Forgotten Movie Songs #19: "The sun whose rays" from TOPSY-TURVY

This is, of course, not a song that was written for the movies, though it IS one of the cinema's most moving songs. Originally, it is the premier piece set smack dab in the middle of British librettist William S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan's magnum opus The Mikado, which opened in London in 1885 to astounding applause and then became the team's signature work. Mike Leigh's majestic,

1999 (The 9 Years, Part 7)

As we are now in 2009, we can expect to see a great many articles trumpeting the 70th anniversary of the fabled "Best Movie Year," 1939. This is tradition, dating back probably to every 9 year of every movie-oriented decade. But is 1939 really the best year for movies? I don't know about that. It was great, but after the watershed year 1979, I started having my doubts. In 1989, I started