I first cottoned to the work of David Lynch through his Blue Velvet, just a little before Twin Peaks became a sensation.  I even have a weird association with his Eraserhead, as I accidentally burned microwave popcorn the first time I saw it, so I now smell that if I so much as think about […]

I used to sneer at light entertainment, thinking “harmless” was an adjective one should only use in the pejorative.  Live long enough, and the harsh realities of the world tend to make one have a greater appreciation of fare one might describe in that way. 1966’s The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is the textbook example […]

The Atari 2600 had some gloriously batshit titles.  For example, there was Communist Mutants from Outer Space, which is actually an incredibly solid game, almost in spite of the silly name. 2011 found footage sci-fi horror film Apollo 18, has aliens that can disguise themselves as rocks destroy our flag.  And this is near a […]

Italy’s first lunar mission isn’t going well.  I’d say the first problem is their spaceship is a paper cut-out of the Apollo 11 lunar module.  It lands successfully, but something happens to one of the astronauts, rendering them unconscious.  Another of the crew is apparently sick of their shit, dragging them away from the lunar […]

Home invasion movies get under my skin.  I guess one could say they are usually successful, since that’s the goal of them.  Still, it is a sub-genre I don’t actively seek out. The most disturbing such scene I have had the displeasure of encountering in a film was in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  […]

Seldom have I been rooting for the bad guys as much as I did while watching 1947’s The Shop at Sly Corner.  I also cannot recall ever wanting to see one character to kill another as much I did here. The two I wanted to get away with everything are Oscar Homolka and Manning Whiley.  […]

The 1974 TV movie adaptation of Dracula has a brief, great moment where we see the wreck of the Demeter, the ship that has brought the title character to British soil.  There’s a remarkable amount of wreckage on the beach.  Most shocking is a dead man lashed to the wheel, crucifix in hand. There is […]

I keep thinking of steampunk as an annoying genre that only appeared in the past couple of decades, and then I remember it is actually a very old style, going back to the works of Jules Verne.  Other authors also dabbled in it, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose silly At the Earth’s Core was […]

There are many things one should never say to those they love.  1985’s Smooth Talk has such an example, and I have never heard a line quite like this before: “I look in your eyes and all I see are trashy daydreams.”  This is what Mary Kay Place says to her teenaged daughter, Laura Dern […]

I think it is strange so many people seem to believe animals have souls and that there is a Heaven for them.  Does that apply to everything that has lived?  Will there be spiders in animal heaven?  In that case, I have sent a great many to their heavenly reward.  What about plants?  They’re all […]

I was aware of the 1975 sci-fi picture A Boy and His Dog decades before braving it.  It just happens to be coincidence I finally watched it in 2024, the year in which the film takes place. What I had already known about the movie is it is a post-apocalyptic tale told with a harsh, […]

Some of the most interesting books on music I have read are about artists or albums I otherwise could not care less about.  Some of the most interesting special features I have encountered on blu-rays have accompanied movies I didn’t like.  With that in mind, it shouldn’t have surprised me to find myself intrigued by […]