by Sam Juliano
The site will again be staging the Allan Fish Online Film Festival in observance of our late master’s May 28th birthday. Remarkably this will be the fifth consecutive year we will be moving forward with a project tribute that has yielded some of the finest writing we’ve ever exhibited. Founded by Chicago native and staffer Jamie Uhler in 2017 nine months after Allan’s tragic passing, the idea was to continue as long as physically possible and as long as the site continues to exist and add new material. Alas, we have no intentions in the immediate future to close our doors and we’d like to think our lifespan here has a ways to go, what with yeoman contributions continuing from our exceedingly talented writers, led by site Co-Editor James Clark and by his fellow Canadian veteran film writer J.D. Lafrance. A very dear and brilliant Australian friend will be back for this project, and several others may well follow-up on their past postings for this endeavor, the one more than any other that is dearest to our hearts. The festival will launch on Friday, May 28th and will continue until the line-up is completed. I will be sending out an e mail next week to the past participants to alert them of our intentions. Thanks to all for your anticipated cooperation.
Next Sunday night the 2021 Oscar show will be broadcast. The date will mark the only time of the past forty-three years that Yours Truly and Lucille will not be hosting our annual party as a result of COVID-19. Our family, however, are expecting two special guests at our home, one of whom will be armed with his trademark video camera. This past week J.D. Lafrance published a superlative essay on 1969’s wildly popular 1969 western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Lucille and I saw a bevy of classic and new blu ray releases this past week but nothing on the new release front. We pretty much have caught up there and hope to continue with current releases over the coming week.