Illusion - Song I co-wrote

Here's a beautiful pop ballad for your listening pleasure!

The music was composed by my best friend and colleague, Lita Di Maar (she is also the singer) and the lyrics were written by me (Syreen Matthews).

Together we have created the so-called Allegorical Acting Performance (see the link to the blog below in "My Blog List)

If you like the song, please share it wherever you can and feel free to comment it!

New Blogs

Let me share two new blogs with you!


These are two projects I am involved in:

The one is about gluten-related disorders and the solution.
The other is a new theatrical initiation/performance.

You can find the links below in "My Blog List"


Please spread the word and share wherever you can!

Old Yeller 1957 - An influential tear-jerker family movie

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,3

Director: Robert Stevenson
Main Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, Beverly Washburn

"Old Yeller is one of the best-loved live-action features ever made by the Walt Disney Company. Unabashedly weepy, the film is genuine enough to have become a family classic. Director Robert Stevenson coaxes some fine performances from his cast and does an admirable job recreating farm life in the mid-1800s. The film inspired a number of copycats, and its influence can still be felt in almost any movie that prominently features an animal. Disney began to move away from animation after the success of 1950's Treasure Island; Yeller was one of many live-action hits directed by Stevenson, including Kidnapped, The Absent-Minded Professor, and, most notably, Mary Poppins. Yeller spawned an inferior sequel, Savage Sam, featuring much of the same cast but a different director." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Night of the demon/Curse of the demon 1957 - The significant horror classic

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,6

Director: Jacques Tourneur
Main Cast: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham

"One of the finest horror films ever made, Curse of the Demon is a frightening, fast-paced, and unrelenting chiller that only gets better with passing years and repeated viewings. Directed by Jacques Tourneur from the M.R. James story Casting the Runes, Curse stars Dana Andrews as a psychologist out to disprove the black magic of co-star Niall MacGinnis. Peggy Cummings also stars as the daughter of a scientist killed by the title creature during the shocking opening. Tourneur was a master at scaring an audience by the power of suggestion, and Curse accomplished this with one exception: the producer insisted the 'demon' had to make its appearance at the beginning and ending of the film. That aside, the film is a masterful collage of fine filmmaking from its sharply written story, characters, and dialogue to Clifton Parker's spine-tingling score and the spectacular special effects, highlighted by production designer Ken Adams' terrifying demon. The performances are excellent across the board, with Andrews solid as the boorish non-believer who refuses to become convinced of the curse placed on him. MacGinnis' character is the real gem, a devilish trickster whose devious delight in the black arts hides a surprisingly bratty and less-than-sinister bad guy. This character was loosely based on the famed occultist, Aleister Crowley." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The incredible shrinking man 1957 - A strange adventure into the unknown

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,7

Director: Jack Arnold
Main Cast: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton, Raymond Bailey

"The notion of a man who shrinks to the size of a ChapStick and finds himself hunted by his own pet cat would seem to be the height of comic absurdity, but screenwriter Richard Matheson and director Jack Arnold had the good sense not to play it as a traditional horror/sci-fi story. Instead, The Incredible Shrinking Man emphasizes the psychological side of the character's dilemma alongside his obvious physical problems; Scott Carey (Grant Williams, in the best and best-known performance of a sadly misbegotten career) finds his view of himself and the world radically challenged by his extreme reaction to a radioactive cloud. As Scott slowly begins to shrink, he first loses touch with his masculinity as he begins to look more like his wife's son than her husband, and then begins to question his humanity, as his home turns into a horrific netherworld and he's eventually reduced to the size of a molecule. Director Arnold and his special effects crew do fine work, making Scott's situation look as realistic as possible given the circumstances, and they turn his struggle to emerge from the basement into an adventure to reckon with. But it's Matheson's perceptive script that sets the film apart; plenty of monster movies had an ordinary guy turn into an unrecognizable creature, but few faced the psychological and even theological implications of a man transformed into something unknowable. The result was the most intelligent movie of the 1950s 'atomic mutation' cycle, and, along with Them!, the one that has best stood the test of time." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Sweet smell of success 1957 - A sharp and bitter urban masterpiece

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,2

Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Main Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Barbara Nichols

"Ernest Lehman drew upon his experiences as a Broadway press agent to write the devastating a clef short story 'Tell Me About Tomorrow'. This in turn was adapted by Lehman and Clifford Odets into the sharp-edged, penetrating feature film Sweet Smell of Success. Burt Lancaster stars as J. J. Hunsecker, a Walter Winchell-style columnist who wields his power like a club, steamrolling friends and enemies alike. Tony Curtis co-stars as Sidney Falco, a sycophantic press agent who'd sell his grandmother to get an item into Hunsecker's popular newspaper column. Hunsecker enlists Falco's aid in ruining the reputation of jazz guitarist Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), who has had the temerity to court Hunsecker's sister Susan (Susan Harrison). Falco contrives to plant marijuana on Dallas, then summons corrupt, sadistic NYPD officer Harry Kello (Emile Meyer), who owes Hunsecker several favors, to arrest the innocent singer.
The real Walter Winchell, no longer as powerful as he'd been in the 1940s but still a man to be reckoned with, went after Ernest Lehman with both barrels upon the release of Sweet Smell of Success. Winchell was not so much offended by the unflattering portrait of himself as by the dredging up of an unpleasant domestic incident from his past.
While Success was not a success at the box office, it is now regarded as a model of street-smart cinematic cynicism. The electric performances of the stars are matched by the taut direction of Alex MacKendrick, the driving jazz score of Elmer Bernstein, and the evocative nocturnal camerawork of James Wong Howe, setting the nocturnal mood of New York's lost theaters and nightclubs.
Though a de facto N.Y.C. companion to Billy Wilder's equally superb and mordant West Coast showbiz exposé Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sweet Smell suffered an ignominious contemporary fate more akin to Wilder's acid press satire Ace in the Hole (1951). Since then, Sweet Smell of Success has aged gracefully into a masterwork; it was adapted not so gracefully as a Broadway musical in 2002." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The bridge on the River Kwai 1957 - One of the greatest war films ever made

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,3

Director: David Lean
Main Cast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald

"The Bridge on the River Kwai ranks as one of the greatest films of all time and arguably director David Lean's best film. At the heart of the film is the performance of Alec Guinness as the obsessively principled Colonel Nicholson. In a lesser film, his character might be simplified into a heroic martyr, but The Bridge on the River Kwai revels in its moral ambiguity: no significant character is either purely a hero or purely a villain. Filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film features brutal prisoner-of-war work camps that are nonetheless considerably nicer than their historical counterparts, a good decision since it frees the audience to focus on the battle of wills, at first between Nicholson and Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), later between Shears (William Holden) and Warden (Jack Hawkins). The film's closing line ('Madness... Madness') is among the best-known and most enigmatic closings in screen history.
Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary British filmmaker David Lean, and Best Actor for Guinness. It also won Best Screenplay for Pierre Boulle, the author of the novel on which the film was based, even though the actual writers were blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were given their Oscars under the table." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links: