Paramount-photo by Bud Fraker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter Only a few actresses had the ability to exude the easy elegance, charm, and vulnerability of Audrey Hepburn. Grace Kelly could at times, but she didn’t quite match Hepburn’s otherworldly onscreen presence. Hepburn radiated natural uncontrived beauty and flawless grace, and she seemed …
Read
Category:Michael DiMilo
That Sinking Feeling
Artwork by Michael DiMilo Article by Geoff Carter “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.” — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote de La Mancha (Modern Library (Hardcover)) Shit floats. —Popular adage We’re treading water in a cesspool of information. Flooded with theories, …
Read
Passing the Smell Test
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter While we were recently visiting the family cabin recently—which is shared by three extended families—my wife started poking through the refrigerator. It contained a variety of half-used bottles of salad dressing, hot sauce, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, and various other sundries. She was—of course—checking expiration dates. Some of the …
Read
The Couch Potato’s Guide to Old Hollywood: The Legacy of James Stewart
Liberty Films, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter I was flipping around the TV dial a couple Saturdays ago, and there wasn’t much on—more ubiquitous reruns of Law & Order, even more overbearing chatter on MSNBC, and an endless line of banal reality shows. Then I happened to flip to TCM and caught the …
Read
The Couch Potato’s Guide to the Best of the Best: The Films of Martin Scorsese
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Siebbi, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons His films are deeply embedded into the fabric or our culture. From the grittiness of Mean Streets, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver to the gentility of The Age of Innocence, the black humor of The King of Comedy, or the epic scope of The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese has left a …
Read
The Couch Potato’s Guide to the Best of the Best: The Films of the Coen Brothers
Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter From their very first production, the quirky genre-bending thriller, Blood Simple, to their latest film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology of short films simultaneously deifying and lampooning the Western genre, the Coen Brothers have made films that are—to say the very least—unpredictable. Their stories have …
Read
Independence Day
Artwork by Michael DiMilo Article by Geoff Carter Our nation just celebrated The Fourth of July. Any American can—hopefully—tell you what this holiday is all about. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, severing all American ties with Great Britain. The founding fathers were sick of being taxed and …
Read
Uncomfortably Numb
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Something woke me up in the middle of the night last week. I lay in bed, dumb with sleep, trying to figure out what it was. And then my phone pinged me from the nightstand. Again. And then again. And then again. It was trying to tell me …
Read
The Couch Potato’s Guide to the Best of the Best: Frances McDormand
Red Carpet Report on Mingle Media TV, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons The Ten Best Films of Frances McDormand By Geoff Carter She can be as tough as a bar of iron. She can also be compassionate, kind, and forgiving—or as fierce and determined as a mama bear defending her cubs. Her scathing tongue can …
Read
Toys in the Attic
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I was trying to find a certain book the other day. It wasn’t in any of the bookcases downstairs, so I headed up into the attic and walked into what can only be termed a natural disaster. Boxes upon boxes littered all three of the rooms. Everything from …
Read
The Couch Potato’s Guide to the Best of the Best
Nicolas Genin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons George Clooney’s Top Ten Films By Geoff Carter He epitomizes cool. George Clooney exudes an aura of ease, intelligence, and confidence reminiscent of old school stars like Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, or Cary Grant. He can be complicated, too, embodying the angst and disappointments of a typical middle-aged …
Read
Living in the Past
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. –Thomas Jefferson We’ve been taught to respect and believe these hallowed words since we were children. Of course, after a close examination of U.S. history, no one—except perhaps a child—is naïve enough to believe them. Shortly …
Read