Juli's Cinema Spot

Tonight's film review is The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolsen. This movie, which was number 90 on AFI's list, is also the first to feature spoken dialogue. Did you know that? I didn't until I saw picked this movie up from the library. In it Jolsen stars as a jazz singer, Jakie, who is making it big in the world of music. His father, however, doesn't approve of his son's career choice. He would rather his son follow in his footsteps as cantor in the synagogue which they attend. Jakie continues in his career and enjoys great success until the day his mother shows up at the dress rehearsal for a show in which Jakie is to appear. She tells him is father is sick - on the verge of death - and begs him to come home and lead the service of Atonement at the synagogue. Jakie must decide if his heart lies in pursuing his career or honoring his Jewish tradition. I won't tell you the end, you'll have to watch for yourselves. I will say, however, it has a great stor...

This will probably be a somewhat longer post than I will usually make, unless a movie makes a huge impact on me, but I want to make sure my reviews get posted in the same order as my husband and I watch the movies. So here we go with The Birth of a Nation directed by D.W, Griffith and Gold Rush starring Charlie Chaplin. Okay, here's the scoop on The Birth of a Nation , number 44 on AFI's list. It was a very impressive piece of filmmaking considering it was made in 1915. There was so much emotion and so much to take in that I'm definitely going to have to watch it again. The only problem was the recording we picked up from the library didn't have a musical score to go with it. That made it a bit difficult to watch as well. My husband says Ebert and Roper each give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, so if we want to be like them this summer, we can only give two thumbs up, not four (as some friends had suggested). We give this one a thumbs up and a thumbs sideways f...

My husband and I are avid t.v. watchers, but with all the shows in reruns for the summer, we have nothing original to watch. So, we are embarking on a fun adventure. We downloaded the Amerian Film Institute's list of the top 100 movies from the last 100 years. We are watching them in chronological order and so far have watched "The Birth of a Nation" directed by D.W. Griffith and "Gold Rush" starring Charlie Chaplin. At some point in the next few days I will post my thoughts on these two fine movies as well as the one we are currently watching "The Jazz Singer." So, come back often as new reviews will appear frequently.