Friday, November 28, 2025
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise (2020)
Scott Eyman is becoming one of my favorite film historians. After reading his biography of Cary Grant, I am even more of a fan. This biography is a gripping read that I always hated to put down. It is incredibly well-written, very informative and always fair when examining its subject.
One of the main points this book makes is that the persona of Cary Grant was a creation of Grant himself. While it did not fully resemble the man who was born Archie Leach and would later bear the name of Cary Grant, it was the creation of the star not the studio. As well as digging into Cary Grant and his movie career, this book also greatly discusses who Archie Leach was. Probably the highlight of this book is the early chapters discussing Archie's life before becoming Cary Grant. As most writings about the Hollywood star tend to focus on his movie career, this is where I learned the most about the man born as Archie Leach. These early chapters are not only very well researched and informative but also where Scott Eyman's writing is at its best. We feel completely engrossed in this bygone world of English Music Halls and American vaudeville. The picture painted of a very vivid picture of this world, and it is easy to understand how it shaped Archie Leach, well into the years he would be known as Cary Grant.
As well as starting strong, this book also finishes very strong. Most movie star biographies tend to wind down when the reach the years when the star retired. That is far from the case here. Eyman digs heavily into these years painting a very vivid picture of an older man, who finally find much of the peace and joy that he looked for through much of his life (especially due to the love he felt for his daughter Jennifer). These chapters give us probably our greatest understanding of who the man is.
Though the middle section may not be as strong as the start or finish, it is still quite well worth the read. This is especially true because of the chapters when it talks about Grant's working and personal relationships with his three favorite and possibly best directors, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and Leo McCarey. The book provides a very well-researched look into the making of his best work. It also provides a very smart and well-written critical examination of his filmography as a whole. Eyman argues that Grant's reluctance to take risks with many of his roles, hurt his career at times causing him to make inferior films while passing up movies that would have been perfect for him. At the same time Eyman is not short in his praise of Grant's best work, acknowledging that his best films are true cinematic masterpieces of the highest order.
This book is highly sympathetic to Grant and often times paints a positive picture of the man. However, this does not mean that it overlooks or excuses Grant's worst flaws. Still for every story about his ego or selfish behavior, there are two more about how he took chances with newcomers he believed in or how much he truly loved his daughter.
This is a must-read biography.
Monday, November 24, 2025
Movie Review: Now You See Me Now You Don't
Michael's Movie Grade: C
An enjoyable but instantly forgettable movie.
I have seen the previous two movies in this series. I remember enjoying them but remember next to nothing else about them. I thought that those two previous films would come back to me as I watched this third entry, but they did not. I feel this third movie is most likely going to suffer the same fate for me. I enjoyed watching it, but I doubt that even a few months from now, I'll be able to tell you anything that happened in it.
Everything about this movie is simply average. There is nothing that bad about it but there is nothing that great about it either. The characters are pleasant, but they hardly have anything to make them stand out from countless similar characters. The action scenes are fun, but they still feel like we have seen them a thousand times before. The humor may make you chuckle or smile, but it will never make you laugh out loud. The visuals are fun but again in our minds they will simply blend in with visuals from a million other movies. The only thing about this movie that stands out is that the cast has good chemistry with each other.
There is not much more to say about this movie other than that it is extremely average.
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