Music

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All of My Readers

by John Charet

I just want to wish all of my dear readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2025 🙂 Now I would like to conclude this year with not one, but two youtube video links to two great Christmas songs 🙂 The first is Run Rudolph Run by Rock and Roll legend Chuck Berry 🙂 The second is Cher’s DJ Play a Christmas Song, which I linked to last year at this time, but it was so popular with all of my dear readers that I have to include it again 🙂

In case you missed it the first time, I am linking to my two previous posts for you all 🙂

Click here to view my 25 Christmas Film Recommendations list

Click here to view my blog entry regarding Some of My Many Favorite Things

Click here to listen to Chuck Berry’s Run Rudolph Run

Click here to listen to Cher’s DJ Play a Christmas Song

Some Of My Many Favorite Things (Entertainment Related or Lack Thereof)

by John Charet

-A Word Before Reading-

None of you dear readers have to be familiar with what I am talking about in order to reply to this blog entry 🙂 In fact, you could all talk to me about things (cinema, television etc.) that make you happy and we can all reply back and forth to each other in the comment section 🙂

-Introduction-

As all of my dear readers can gather by the title of this link, today, I will be linking you all to some of many things that give me joy, whether it be during the Christmas season or otherwise 🙂 So, without further ado, here is the first one below 🙂

-Jennifer Coolidge-

Yes, she played Stiffler’s Mom in the American Pie movies, but Jennifer Coolidge has always been reliable in every role she has ever played 🙂 She has won for Supporting Actress in Television three times (one Golden Globe and two Primetime Emmys) for her role as the wealthy Tanya McQuoid on the darkly comedic HBO anthology series The White Lotus.

Click here to watch her 2023 Golden Globe speech

Click here to watch her 2022 Primetime Emmy speech

Click here to watch her 2023 Primetime Emmy speech

Click here and here to watch some of her character’s best moments

Any of my dear readers familiar with all of those Discover Card commercials you all see on television? 🙂

Click here to watch a few of them

Speaking of that, actress/comedian Chloe Fineman spoofed Coolidge’s persona with (I believe) two hilarious SNL (Saturday Night Live) sketches

Click here to watch this 2022 one

Click here to watch this one from two months ago

-Pamela Anderson: The Cinephile-

As much as I love Pamela Anderson’s screen image, that does not compare to the awesomeness of who Pamela Anderson really is behind it. Recently, she has been earning raves for her dramatic lead performance in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, which garnered her a recent Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. This brings us to a recent video of her getting the luxury of going into the Criterion Closet to pick some Blu-Ray/DVD’s for herself. It is here that Anderson is at her coolest. She comes off as a cinephile not only with her love of the films she talks about, but also the directors behind them. Late great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami gets a shout-out in the video 🙂 How awesome is that among the others she mentions 🙂

Click here to watch her recent visit to the Criterion Closet

-Danny Devito’s Jersey MIke’s Commercials-

They just bring a smile to my face 🙂

Click here to watch them all

-The Clovers: One Mint Julep–

Yes, Todd Haynes 2015 masterpiece Carol is what got me addicted to The Clovers 1952 R&B song One Mint Julep :)The song is just so tuneful to me 🙂

Click here to listen to it

Click here to watch the scene that the aforementioned song plays in the film

Let me conclude this blog entry with two questions for my dear readers below:

What are some of your many favorite things (Entertainment Related or Lack Thereof?

What links interested you the most? If all, some or none of them did, that is perfectly fine too?

My Favorite Busby Berkeley Films (2024 Edition)

by John Charet

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
    (co-directed with Mervyn LeRoy)
    (Musical numbers only)
  2. The Gang’s All Here (1943)
  3. Footlight Parade (1933)
    (co-directed with Lloyd Bacon)
    (Musical numbers only)
  4. 42nd Street (1933)
    (co-directed with Lloyd Bacon)
    (Musical numbers only)
  5. For Me and My Gal (1942)
  6. Hollywood Hotel (1937)
  7. Dames (1934)
    (co-directed with Ray Enright)
    (Musical numbers only)
  8. Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)
  9. Romance on the High Seas (1948)
    (co-directed with Michael Curtiz)
    (Choreographer only)
  10. Gold Diggers of 1937 (1937)
    (co-directed with Lloyd Bacon)
    (Musical numbers only)
  11. She Had to Say Yes (1933)
    (co-directed with George Amy)
  12. Ziegfeld Girl (1941)
    (co-directed with Robert Z. Leonard)
    (Musical numbers only)
  13. They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
  14. Lady Be Good (1941)
    (co-directed with Norman Z. McLeod)
    (Musical numbers only)
  15. Bright Lights (1935)

* * * 1/2 (Out of * * * *)

  1. Strike Up The Band (1940)
  2. Babes in Arms (1939)
  3. Babes on Broadway (1941)

My Favorite Ingmar Bergman Films (2024 Edition)

by John Charet

Some of these I watched online. I saw just about all of Bergman’s films, but not every single one of them.

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. Persona (1966)
  2. Wild Strawberries (1957)
  3. Cries and Whispers (1972)
  4. Saraband (2003)
    (Swedish/Italian/German/Finnish/Danish/Austrian Television)
  5. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
    (Miniseries)
    (Swedish/French/West German Television)
  6. The Silence (1963)
  7. Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
  8. Winter Light (1963)
  9. Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
  10. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
  11. Summer with Monika (1953)
  12. Hour of the Wolf (1968)
  13. Summer Interlude (1951)
  14. Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
    (Miniseries)
    (Swedish Television)
  15. The Seventh Seal (1957)
  16. Shame (1968)
  17. The Magician (1958)
  18. The Virgin Spring (1960)
  19. After the Rehearsal (1984)
    (Swedish Television)
  20. Autumn Sonata (1978)
  21. Face to Face (1976)
  22. The Magic Flute (1975)
  23. From the Life of the Marionettes (1980)
    (Swedish/West German Television)
  24. The Rite (1969)
    (Swedish Television)
  25. The Passion of Anna (1969)
  26. Brink of Life (1958)
  27. Dreams (1955)
  28. A Lesson in Love (1954)
  29. Secrets of Women (1952)
  30. The Devil’s Eye (1960)
  31. A Dream Play (1963)
    (Swedish Television)
  32. To Joy (1950)
  33. In the Presence of a Clown (1997)
    (Swedish/Danish/Norwegian/Italian/German Television)
  34. Faro Document 1979 (1979)
    (Documentary)
    (Television)
  35. Faro Document (1970)
    (Documentary)
    (Television)
  36. The Making of Fanny and Alexander (1984)
    (Documentary)
  37. The Making of Autumn Sonata (1978)
    (Documentary)
  38. Madame de Sade (1992)
    (Swedish Television)
  39. Prison (1949)
  40. Port of Call (1948)
  41. It Rains on Our Love (1946)
  42. The Serpent’s Egg (1977)
  43. Karin’s Face (1986)
    (Documentary)
    (Short)
  44. Thirst (1949)
  45. The Image Makers (2000)
    (Swedish/Danish/Finnish Television)
  46. The Misanthrope (1974)
    (Danish Television)
  47. Music in Darkness (1948)
  48. A Ship Bound for India (1947)
  49. Crisis (1946)
  50. The Blessed Ones (1986)
    (Swedish Television)
  51. The Touch (1971)
  52. Mr. Sleeman Is Coming (1957)
    (Swedish Television)
  53. Ovader (1960)
    (Swedish Television)
  54. The Last Gasp (1995)
    (Swedish Television)
  55. Backanterna (1993)
    (Swedish Television)
  56. Hustruskolan (1983)
    (Swedish Television)
  57. Rabies (1958)
    (Swedish Television)
  58. Stimulantia (1967)
    Segment: Daniel
  59. All These Women (1964)
  60. The Venetian (1958)
    (Swedish Television)
  61. Harald & Harald (1996)
    (Short)
    (Television)
  62. On Set Home Movies (2008)
    (Documentary)
    (Short)
  63. Ingmar Bergman: Making Commercials (1951)
    (Commercials)
    (Short)
    (Swedish Television)
  64. This Can’t Happen Here (1950)

My Favorite Olivier Assayas Films (2024 Edition)

by John Charet

Some of these titles I watched online. For the record, there may be a title or two missing because I have not seen it yet. I also can’t find them online.

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. Irma Vep (2022)
    (Miniseries)
    (Cable/Television)
  2. Irma Vep (1996)
  3. Carlos (2010)
    (Miniseries)
    (French/German Television)
  4. Summer Hours (2008)
  5. Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)
  6. Personal Shopper (2016)
  7. Clean (2004)
  8. Demonlover (2002)
  9. Sentimental Destinies (2000)
  10. Late August, Early September (1998)
  11. Non-Fiction (2018)
  12. Something in the Air (2012)
  13. Cold Water (1994)
  14. Boarding Gate (2007)
  15. Cinema, de notre temps (1996)
    Episode: HHH, portrait de Hou Hsiao-hsien
    (Documentary)
    (French Television)
  16. Paris, I Love You (2006)
    Segment: Quartier des Enfants Rouges
  17. Paris Awakens (1991)
  18. Disorder (1986)
  19. Winter’s Child (1989)
  20. Wasp Network (2019)
  21. Noise (2006)
    (Documentary)
  22. Winston tong en studio (1984)
    (Documentary)
    (Short)
  23. Rectangle – Deux chansons de Janco (1980)
    (Short)
  24. To Each His Own Cinema (2007)
    Segment: Recrudescence

My Favorite Dorothy Arzner Films (2024 Edition)

by John Charet

Some of these films I saw online and one of them on an old VHS tape.

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
  2. Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)
  3. Working Girls (1931)
  4. The Bride Wore Red (1937)
  5. Craig’s Wife (1936)
  6. First Comes Courage (1943)
  7. Honor Among Lovers (1931)
  8. Anybody’s Woman (1930)
  9. Get Your Man (1927)
  10. Christopher Strong (1933)
  11. The Wild Party (1929)
  12. Sarah and Son (1930)
  13. Nana (1934)
    (co-directed with George Fitzmaurice)

My Favorite Kenneth Anger Films (2023 Edition)

by John Charet

All of the Kenneth Anger films listed here are ones that I watched online. Even with the fairly large number of Anger shorts listed, there are still a fair amount that I have not seen yet.

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. Scorpio Rising (1963)
    (Short Cinema)
  2. Fireworks (1947)
    (Short Cinema)
  3. Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)
    (Short Cinema)
  4. Eaux d’Artifice (1953)
    (Short Cinema)
  5. Lucifer Rising (1972)
    (Short Cinema)
  6. Rabbit’s Moon (1950)
    (Short Cinema)
  7. Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969)
    (Short Cinema)
  8. Missoni (2010)
    (Commercial)
    (Short Cinema)
  9. Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965)
    (Short Cinema)
  10. Puce Moment (1949)
    (Short Cinema)
  11. The Man We Want to Hang (2002)
    (Short Cinema)
  12. Hollywood Babylon (2000)
    (co-directed with Nico B.)
    (Short Cinema)
  13. Anger Sees Red (2004)
    (Short Cinema)

My Favorite Theo Angelopoulos Films (2023 Edition)

by John Charet

With the exceptions of Reconstitution, Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow, The Dust of Time and Invisible World, I have seen every single Theo Angelopoulos film that I could find. In fact, I watched all of them online.

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. Landscape in the Mist (1988)
  2. Eternity and a Day (1998)
  3. The Traveling Players (1975)
  4. Voyage to Cythera (1984)
  5. The Beekeeper (1986)
  6. Alexander the Great (1980)
  7. Days of ’36 (1972)
  8. The Hunters (1977)
  9. Ulysses’ Gaze (1995)
  10. The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991)
  11. Capitali culturail d’Europa – Season 1 (1983)
    Episode: Athens, Return to the Acropolis
    (Documentary)
    (Italian Television)
  12. To Each His Own Cinema (2007)
    Segment: Trois minutes (Three Minutes)
    (Short Cinema)
  13. Lumiere and Company (1995)
    Segment: Up to 52 Seconds
    (Short Cinema)
  14. Broadcast (1968)
    (Short Cinema)

My Favorite Roy Andersson Films (2023 Edition)

by John Charet

Although Giliap can be watched on youtube, one could only watch the version with no English subtitles so I will have to wait to watch that one. Same with the commercials he directed. I watched all of his other stuff on home video or online.

* * * * (Out of * * * *)

  1. You, the Living (2007)
  2. About Endlessness (2019)
  3. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)
  4. Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
  5. A Swedish Love Story (1970)