“It’s completely deserted.  It smells of dead holidays.”  This isn’t the kind of dialog I expected in 1965’s Catch Us If You Can.  By all logic, this should have been a retread of A Hard Day’s Night, except starring The Dave Clark Five.  Mind you, the movie starts out in the vein of that film, […]

I’ve never stopped to think about it, but I never understood what the big deal was supposed to be about Kim Basinger in her heyday.  Having finally watched 1987’s Blind Date, I realize I hadn’t seen her in a genre she truly excels in, and that is screwball comedy. While filled with touches that firmly […]

The opening credits of 1950’s Spy Hunt say it was based on the novel Panther’s Moon.  I was willing to bet good money that title wouldn’t make any sense in regard to the movie it was adapted into. I would have lost that bet.  This quirky noir centers around two black panthers loose in the […]

I don’t consider myself to be much of a Clive Barker fan, though his work does have some distinctive elements which lend themselves to interesting screen adaptations.  Take Nightbreed, for example, which had a dangerous tribe of monsters living outside of society, and these were the heroes.  That isn’t too dissimilar to 1985’s Underworld, in […]

The band names read like they were the product of a random phrase generator: Black Swan Network, Synthetic Flying Machine, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sunshine Fix, Dixie Blood Mustache, Marshmallow Coast.  These were just a few of the acts that comprised the Elephant 6 collective. It is difficult to define exactly what this organization was, though […]

UPA should have been a winner, an animation studio to persist to this day.  Instead, it became a fairly obscure part of animation history, remembered at best for its Mr. Magoo shorts.  In addition to shorts and informational films, they produced two features, 1001 Arabian Nights (1959) and Gay Purr-ee (1962).  The former was crippled […]

I’ve noticed an increasing trend, especially with e-books, where the title tells you exactly what you’re going to get.  I can’t imagine who would be looking for “A Forbidden Age Gap Surprise Baby Romance”, but you’re in luck in you are, as My Secret Daddy was apparently written for you.  Then there’s the output of […]

Every once in a while, I will encounter a picture I categorize as a “laserdisc movie”, even if I never owned a copy in that format.  I apply this designation to movies of a kind that largely comprised the laserdisc library I once had, usually small indie films from the late 80s and early 90s, […]

It is night, and a figure wearing a sheet and a pale mask is hovering outside the bedroom window of Jan-Michael Vincent.  When this happened in 1976’s Shadow of the Hawk, my wife said to me, “I’d still be messed up if I saw this as a kid”.  This made me recall a scene in […]

When I was a kid, I had a yellow teddy bear named Boo-Boo.  I’m not sure why I named it that, as I don’t remember ever watching Yogi Bear, where Boo-Boo was the sidekick to the titular character.  Still, I was curious when Warner Archive released a disc of 1964 movie Hey There, It’s Yogi […]

The concept of Krampus has been absorbed into the popular consciousness for a few years now.  I find that curious, despite being able to follow a trend leading through the decades up to this, starting with How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1966.  Really, this dark and cynical contemporary take on Santa is just an […]

There was a time when I hated Doctor Who and even now I kind of hate myself for enjoying it.  I blame Tom Baker.  The guy is just too damn likeable.  I’m sure he has been the gateway drug to the series for a great many people.  But it took a while to get into […]

It always surprises me when a movie as old as 1942’s Holiday Inn has a meta moment in it.  It will be obvious to contemporary viewers the titular building is a set, both inside and out, despite supposedly being a farm in Connecticut.  The surprising bit is near the end, when the set that is […]

In Ingrid Bergman’s autobiography, she writes about how much she enjoyed filming 1945’s The Bells of St. Mary’s.  She attributed that feeling to being able to eat as much ice cream as she wanted, as she is clad throughout the film in a nun’s habit.  I suspect she exaggerated her increased size during this shoot, […]

I was at a good age for Star Wars to have a huge impact on me when it was first released.  Then again, I was in preschool, so I probably didn’t understand as much of it as I thought I did.  But I vividly recall how much I loved my Boba Fett action figure.  I […]