North of his day; Simon Langton’s The Whistle Blower, with Michael Caine in a spy picture; David Leland’s Wish You Were Here, which introduced Emily Lloyd in a widely heralded performance; and Carl Reiner’s Summer School, starring Mark Harmon as a laid-back teacher.