davestone47

IMDb member since February 2005
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    IMDb Member
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Reviews

The Hurricane
(1937)

Important for film students
Sure, the leads are silly, and there's a great deal of mannered melodrama to endure, but don't overlook this. Academy Award nominations for Thomas Mitchell and Alfred Newman, and a well-deserved Oscar win for Thomas Moulton, the credited sound guy. The 10 minute Hurricane sequence plays entirely without music; just sound effects and scattered dialog, shouted over the wind and waves. You'll forget that the wind is ringing the church bell constantly through the storm, until the church is washed away and the bell sound is suddenly gone. The visual action and stunts are extraordinary and ahead of their time. I show this sequence to my film sound students, and I wish I could get it on DVD!

I.F. Stone's Weekly
(1973)

Rare doc about a great American journalist
For anyone interested in the free press and U.S. politics, this documentary is a rare gem. The last time I saw it on the big screen was probably 1973 or 1974, at the legendary Orson Welles Cinema in Boston. It ran with the independent short "A Political Cartoon," (which in the interest of full disclosure, was a project I worked on.) I knew nothing about Izzy Stone, and it's coincidental that we share a last name... He was certainly not a relative of mine. But this was really an eye-opener for audiences during the period immediately following Watergate. "I.F. Stone's Weekly" is a must for us Political Junkies among film buffs. If you have seen "OutFoxed," "Bush's Brain," or "Farenheit 911," it's time to stir up some demand for a DVD release of this doc. With wonderful footage of the great journalist at work among a forest of file folders, and some very funny stuff with one of his professional heirs, the young Carl Bernstein.

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