Seven Samurai

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Vertigo

April 11, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 31 Comments

Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958.

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For a listing of the greatest movies of the 20s and 30s click here.

18. Vertigo, 1958

In 1962, Sight & Sound magazine, a British publication, launched a ten-yearly poll to evaluate the top ten films of all time among critics. Every year the top film of all time has been Citizen Kane, 1941.

Which tells you more about the film elites than about Orson Welles’ technically marvelous, if shallow and boring movie.

This year, the Sight & Sound poll came in with a new winner: Vertigo.

Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s: Rear Window, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Seven Samurai

February 21, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 32 Comments

Grace Kelly swoops down to kiss Jimmy Stewart, Rear Window, 1954. — Grace Kelly, a golden angel, swoops in to kiss Jimmy Stewart, *Rear Window*, 1954.

We continue our survey of the twenty greatest movies of the 1950s.

For a complete listing of the greatest movies of the 20, 30s and 40s, click here.

10. Rear Window, 1954

Photographer L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies (James Stewart) breaks his legs while photographing a car racing accident. Now, he is confined in his Greenwich Village apartment, trapped in a wheelchair 24/7. His rear window looks out onto a courtyard and several other apartments. During a summer heat wave, he passes the time by spying on his neighbors.

How I Married Karen, The EBook

December 24, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 5 Comments

At last, How I Married Karen, the story of my perfect imperfection, has been published as an ebook.

I fell hopelessly and helplessly in love with Karen when we were fourth-grade classmates in the Yeshivah of Flatbush. In this true life story, an unorthodox Orthodox memoir, I detail an all-consuming love that struck at age nine and never forsook me. In a style that recalls screwball comedies of the 1930s and in chapters inspired by classic movies, I vividly relive — with Karen providing wise and witty commentary — an unlikely romance that is touching, hilarious and ultimately inspirational.

A perfect gift for Chanukah, Christmas, or or any old occasion, How I Married Karen is available at the Apple iBookstore here. The book, with over thirty classic movie stills, is a fantastic reading experience on the iPad, which is what we have.

If you have a Kindle, just go to the Amazon Kindle store here to order.

If you have a Nook eReader, you can purchase the book at Barnes & Noble here.

Adobe Digital Edition’s version is available for Windows, Android, and Kindle users through the Lulu store.

Use the free BlueFire platform for all your eBook reading solutions on your device or smart phone. Download the app from the iStore or for Android.

Here’s what people are saying about How I Married Karen. (A sample chapter follows the reviews.)

Ten Greatest War Movies of All Time

September 13, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 27 Comments

myrna loy sailors — Confession: Not a single Myrna Loy film shows up in this list. But we just can’t resist posting this photo of Loy serving coffee to American sailors during World War II. Lucky guys.

Last week, Seraphic Secret picked the Ten Greatest Movies of all time. Our ruthlessly reductive list eliminated dozens of great movies that we love. Ultimately, we decided on movies that we return to over and over again because there is always something new to see and because they never fail to entertain and astonish.

This week, we’ve decided to concentrate on war movies, a genre particularly suited to the kinetic energy of motion pictures. Readers will immediately notice the absence of silent films and movies from Hollywood’s golden age. Yes, in spite of our love of classic cinema, we are the first to admit that sound and modern special effects have rendered most older war movies tame and stylized.

We have also excluded war movies that treat war as “senseless killing” or set forth a pacifist narrative. As far as Seraphic Secret is concerned, a just war is the only method by which moral states can triumph over evil nations. In short, war is too serious to be intellectually castrated by fuzzy minds who traffic in moral equivalence.

We concentrate on movies that feature intense warfare, yet whose narrative line does not neglect the more intimate, personal stories. We have eliminated home-front movies, fantasies of good Nazi soldiers ( Auf Wiedersehen, Das Boot), movies about Holocaust victims, tales of spies, and POW movies, sub-genres that—except good Nazi movies, historically suspect and morally loathsome—deserve and will receive ten best lists all their own.

As always, we invite our readers to list their own ten best war movies.

Ten Greatest Movies Ever Made

September 6, 2012 by Robert J. Avrech 52 Comments

vertigo-2 — Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958.

Every ten years, Sight & Sound magazine, a British publication devoted to the — cue cultured BBC accent — Art of Cinema, surveys some 1,000 critics, directors and know-it-all yentas, most of whom I’ve never heard, asking them to list the ten greatest movies in the known universe.

Here’s the survey.

For the past forty years, Citizen Kane has been numero uno. But this year, the number one slot for greatest movie of all time goes to Vertigo.

This is a welcome outcome. Seraphic Secret has always felt that Kane is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Normal people — the mass audience who did not go to film school — is bored stiff by Citizen Kane.

But, I have to admit that much as I love Vertigo — Brian De Palma and I screened it while we were working on Body Double — it’s grim and depressing, with none of the wit that elevates the best Hitchcock movies. But let’s face it, critics tend to favor “serious” movies.

Definitive movie lists are a challenge. You have to make ruthless choices. After thinking about movies and the history of movies for several days, after making list after list, and after inwardly debating the merits of various films, we made our choices, and now present Seraphic Secret’s list of the Ten Greatest Movies of all time.