Balconeers discussion

Thanks Jenny for the invite. Any group of film lovers is a group for me.

Currently re-reading several books and endless newspaper reports on Valentino, natch. So much so my brain is starting to leak Valentino. :-)

Rebecca is on my list of re-reads. It's a long time favorite book.

Donna

So glad you joined up Donna. The rest of the Balconeers should check out Donna's amazing Valentino web site which can be found on her profile page.

Thanks for the invitation, Jenny--oooh, a place to discuss books. What fun.

I just finished reading Nina Revoyr's The Age of Dreaming, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Caveat: it isn't a history and it plays fast and loose with historical details. Although the narrative revolves around a murder (a murder that strangely resembles a silent-era murder mystery we all know and love), the book isn't a mystery nor an historical novel. It is closer to Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day than it is to Gone With the Wind.

Right now I'm going through an absurd Warrior Witch Woman phase, so I'm reading all of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. Sad really, I'd heretofore done such a good job of avoiding them. I'm enjoying them but they really do go in one eye and out the other.

I say that like it's a bad thing.

Joan

I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm a professional film critic and author (with a new book coming out next month on romantic comedies). I got into film books in college when I read Donald Spoto's "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock," his book about the films, not the director. It remains a touchstone for me.

Have the new book on Pixar on my to be read shelf and am looking forward to a biography of Claude Rains coming out in the fall, which I believe is the first on the actor.

Dan

OOH DAN - a book on romantic comedies. One of my favorite areas of film. You must let us know when you publish.

Joan and Donna - welcome. There are a number of us that are old friends, so we don't always check in on one another via goodreads - but we welcome new blood, new ideas, and most of all new reasons to talk about our old favorites. I'm going to check out that Valentino site right now!

kc

Well, since you asked...

It's called "I'll Have What She's Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies." I tell the story of the making of fifteen movies from "Trouble in Paradise" (1932) to "Love Actually" (2003).

It's officially released on Sept. 12 but Amazon is already shipping.

I'm happy to talk about my book (of course!) but I really am interested in other movie books as well. I'm reading something right now related to my longstanding interest in the blacklist. It's called "A Shadow of Red" and focuses on the blacklist in radio and TV.

Welcome to all the new Balconeers who love classic film and the books about it. And happy August 23 - some day I'm going to get myself to L.A. and be at Valentino's crypt on this date.

Hello everyone,

I can't remember now if Donna or Jenny sent me the invite, but thanks for inviting me.

I'm a 28 year old, hardcore early cinema buff. I've watched these fantastic images from our film's past for the most part of my life. I'm just about to start college again(Didn't know what I wanted to do the first time around) so that I can earn better money in order to indulge in my favorite hobby and to FINALLY get out of my mother's house!!

I'm something of an aspiring film historian. For the past two years, I have been slowly researching the life/career of silent film star Eugene O'Brien.

I'm looking forward to meeting others who share a love for this amazing period in film history.

James

This is a group who will know instantly who I'm talking about:

Anita Page has died in LA at age 98:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080907/a...

Gasp! She seemed immortal to me. I always loved seeing her all dolled up and sharing her memories in documentaries on TCM. One of the very last silent screen performers.

The BBC had the news linked from their front page this morning http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainm...

Thank you Jenny for inviting me a couple of weeks back. I'm just catching up on life in general after a house move, work commitments and a vacation. To introduce myself for those on the group who don't know me (some do from other groups), I work with books and am the assistant production director at the Sun City (Arizona) Studio for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic where we record text books K - college into a digital format that is accessible to the blind, reading impaired and those too disabled to use printed matter. Last year during our Record-A-Thon we recorded a biography I wrote on Ford Sterling, silent comedy being my main area of digging and research, which was a great honour. Currently I'm working on two more books neither of which is related to film but the subjects are of interest to me and carrying on assorted bits of general early film research. I am an ex pat Brit (hence my sometimes different spelling), living in Arizona.

Welcome, Wendy! The others here you're not familiar with belong to The Balcony, a venerable movie list. If anyone's interested, I can send info on subscribing to the list.

Deep Discount DVD has a sale on WB titles. I want to buy a ton of movies and books and damn Bush for screwing up our economy so I have to choose between pharmaceuticals and food and have so little left over for the really important things like books and movies.

WB is celebrating it's 85th anniversary. There'll be a series of TCM specials plus a big book tied into it going over the studio's history.

Hello, fellow Balconeers! This is great - a combination of my two loves, movies and books! I've also just combined these passions in a fun movie review book (and another volume to come), so I hope you all don't my my sharing it here...
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I look forward to having popcorn and discussing flicks with all of you!
xo
Z

Hi Zuzana - it's been pretty quiet here, but feel free to tell us what you've been reading.