Friday, November 26, 2010

Holiday DVD drawing


You can WIN one of these two holiday DVDs!

    

Classic Cinema Online and Warner Brothers Entertainment are giving away these two fun holiday DVDs! Enter the drawing today for your chance to WIN!

The drawing will be held Wednesday, December 1, 2010. Two names will be drawn, each winner will receive one of these two prizes:

  • First Prizeis the Peanuts deluxe Holiday Collection BD/DVD set of 3 remastered Peanuts Holiday classics: A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
  • Second Prize is 'Twas the Night Before Christmas animated holiday classic remastered deluxe edition DVD, with special features.

To enter the drawing simply send an email with your name and mailing address to classiccinemaonline.com@gmail.com; you must put "Holiday DVD drawing" in the subject line.

The drawing will take place on Wednesday, December 1, 2010, and is open to US residents only. Must be 18 or over to participate. Please read our official drawing rules for details.

    

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Celebrating Claude Rains

You enjoyed him in Casablanca, The Invisible Man, and countless other films. This versatile actor would be 121 years old if he were still with us today.

I thought I'd honor his memory with the lighthearted and whimsical "Pied Piper of Hamelin". Click the poster and enjoy!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Bargain Bin Delight - Breakfast at Tiffany's











Audrey Hepburn plays that daring, darling Holly Golightly to a new high in entertainment delight!




I found this wonderful flick in the $5 bin at WalMart, and couldn't believe it! Such a classic for only five bucks?!


And with a cast like Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney and Buddy Ebson, what could possibly go wrong? This movie was flawless! And is it any wonder? It was directed by Blake Edwards!


As usual, Audrey Hepburn was flawless. Her acting, her grace, her poise, her natural beauty and style was always perfect - no wonder so many people adored her!


And that handsome looking co star of hers - wow! What a lovely on screen couple they made!


Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) is a beautiful and somewhat eccentric young woman who loves to dress up, drink, and socialize. She's really a call girl - the original lead was supposed to go to Marilyn Monroe who turned it down because her agent thought it would be bad for her image, but the storyline was watered down quite a bit from the novel, so it wasn't really apparent that she was a call girl. Known to throw loud parties that would annoy her neighbor (Mr. Yunioshi, played by Mickey Rooney), the loveable, mixed up character was enjoyable to watch .


She and her nameless cat lived in a small apartment (How'd they get all those partiers in there?!) in New York, enjoying the heck out of themselves. Along comes a handsome new neighbor (Paul Varjack, played by George Peppard) and her life gets even more crazy! As she repeatedly fails at her attempts to land a sugar daddy, she goes from man to man hoping to "marry for money".


Paul is immediately smitten with Holly, but seems to be having some weird kind of relationship with an extremely wealthy woman whom he introduces to Holly as his "designer". Apparently she's also his publishing agent - as he's a writer.


Holly and Paul seem to get along great - like best friends. Somehow Paul reminds her of her brother Fred, with whom she is close, so she decides to call him "Fred".


The story keeps getting better - it turns out that the party girl was married at the age of 14 to some hillbilly horse doctor (Buddy Ebson - who else?) who is still smitten with her, so he looks her up in New York.


This film has some really funny moments - like the drunken woman who is laughing at herself in the mirror, then in another scene she's bawling her eyes out. And there's Mr. Yunioshi - who is always annoyed. You know, that doesn't even look like Mickey Rooney - I'd have never guessed it was him, myself, but he played the role flawlessly. That makeup job and his witty talent added an extra element to this film that I thought was delightful.


If it wasn't noise, it was the doorbell. And he'd always meet his annoying neighbors in the stairwell, glaring at them and threatening to call "the po-reece".


Cat lovers everywhere will probably become angered - there is a scene towards the end of the film where Holly and Paul are in a taxi, it's raining out, and he's getting after her because he loves her and she's fighting the feeling. So she orders the cab driver to stop the cab and she kicks the cat out of the cab and into the rain. There's a scene of the poor, soaked kitty with this confused look on his face.


Now, I like cats, myself, so this scene really got to me. I actually yelled at the screen (as if she could hear me) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" That poor kitty! I wanted to go pick him up and feed him some Salmon.

Anyway I loved this film, and it really didn't deserve to be tossed into the $5 bin at WalMart, but I'm glad it was otherwise financially strapped people like me wouldn't have been able to enjoy it. This was a real treasure.


Go check out the $5 movie bins at your local WalMart (or other discount store) and see what treasures you can find in there. Then send me an email and tell me about it!