CGI is rarely convincing to me, but the alien at the center of 2020’s Sputnik is almost good enough to make me forget its DNA is all ones and zeroes.  This was even more of a surprise to me, as this is a Russian film, which I assume means less money went into it than […]

It has only been in the past five years or so that I have truly come to appreciate the Marx Brothers, but I can still recall many of the reasons why, even if I didn’t actively dislike them, I was confused by why they are so legendary.  With this in mind, I have decided to […]

We will never see the likes of the Marx Brothers again, and woe to those who try to be them.  On the other hand, we’ll never see a new Marx Brothers film, so it might be interesting if others tried to carry that torch.  It was in that frame of mind that I approached 1992’s […]

Some may wonder why the 1967 film David Holzman’s Diary was canonized into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.  Criterion also saw fit to include it in its collection; albeit, only on laserdisc.  Anybody who was confused as to why Citizen Kane is ubiquitously considered a great film will surely be downright bewildered as to why […]

Interesting how a film made in the 50’s and set in the late 20’s feels like it is from a vantage point of a hundred years, but a film made today about the 1990’s wouldn’t seem as if so much time has passed.  Or maybe I’m being naïve.  All I know is 1952’s Has Anybody […]

I have a weird listening relationship with jazz.  I don’t listen to it often but, when I go through a phase where I do, I listen to it almost exclusively. So, I was aware of the legendary Blue Note label before watching 1997 documentary Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz, but didn’t know much […]

When I have heard the term “Capracorn” used to dismissively describe the output of director Frank Capra, I assumed it was warranted primarily by his It’s a Wonderful Life.  It sure doesn’t apply to Arsenic & Old Lace, which is one my absolute favorite films.  But, now that I’ve seen 1936’s Mr. Deeds Goes to […]

Among the more famous of the many renown album covers in Bob Dylan’s catalog is that of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.  It shows Dylan and a woman walking towards the camera, her arm looped through his and hugging it tight.  There’s a huge, genuine smile on her face.  I challenge any guy who has seen […]

Kevin McCarthy is trapped in a noir nightmare.  In 1956’s Nightmare, he has a dream where he kills some guy in what appears to be a house of mirrors, ala 1947’s Lady from Shanghai.  He’s convinced he killed somebody when he discovers bruises around his windpipe and blood on his left arm.  He also discovers […]

Days of the week have a certain personality to them.  I think we all have our own mental images of what Saturday and Sunday feel like, and could probably imagine what they would be like if given human form.  Consider Wednesday, the “hump day” everybody trudges through, and yet there is that light in the […]

Poor Porter Hall.  He’s a mortician who just has a bit on the side (Joan Vohs) he doesn’t want his wife to know about, yet he is repeatedly arrested by Edward G. Robinson’s police force on trumped-up charges.  I could have sworn there are laws against cops doing things like this to perpetually keep somebody […]

Legendary playwright Harold Pinter seems an unlikely author of a screenplay for a spy thriller, and yet he wrote that of 1966’s The Quiller Memorandum.  Though this doesn’t have many of the qualities of Pinter’s best-known works, this is a work that stands out in that decade of endless Bond rip-offs. That’s largely because this […]

The 80’s were the heyday of fantasy cinema.  As somebody who was in the target market for such features at that time, I find myself wondering why I was so slow to take to it.  I may have seen The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth in theatres during their initial runs, and may regard them highly […]