Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
Howard HawksBefore I begin, a big thanks and shoutout to Mark Andrew Edwards who suggested Howard Hawks as my next cinematic excursion. This has been a fun one, and I wouldn't have considered it without Mark's prompting. Thank you! In 1954, the French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema was in turmoil. The younger generation of film critics, led by Francois Truffaut… Continue reading Howard Hawks – A Retrospective
#29 in my ranking of Howard Hawks’ filmography. Howard Hawks' last movie reminds me of Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock's last film. It's a final film steeped in the well-worn conventions of an individual director's work. Not exactly their best, it has a lot of the same charms of his best, even if it had been done… Continue reading Rio Lobo
#18 in my ranking of Howard Hawks’ filmography. I think that the commercial and critical failure of Red Line 7000 made Howard Hawks simply retreat. He effectively remade his most successful film of the previous twenty years, Rio Bravo, using some of the same cast, another established movie star, and the same basic premise for most… Continue reading El Dorado
#36 in my ranking of Howard Hawks’ filmography. When talking about Red Line 7000, I think it's required to talk about both Rio Bravo and Hatari! because the earlier two films point to what Hawks was surely trying to do in the latter. The two adventures with John Wayne were loose collections of character moments brought… Continue reading Red Line 7000
#16 in my ranking of Howard Hawks’ filmography. This is both a return to an older form of comedy for Howard Hawks as well as something new. This is almost as much a remake of Bringing Up Baby as A Song is Born was of Ball of Fire, and it would have been made even the… Continue reading Man’s Favorite Sport?
David Vining, Author 