Mark Maynard | great films

The etymology of “beazel”

By Mark | August 22, 2019

I’d wanted to write last night about Donald Trump’s ever-changing position on mandatory background checks for gun sales, and the pathetic way in which he publicly grovels at the feet of the NRA, but, when I saw that one of my favorite films, Preston Sturges’s delightfully thoughtful 1941 screwball comedy Sullivan’s Travels, was going to […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1922, 1939, 1941, 19th Amendment, background checks, barlow, beazel, beezle, biscuit, bitch", censorship, Charlie Chaplin, cross-dressing, crumb-gobbler, crumb-gobblers, Donald Trump, equality, etymology, film history, films, flapper, flapperese, floozie, frail, George Cukor, gun control, gun laws, ho, hobos, Joel McCrea, John L. Sullivan, Little Tramp, Logansport Pharos-Tribune, Mae West, mass shootings, NRA, pettable, pettable crumb-gobblers, petting, Preston Sturges, right to vote, roaring twenties, Robert Greig, Rosalind Russell, screwball comedy, slang, suffrage, Sullivan's Travels, The Wicked Waltz and Other Scandalous Dances: Outrage at Couple Dancing in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries, The Women, universal background checks, Veronica Lake, women's rights | 19 Comments

Designing the Curriculum for an Awesome High School Film Class: Part One

By Mark | August 1, 2019

An old friend of mine who teaches at a public high school in Minnesota just got word that he’s inherited a 12-week elective course on film, and he’s reached out to me, asking if I might help him design the curriculum. All that he’s been given to work with thus far is a list of […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1957, 1974, A Face in the Crowd, Algeria, Algerian War of Independence, Andy Griffith, Billy Wilder, Blade Runner, bugging, celebrity culture, curriculum, Dan Richardson, documentary film, Donald Trump, Double Indemnity, drifters, Elia Kazan, Eugene McCarthy, film criticism, film history, film school, films, folksy, foreign film, France, Francis Ford Coppola, Gene Hackman, Gillo Pontecorvo, Glenn Beck, Harrison Ford, Harry Caul, high school, Hot Channels, House Committee on Un-American Activities, Italy, Lonesome Rhodes, M, Martin Stett, Mildred Pierce, neorealist, populism, privacy, red scare, simple truths, small town America, social media, Sunset Boulevard, surveillance, surveillance culture, terrorism, The Battle of Algiers, The Conversation, The Killing, The Night of the Hunter, torture | 26 Comments

Criterion reissues Charles Laughton’s masterpiece, Night of the Hunter

By Mark | November 15, 2010

I was all set to post something stupid tonight about Chex Mix product placement in daytime television, but then discovered, quite by accident, that one of my very favorite movies of all time, Night of the Hunter, is being reissued on DVD by the Criterion Collection tomorrow. The DVD, which you can order here, contains […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life | Also tagged 1955, Charles Laughton, Chex Mix, Criterion Collection, Days of our Lives, gift ideas, gift ideas for Mark, Night of the Hunter, product placement, Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, soap operas, Stanley Cortez, Terry Sanders | 3 Comments

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The etymology of “beazel”

Criterion reissues Charles Laughton’s masterpiece, Night of the Hunter

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