This will be my last movie essay to be published in 2024, and I thought I would wrap things up with a great film noir, 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, even if it isn’t my favorite picture of the genre. There is a widespread belief this film is the first noir, though a few pictures came […]
Author: placelogohere
Movie: The Rainbow Boys (1973)
Donald Pleasance has ruined his pants, which I guess happened soon or later, because they appear to be decades old. Don Calfa has the solution, with an item he once bought at Macy’s bargain basement. Soon, Pleasance is dressed in the most spectacularly weird fashion: Depression-era newsboy from the waist-up, but from the waist-down, it’s […]
Movie: No Blade of Grass (1970)
Not having enough room at home for all the physical media I own, I rent a storage unit for the overflow. Stuff I have yet to watch is at home, as well as the movies and shows I may want to rewatch at the spur of the moment at any time. I was recently looking […]
Movie: The Phantom Planet (1961)
I wonder what Coleen Gray did to piss off Hollywood? In the late 1940’s, she was in films like the astonishing Nightmare Alley. By the late 50’s and early 60’s, she was in TV fare and garbage like The Leech Woman and 1961’s The Phantom Planet. Typical of low-budget fare, this is not a long […]
Movie: Silent Running (1972)
Back in the first decade of this century, my wife and I would occasionally attend science lectures. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure why we did, whether we were that desperate for entertainment options, deluding ourselves into thinking we were intellectuals or thought we were living in the world of roughly 100 years earlier. The […]
Movie: Cluny Brown (1946)
My dad was a plumber, so one might think I would have a greater affinity for that work than I do. Unfortunately, I dread the possibility of any issues arising which require such skills, and loathe having to use them. Jennifer Jones, as the titular character in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1946 screwball comedy Cluny Brown, obviously […]
Movie: The Creator (2023)
Although I have yet to write an essay about it, I deeply love 2016’s Rogue One. It pulled off an impossible feat, turning what superficially seemed to be a superfluous story in the Star Wars universe into something essential, awe-inspiring and heartfelt. Director Gareth Edwards has a scant filmography beyond that, so I was very […]
Movie: The Daydreamer (1966)
I sometimes wonder whether I would like the holiday specials I have watched since I was little, and which I still cherish, had I not been introduced to them at an early age. I think The Grinch Who Stole Christmas would stand the test, as the humor feels a bit more oriented towards adults. It […]
Movie: Crimes at the Dark House (1940)
1940’s Crimes at the Dark Horse is the eighth film Tod Slaughter starred in over a five-year period, and the last to be included in the Powerhouse/Indicator blu-ray box set which was my introduction to his work. It seems funny to me that what shocked audiences in 1935 was becoming passe by 1940. So much […]
Movie: Dr. Caligari (1989)
Everything about 1989’s Dr. Caligari just screams L.A. in the 80’s. Much in it triggered various connotations in my mind of things I associate with that region in that era. Just a few of them are performance art, interpretive dance, spoken-word albums, underground comics, zines and the sets of Beetlejuice and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Oh, and […]
Movie: The Looters (1955)
There is apparently debate in noir circles as to whether 1955’s The Looters qualifies for inclusion into the canon. It may not take place in a big city or a desert town (the two typical location choices guaranteeing acceptance), but it does have a group of characters driven to extremes courtesy of a large amount […]
Movie: Phenomena (1985)
The more I see of Dario Argento’s work, the more I convinced I am 1977’s Suspiria is a fluke. That film is still contentious today, though I think it is a masterpiece. Mind you, the closer you examine it, the less sensical it appears. It really is a jumble of ideas that seem to have […]
Movie: Samsara (2011)
No matter how much cinema means to a person, there are few films which I believe anybody can say actually changed their life. 2011’s Samsara would be unlikely to make even a list of my top 100 favorite films, and yet it is the one that had the greatest direct impact on me. Thanks to […]
Movie: Flashback (1980)
1990’s Flashback is the kind of action-comedy, mismatched buddies film that was so popular in the 80’s and early 90’s. It even strongly recalls Midnight Run from just two years prior, where a clever and funny fugitive is paired with a straight-laced man tasked with bringing him to justice. This time, we have Dennis Hopper […]
Movie: The Face at the Window (1939)
After seeing six previous films in Powerhouse/Indicator’s Tod Slaughter box set, I didn’t think there was anything in 1939’s The Face at the Window which could surprise me. And yet, a moment near the end caught me completely unaware. It isn’t a big twist but that it had any surprises made me smile. It was […]