MARY POPPINS RETURNS (Dir: Rob Marshall, 2018). New Years Resolution Is Going Well. Second Movie Of The

MARY POPPINS RETURNS (Dir: Rob Marshall, 2018). New Year’s resolution is going well. Second movie of the year Mary Poppins Returns. The second best Mary Poppins movie I have seen. (Third best if you include Saving Mr Banks.) 
100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com

OUT OF THE PAST aka BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH (Dir: Jacques Tourneur, 1947).

Adapted from his novel by Geoffrey Homes, this classic thriller from the golden era of film noir stars Robert Mitchum as a former PI with a shady past and Jane Greer as the femme fatale he is hired to find by louche businessman Kirk Douglas in a star-making performance.

Mitchum has a new life and new girl in very un-noirlike rural Bridgeport California. But his past soon drags him back to his sordid big city life and back into the arms of his client’s cheating, murderous gal.

This terrific movie is like a film noir checklist with cutting dialogue, shadowy cityscapes and moody atmosphere to spare.

Out of the Past is a classic of it’s genre.

100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.

I CONFESS (Dir: Alfred Hitchcock, 1953).

While I Confess is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s lesser known films, it is certainly not one of his lesser works. The plot concerns a Catholic Priest to whom is confessed a murder which his oath prevents him from telling the authorities of. Knowledge of a pre-priesthood affair with a married woman who was being blackmailed by the victim implicates the priest as the culprit.

While Montgomery Clift is not the obvious casting choice as a Catholic priest he acquits himself well here. Nobody does angst like Monty and Hitchcock, famously not a fan of the method acting to which Clift subscribed, extracts a nuanced and believable performance from the star in a seemingly difficult part. Able support comes from Anne Baxter as his former lover and Karl Malden as the dogged investigating officer.

While not as showy as much of Hitchcock’s work - nobody dangles from the Statue of Liberty or is pursued across Mount Rushmore - it is beautiful shot in black and white on the Quebec locations on which it is set. This unfamiliar setting gives the film a decidedly un-Hollywood atmosphere, maybe a contributing factor to the film’s popularity in France while it was overlooked in the US.

While it is perhaps the most uncharacteristically Hitchcockian of the director’s work, I Confess holds up as a unique, unfairly neglected gem.

100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (Dir: Leo McCarey, 1957). Soon to be wed playboy Cary Grant and in-a-relationship Deborah Kerr engage in a chaste shipboard romance in movie number 10: An Affair to Remember. After some smart comedic attempts to avoid the attention of the fellow passengers, the couple arrange to rendezvous atop the Empire State Building six months later to circumstantiate their affair. Tragedy, however, intervenes before the lovers can reunite (hankies at the ready ladies). I am fully aware that this movie is considered a romantic classic and is loved by many (most famously Sleepless in Seattle director and co-writer Nora Ephron) but I, alas, am not among them. Yes, Milton Krasner’s Deluxe Color CinemaScope photography is beautiful. Yes, the leads are very attractive, although Grant at 53 was getting a bit long in the tooth to play these playboy types. But the addition of the toothsome children’s choir, some laboured shipboard farce and the manipulative sentimentality of the second half just doesn’t do it for me. It is certainly worth a watch for its leading players and some genuinely smart dialogue from McCarey and cohorts. If you like this sort of thing you may well love this glossy and glitzy cinematic equivalent of pink champagne. I personally would rather stick with Ephron’s superior rom com tribute Sleepless in Seattle. 100+ movie reviews now available on my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com

BIRDS OF PREY aka THE PERFECT ALIBI (Dir: Basil Dean, 1930).

Birds of Prey, released in the US as The Perfect Alibi, is an early British talkie co-scripted by director / producer Dean and A A Milne.

Based upon Milne’s play The Fourth Wall, this creaky thriller has little of the whimsical charm of Winnie the Pooh. Rather the story concerns the murder investigation, by Frank Lawton and Dorothy Byrd, of their uncle and guardian C Aubrey Smith.

In effect, Birds of Prey is a murder mystery in which the audience know the identity of the murder. As such, its mild thrills are to be gleaned from how and when the killers will be caught. The whole affair is rather jolly and somewhat predictable. However, Nigel Bruce, in a supporting role here as a blustering major, is always entertaining and keep an eye out for an uncredited appearance by future British film legend Jack Hawkins.

100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME! Link below.

Attention Goosebumps fandom!

Can someone help me find better quality versions of these two pictures?

The second picture is what shows on Netflix while loading episodes of the Goosebumps TV series. I’m not sure where the first picture is from I saw it on someone’s profile picture.

Both of these pictures intrigue me since the design of Slappy is from 2008 (my favourite cannon Slappy design) but I’ve never seen them alongside any of the promotional art from 2008. They’re not from any book art either to my knowledge.

If anyone finds the full pictures please let me know!