Raquel Stecher

This post is sponsored by DVD Netflix.
It all started with a green handbag left behind in a subway car. Innocent enough. Frances (Chloe Grace Moretz) spots the abandoned bag and looks through its contents finding the ID for one Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert) of Brooklyn. The Boston native has just moved to New York City after the devastating loss of her mother. Taking pity on the bag’s owner, she finds Greta, a lonely French widower and piano teacher who is very grateful to be reunited with h...

I'm chipping away at my 2019 Cinema Shame challenge. This year I gave myself the goal to watch 10 movies from my birth year 1980 for the very first time. I'm hoping I can tackle a few reviews this summer so I can keep up!
Oh boy. I'm not even sure how Urban Cowboy (1980) made it onto my Cinema Shame list. I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that it met all of my criteria (film released in 1980 - check. film I haven't seen yet - check). But perhaps I should have skipped this one. It has ...

"Here is a woman who helped invent cinema, and there is a silence around her. It's absolutely intolerable and even stupid that we can't see these films." - Nicole Lise Bernheim, circa 1975
I’ve heard it said many times that we must preserve Alice Guy-Blache’s legacy. I didn’t fully appreciate the weight of this statement until I saw Pamela B. Green’s documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache. This early filmmaking pioneer was present for the birth of cinema and helped shape...

My review of Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir by Victoria Riskin
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Fay Wray and Robert Riskin
A Hollywood Memoir
by Victoria Riskin
Pantheon
Hardcover ISBN: ISBN 9781524747282
February 2019
416 pages
Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Powells
"My mother had a pioneer resilience, a vulnerability, a need for admiration... she never expected life to magically take care of her." - Victoria Riskin
"[My father] was a private man who expressed his deeply held values and philosophy largely through his writing." - Victoria Riskin
In Victoria Riskin's new book Fay Wray and R...

“For a cop things are black or white. In the middle there’s nothing.”
The year is 1975. In a small province of Argentina, a group of people are quietly emptying a house of its most valuable possessions. It’s rumored that the family who lived there were the targets of a government raid and have since fled the country. This introduction tells us what we need to know about mid-1970s Argentina and the government corruption that endangers its own people.
Claudio (Dario Grandinetti) is a town couns...

From the very first scene of EX-LADY (’33) we know that Helen Bauer, as played by Bette Davis, means business. Helen and her boyfriend Don (Gene Raymond) are hosting a swanky party for friends and it’s time to kick them all out. Why? She’s on a deadline. After having landed an illustration on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine, she’s got another lucrative gig waiting in the wings. Soon we find out that not only is Helen a career woman, she’s more talented and sought after than Don, an adverti...

“He was that rarest of men. One who simply did what he believed was right. Nothing more, nothing less.” – Charlie Mechem
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 space mission and the landing of the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on the moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins set out on a dangerous mission and their accomplishment remains unparalleled to this day. Director David Fairhead’s new documentary simply titled Armstrong focuses on Commander Neil Armstro...

Let’s raise a glass to Twentieth Century-Fox and take a look back to celebrate the studio’s history! And what a rich history it is. When Darryl F. Zanuck’s 20th Century Pictures merged with William Fox’ Fox Film Corporation in 1935, Twentieth Century-Fox was born. Fox and Zanuck were pioneers of the studio system and with Zanuck at the helm it was destined for greatness. In the subsequent decades, Twentieth Century Fox groomed and launched the career of many big stars including Gene Tierney, ...

Directed by David Lowell Rich, Madame X (1966) is one in a long line of frothy soap operas that delivers a good old-fashioned sob story. This film pulls out all the stops and leaves nothing behind in an effort to put its viewers' emotions through the wringer. It stars Lana Turner as Holly, later known as Madame X. She starts out as a happy woman, still beaming with that newlywed glow, but over the years her life slowly spirals out of control and she loses everything; her family, her identity ...

"I want to sin and suffer. But right now I only suffer." - Glory
Miss Glory Eden (Ginger Rogers), aka The Purity Girl, is a radio sensation. Ipswich (Gregory Ratoff), the owner of the Ippsie Wippsie Wash Cloth Company, which runs their own sponsored radio station, is desperate to lock down Glory with a brand new contract. But Glory has other ideas. As the baby-voiced model of purity and innocence, the management team tightly controls her public image. Herbert (Franklin Pangborn) is in charge ...

Interview with Sloan De Forest, author of Dynamic Dames: 50 Leading Ladies Who Made History
Sloan De Forest is a film historian, writer and actress. She is the author of Must-See Sci-Fi: 50 Movies That Are Out of This World and has contributed to Natalie Wood: Reflections of a Legendary Life, Grace Kelly; Hollywood Dream Girl and Fellini: The Sixties. She's also written for the Mary Pickford Foundation, Bright Lights Film Journal and many other outlets. Her newest book Dynamic Dames: 50 Leadi...

Ben Model's Undercrank Productions has released The Alice Howell collection, a two DVD set featuring 12 short films from master silent film comedienne Alice Howell. A mix of screwball and slapstick comedies, Howell knew how to entertain audiences with her knack for physical comedy, her amusing expressions and signature look. Model offers the following description:
"The character that she had developed was a slightly addled working-class girl with a round Kewpie-doll face topped off with a mou...

Post-WWII Paris was a haven for African-American expats. Artists like Josephine Baker, Miles Davis and James Baldwin emigrated from the U.S. to Paris where they found more artistic freedom and an escape from racial tensions back home. It was also the epicenter of the 1950s/1960s jazz scene where artists were emerging and thriving in a city that celebrated jazz and built a culture around it. This setting is the basis of director Martin Ritt’s film PARIS BLUES (‘61) starring Paul Newman, Joanne...

I'm happy to be partnering with TCM and Running Press for this exclusive cover reveal. That's right! You are seeing the cover of their upcoming book here first.
Cinematic Cities: New York: The Big Apple on the Big Screen
by Christian Blauvelt
Official Description:
For armchair travelers, film buffs, tourists, and city dwellers alike, Turner Classic Movies takes you on a one-of-a-kind tour of the cinematic sites of New York City.
Highlighting the great films set in the Big Apple since the dawn...