Be Kind Rewind

In 1990, Sofia Coppola stepped in for an ailing Winona Ryder to play Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III. It didn't go well!! In this video I break down why she was cast, how people reacted, and how it affected the course of her career.

In this video, I explore the rebrand MGM sought for Greta Garbo in the late 1930s as a down-to-earth comedienne. While Ninotchka briefly revived her career, it also set the stage for a disappointing follow-up, Two-Faced Woman, which inexplicably drew criticism for its "immoral" themes.

On April 23, 1961 Judy Garland performed a program of 26 jazz standards, musical theater hits, and songs from her filmography at Carnegie Hall. The concert was recorded for Capitol Records, released as a live album, and has subsequently been dubbed “The Greatest Night in Entertainment History.” In this video, I do a deep dive on Judy at Carnegie Hall: what led up to it, what she sang, how she sang it, and the legacy that the album still carries to this day.

Why Eartha Kitt made the First Lady "cry"

In this video I take a look at Grace of Monaco, a biopic of Grace Kelly that was once considered the perfect awards-bait for the 2014 season but ended up unceremoniously dumped into obscurity. What happened? I take a look at Harvey Weinstein's involvement in shaping the film, what it says about Grace Kelly's legacy, and the very absurd place the film eventually landed.

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis recently premiered in theaters...42 years after he originally conceived of the film. I dug into biographies and newspapers to learn all I could about the storied history of Megalopolis in order to prepare myself to actually see it. In this video, I’ll tell you everything I’ve learned: why the film took so long to make, the ideas behind it, the various controversies surrounding its release, and, finally, my thoughts on how it turned out.

Actress Fay Wray is often credited with being American cinema’s first scream queen, specifically for her performance in 1933’s King Kong. After reading listicle after listicle citing Wray as the first, my question became…why? Horror films have existed since the invention of film. Surely, other women had made a name for themselves in horror by 1933. Why then would this actress in this performance be considered the first? In this video, I try to find out why!

Welcome to 12 Days of Actress, an annual end-of-year series in which I talk about 12 performances I love by 12 different actresses and make my pitch for why you should add them to your watchlist. I haven’t featured most of these actresses on the channel yet, but I love their work and need to find the excuse to give them their flowers so, here we are! See below for where you can watch these movies for yourself.

When director Robert Eggers was 9 years old, he got a beat up VHS copy of the film and fell in love. Now a renowned filmmaker in his own right, Eggers has written and directed his own version. He wasn’t the first to do so. In 1979 German filmmaker Werner Herzog put his spin on Nosferatu too. So how does Eggers’s film differ from Herzog’s? From Murnau’s? What do these three films, made in vastly different contexts, say about the times in which they were made? In this video I hope to find out.