Sunday Matinee (Sept. 7 - Sept. 13)

Not half the price ... just half the work.

There was a lot of talk on movie blogs this week about Burn After Reading, the first film for the Coen Brothers after their Best Screenplay/Director(s)/Picture Oscars. However, having not seen it yet and desperately wanting to, I haven't read any of the reviews so none will be posted in the Sunday Matinee feature this week. Sorry.

So without further ado...

• The Stop Button calls Frank Capra's 1944 comedy Arsenic and Old Lace "one of the finest–if not the finest–film adaptations of a stage production."

• After the Large Hadron Collider was turned on this week, YDKS Movies runs down the best movies about the end of the world.

• And speaking of the apocalypse, Farzan reviews what I think is Steven Spielberg's most troubled great movie of the new millennium, War of the Worlds.

• Tony at Cinema Viewfinder has a review of the special edition DVD release of Cool Hand Luke.

• An excellent assessment of what Rear Window can tell us about living in New York at Self-Styled Siren. (Hat-tip: The Film Doctor)

• I've fallen behind in my schedule to review a few of Buster Keaton's films before Hitchcock Month, but fortunately I've been able to read The Dancing Image for selected Keaton. This past week's installment: The Navigator.

• As part of CageFest at Blog Cabins, Daniel at Getafilm recounts how he found National Treasure and learned to stop hating and love Nicolas Cage as treasure hunter Ben Gates.

• Dean at Filmicability examines Catch-22.

• A few posts this week had the courage to address the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and of particular note: Getafilm has clips of somber reflection and The Dancing Image reviews the Naudet documentary 9/11.

• Film Studies For Free links to a fascinating look at the history of Pan's Labyrinth.

• In honor of The Big Lebowski's tenth anniversary DVD release, Slate examines its prescient neoconservative politics.

• Roger Ebert discusses the presidential candidates' favorite movies.

• Finally, something unrelated to film for a moment. David Foster Wallace was found dead at his home Friday. He was a writer who proved literary writers and essayists could still become celebrities in contemporary America. His style of sprawling digressions and comprehensive footnotes was inimitable, although he had throngs of imitators, most of whom were part of M.F.A. programs years before I enrolled in mine. I'm not sure he still attracted the high intensity fawning in programs and literary circles today that he once did, but I can speak for myself and many of my peers in saying we had great respect for his talent. He was 46.

If You Haven't Seen Them Already...

This week on Turner Classic Movies:
• The Red Balloon (1956), Sept 15
• The Red Shoes (1948), Sept 15
• Force of Evil (1948), Sept 15
• The Women (1939), Sept 15
• Terms of Endearment (1983), Sept 16
• Saboteur (1942), Sept 17
• The Lady Vanishes (1938), Sept 17
• The President's Analyst (1967), Sept 17
• Four Days in November (1964), Sept 18
• The Westerner (1940), Sept 20
• Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Sept 20
• Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Sept 20
• Annie Hall (1977), Sept 21