I was a deeply annoying shit when I was a little kid–a liar, an exaggerator, a coward and a jerk.  If I had been somebody else around the time, I would have hated myself—I mean, that kid.  Almost as obnoxious as I recall myself being is 12-year-old Pat Cardi in 1966’s Let’s Kill Uncle.  He’s […]

Even as a child, I was fascinated by what was then The Iron Curtain, a dividing line that made a huge part of the world a secret to the other half.  The more I learned about life behind that line, the more grateful I was to have just happened to have been born and raised […]

I wonder if anybody has ever truly enjoyed playing charades.  For a dinner party they’re throwing, wealthy couple Morgan Wallace and Dorothy Tree have arranged an unusual twist on it called “Indications”.  These will be rather elaborate set-ups, each of which are meant to to represent the title of a book, movie or song.  The […]

When Austrian director Fritz Lang fled WWII Europe for America, there was a sea change in his style.  Gone were the extreme touches of German Expressionism which had been the most distinctive aspect of such masterpieces as Metropolis.  That isn’t to say he stopped making significant films when he started working within the Hollywood production […]

An interesting gimmick employed by Hitchcock in most of his films was his inevitable cameo.  Often, these would be some sort of minor joke.  In 1956’s The Wrong Man, he makes it impossibly easy, as he addresses the audience directly before the opening credits.  It’s like a Where’s Waldo with that character being the only […]

Passive-agressiveness goes to extremes I have not seen before in 1970’s Bartleby, a UK adaptation of a story I was shocked to learn was written by Herman Melville.  I’m tempted to seek out that original short story, but I doubt whatever I find there would be as much of a shock as when I found […]

As I write this, Collins Dictionary has declared 2024’s word of the year to be “brat”.  Made famous by the same-titled Charli XCX album, the slang meaning of the word is to be bold and imperfect, even a bit messy. The character played by Hitomi Nozoe in 1958’s Giants and Toys is textbook definition of […]

I have always wondered why businesses ever advertise they are under new management.  That doesn’t seem to me to be incentive to patronize an establishment, unless you really hated the old manager.  The social club where all the gangsters hang out in 1932’s Scarface is constantly under new management, which is just as well, as […]

From today’s perspective, it is baffling to consider how many Caucasian actors, especially some of the best of their time, were cast at least once as an Asian.  Just off the top of my head, there’s Peter Sellers, Christopher Lee, Katherine Hepburn and Yul Brynner.  The less said about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s […]

It is weird to see the singer of “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy” in a gothic thriller, yet here he is starring as a 19th-century physician in 1972’s Demons of the Mind.  Paul Jones was no longer in Manfred Mann when cast in this picture, so he wouldn’t have the opportunity to sing that line in […]

This is one weird circus, what with Joan Crawford as your sexy grandma emcee.  Hard to believe that is far from the weirdest element of 1967’s Berserk. That is an appropriate title, as somebody is killing off the performers in her travelling circus in a number of bizarre ways.  The first person to die is […]

Humphrey Bogart was a justifiably legendary and singularly distinctive actor who I suspect I have unintentionally avoided learning more about.  I get the impression he was largely a mercurial and adversarial presence.  I wasn’t surprised to learn some described his performance in 1950’s In a Lonely Place as being the closest to his real-life persona. […]

I wonder why Harmony Korine so desperately wants to be hated.  I cannot think of another motivation for his directorial efforts starting with Gummo and leading down to the nadir of his oeuvre which is 2009’s Trash Humpers. I refuse to take the bait and be outraged by this film, though that is a reasonable […]