One of the worst waits I have experienced for something was a wasted day spent at the local Social Security office.  All I needed to do was change my email address they had on file, and bureaucracy mandated this could only be done in person.  I was there before the office opened for the day […]

In my essay on Elmer Gantry, I said to beware of all enterprises taking place in tents.  Now having seen 1966’s The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, I’m going to classify as tents inflatable plastic domes capable of holding 300 people. The titular dome was purchased by Robert Gentry and Sharon Henesy, a duo whose […]

Few people have portrayed somebody who can hold a grudge indefinitely as well as Robert Ryan.  In 1948’s Act of Violence, we see glimpses of him on the long bus ride from New York City to Los Angeles, and he has murder in his heart the entire way.  His goal is to kill Van Heflin, […]

James Baskett is not looking healthy in 1943’s Revenge of the Zombies.  He would be a lot more lively three years later in Song of the South.  Then again, there is a good reason the man looks dead tired here.  He is, in fact, dead. Or, given the title, undead.  Y’know, not the type of […]

Quick and easy movie test: what does the title acronym of 1984’s C.H.U.D. stand for?  If you said “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller”, you’re right!  Aaand you’re wrong.  The definition everybody thinks it is comes from George Martin’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission stooge. He has a report with that cryptic acronym on it and Daniel Stern and […]

Richard Widmark played some memorable villains in noirs such as 1947’s Kiss of Death, where he gleefully pushed an elderly wheelchair-bound woman off the top of a staircase.  He doesn’t get the opportunity to do such things 21 years later in Madigan, but he still acts like a complete douche and this time he’s supposed […]

A late interest in gospel showed me the Devil doesn’t always have the best music, but you wouldn’t know that from Cabin in the Sky.  With Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong in the old trickster’s corner, the man upstairs just can’t win.  Satan also has the best choreography.  Consider the entirety of the climatic scene […]

I have always been obsessed with the moon, much to the bemusement of some who seem to believe one must be simple-minded to love something that has always been, or always will be, there.  But this is why I love it.  It is why circles are so central to our concept of art and beauty.  […]

The blu-ray box set Strange New Worlds: Science Fiction at DEFA has paid off in some weird dividends.  One movie on it is amusingly naive (The Silent Star), one is melancholy and curiously haunting (Eolemea) and another is fascinating in its distinctive awfulness (Signals: A Space Adventure).  The last and most recent film on the […]

One of the most indelible images in cinema history is Cary Grant being chased by a crop dusting plane in North by Northwest.  1973’s Charley Varrick had me wondering if the titular character played by Walter Matthau might have been at the controls of that. This is an interesting character, a former acrobatic flier turned […]

Despite having a great many faults, I hope one of them isn’t suffering from male pattern insecurity.  Now that I’m deep in middle age, it is a bit too late to buy a sports car or start a dalliance with a much younger woman.  I am doing the bare minimum to retain what remains of […]

I am a big fan of video games of the 70s and early 80s and collect fliers for those.  For many of these games, it is the closest I will ever get to playing them or, at least, seeing the cabinet.  1975’s Shark Jaws is a big one for me, this being the only game […]

In 1989, a friend and I had been watching the music video for The Jesus & Mary Chain’s “Blues from a Gun” when I remarked in awe that this was the coolest band in the world I had ever seen.  Keep in mind this was pre-Internet and one was lucky to catch on MTV airings […]

I have seen different films for a myriad various reasons in the past, but 1945’s Mildred Pierce is the first time I have seen a picture because it was the name of a Sonic Youth song.  I still don’t know why the track is called that, even after seeing this picture a second time.  Really, […]

1968’s Boom! Is largely remembered today for being a colossal bomb at the box office, an aspect of it some people seem to enjoy in a spirit of schadenfreude.  One cannot help but consider how the title was a prophesy foretold, though I personally think it is better than the original name of the Tennessee […]