My wife recently clued me to the yet another contemporary phrase of which I was previous unaware and that is “Manson lamps”.  For those similarly uninformed, this means large crazy eyes, like how Charles Manson looks in seemingly every photo of him. Gideon Drew has that look throughout his turn as the villain in 1958’s […]

In the movie Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey is told by Lauren Holly that there is a one-in-a-million chance of them ever getting together, yet he positively glows when he replies, “So, you’re saying there’s a chance.” I’m betting I’m the only person to ever see 2020’s deadly serious sci-fi film Last and First Men […]

Foreign cinema can provide fascinating glimpses into other cultures and their folklore.  It can also reveal the similarities between societies.  Consider the 1973 Serbian film Leptirica, which goes to some length to demonstrate every place has large groups of mostly useless men who seem to do little more than sit around bullshitting and drinking. The […]

In the first two decades of the 21st century, I felt like I was the only person who wasn’t swept up in the wave of raunchy hard-R comedies of the time.  The appeal of The Hangover, to cite just one example, completely failed to connect with me, and that there were two sequels boggles my […]

As I write this, there has been much hand wringing by people in various professions who are worried their jobs will be eliminated soon by an evil which doesn’t even have hands, that being artificial intelligence.  1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project has a supercomputer which goes one better, as it seizes control of the world’s […]

Among the worst cheats a film can do is to end with the revelation everything that transpired before it was a dream.  Even worse is to have a film that is so strange one is surprised it doesn’t conclude with that twist. Without such a twist, I am at a loss to explain most of […]

It’s a shame nobody thought to use the title Faster, Pussycat KILL KILL before Russ Meyer, as it would have been perfect for 1961’s The Shadow of the Cat. This gothic horror film has a tabby out to avenge the death of his elderly owner, Catherine Lacey.  She isn’t in the movie for long.  We […]

Mr. Show was a great comedy sketch series, with many original ideas which have stuck with me since it aired in the 90’s.  One of these is “Imminent Death Syndrome”, where David Cross is a hopeless guitar student, but who receives a preposterous amount of encouragement to continue with the instrument after it is learned […]

One of my favorite headlines from The Onion is “Elvis Dead.  Is Elvis Alive?” I’m betting Stanley Baker in 1963’s The Man Who Finally Died is feeling that way.  This German ex-pat has been a Brit since childhood, where he was informed twenty years prior that his father had died.  Now he has received a […]

I had heard nothing but bad things about 2000’s What Planet Are You From? for a couple of decades before finally seeing it.  But it was directed by Mike Nichols, and reading about it in the Elaine May biography Miss May Does Not Exist had my interest piqued. I wondered how bad a movie could […]

The title of 2013’s A Field in England is truth in advertising, in that it takes place entirely in a British field.  Set in the British Civil War, it begins with the bookish Reece Shearsmith barely escaping a skirmish to find peace on the other side of dense shrubbery.  There, he encounters a rough but […]

Funny how bobbing for eels never caught on.  Actually, it isn’t really bobbing for them which we see people thrilled to be doing at a fair in 1993’s Anchoress.  Instead, they are all too happy to frantically reach for them in a large barrel.  Whoever finally grabs one wins a hand mirror.  That kind of […]

As I write this, the 2024 US presidential election has been decided in favor of a candidate I doubt will be good for women.  One indication of that is the winner’s previous determination to end abortion, resulting in a disturbing meme on social media lately, with men declaring “your body, my choice”.  Gary Cooper’s character […]

Anybody familiar with 60’s spy spoof show Get Smart will be familiar with the recurring gag of the “Cone of Silence”.  I’m not sure what I was expecting from 1960 feature film Cone of Silence, but it is definitely not associated with that show.  That’s a shame, as the movie eventually made of that show, […]