The choice of lens one puts on a camera is critically important for each shot in a movie. Most wide-angle lenses have a certain amount of fish-eye effect to them. Objects in the center of the frame will be correctly proportioned, while those on the periphery will be abnormally thin. This is why usually, when […]
Category: Watching
Movie: The Return of Dracula (1958)
I love the different ways that some low-budget movies come up with innovative solutions to overcome their lack of funds. One way that can be effective is to have a character imply something is there which we can’t see. This is what 1958’s The Return of Dracula does in some of its best moments. The […]
Movie: If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971)
Having survived the first half, the “sleaze” half, of Indicator’s Ormond family box set, we now progress to the faith-based films family patriarch Ron would focus on exclusively for the rest of his life. For a while after that, his son Tim would take the reins for a few more such features. This abrupt change […]
Movie: The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
The House the Mouse Built was in a sad state in the 1980’s. Its attempts at slightly more mature live-action films (such as The Black Hole, Tron and Watcher in the Woods) had underperformed to different extents. Its animated feature The Black Cauldron was a massive financial failure which wasn’t very well-received critically, either. Disney […]
Movie: Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
Billy Wilder wrote or directed some of the best movies of the twentieth century, often handling both duties for the same film. Movies like Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity and Some Like It Hot. I felt he started losing his way in the 1960’s and, for most of the time I was watching 1964’s Kiss Me, […]
Movie: The Exotic Ones (1968)
By this point in the Powerhouse/Indicator’s Ormond Family box set, I had been subjected to somebody’s vacation footage of Africa, real surgery footage, an illustration of a man who has a 100-pound testicular tumor, a bloated and washed-up sexpot, dirt track racing, chain gangs and a husband-and-wife harmonica duo. I thought I had hit every […]
Movie: Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948)
William Powell and Ann Blythe star as the titular characters in 1948’s Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. I like both actors, and I thought this was going to be a light and breezy comedy. Instead, I got something that I’m imagining was awkward in its original release, and will keep getting more uncomfortable over time. […]
Movie: To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
The Los Angeles branch of the Secret Service needs to have a training program for its agents, to educate each of them to never go on a mission alone. If 1985’s To Live and Die in L.A. is to believed, the agency loses an employee almost every time this happens. I couldn’t think of a […]
Movie: Girl from Tobacco Row (1966)
Another movie from the first half of the Powerhouse/Indicator box set From Hollywood to Heaven: The Lost and Saved films of the Ormond Family. 1966’s Girl from Tobacco is the second-to-last movie in the “sleaze” half of the set. I am so very tired. A pre-credits sequence gave me false hope. Well, as much hope […]
Movie: Beware! The Blob (1972)
When I say one can learn more about films from the worst movies than they can from the best, I can think of few better examples of this logic than 1972’s Beware! The Blob. This is a movie that has some aspects filmmakers with more experience, or better taste, wouldn’t have allowed. And this picture […]
Movie: Cry Vengeance (1954)
When you watch enough noir, you get used to seeing somebody tailing another and suddenly having to duck behind something. Usually, the pursuer conceals themselves behind the corner of a building, or a pillar, or in a doorway. But 1954’s Cry Vengeance has the only occurrence I have seen of somebody hiding behind a totem […]
Movie: Forty Acre Feud (1965)
When I was growing up, I was marinated in a constant stream of country music my grandparents played. Their tastes ran largely to the 1960’s and earlier. It is only now, with the benefit of hindsight that I can see their choices weren’t that bad overall. That said, I hated the music at the time […]
Movie: The Giant Claw (1957)
The first three movies in the blu-ray box set Cold War Creatures: Four Films from Sam Katzman truly astonished me. One was a unique horror/sci-fi/noir hybrid, another reinvented the werewolf trope. The last was a feature about undead pirates and which had the dreamlike vibe of I Walked with a Zombie. The fourth picture is […]
Movie: Cry Danger (1951)
Is there anything more instantly noir than trains? Probably the only genre with a stronger association with that mode of transport is the western. 1951’s Cry Danger has its opening titles over various footage of trains in motion. It is a signal we are in noir territory, and the film that follows is one of […]
Movie: White Lightnin’ Road (1964)
A slightly deflated blow-up sex doll of Marilyn Monroe covered in a thick layer of Vasoline. A mentally-challenged toddler in a platinum-blonde fright wig, mouth agape at all times. These are but a couple of the images that came to mind watching Arline Hunter in 1964’s White Lightnin’ Road. This picture is the deep-fried Twinkie […]