The Movie Journal

  Sunset Blvd. (1950)   “There's nothing else. Just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my closeup.”             These are the painful words from aging actress Norma Desmond as she grapples with fame right after she committed a murder. This phrase is one of the most memorable phrases in cinema’s history. Billy Wilder has a knack of making such endings in his movies as evidenced by Some Like It Hot. Sunset Blvd. is one of the best movies about Hollywood. It tackles a very relevant topic as it deals with fame and what happens when fame run its course. The movie is every bit of a film-noir as it is a comedy. Just like Wilder did with Double Indemnity , he created a movie that thrills at nearly every turn and the relationship between William Holden and Gloria Swanson keeps coming and grabbing you until the shocking ending. You can also classify the mov...

  All About Eve (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve is about as good as a film you can get. Even though the film is more than seventy years old, it remains as timely as ever as it tackle important themes such as aging in Hollywood. Fiction becomes fact as the great, vivacious Bette Davis stars as one of the main leads. This film is an autobiography of hers as much as it is a work of fiction. This is also an actor’s film. This remains one of the best acted films I have seen to this day. Perhaps that is what happens when you give these legendary actors such juicy material to work with. Mankiewicz created a film that is bold, timely, realistic, and most importantly entertaining. In my own humble opinion, it is one of the best films that the Golden Age of Hollywood has produced. People often compare this film to a similar film, Sunrise Boulevard (which I still have yet to see but I soon will, I promise). Both films tackle what it is like to age in Hollywood, and both have rec...