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 […]

I’m not much of a Christmas person.  It isn’t like I actively dislike the holiday.  It isn’t like I have traumatic childhood memories associated with it.  I actually like some music associated with the holiday, even some of the traditional fare.  What I don’t like is the saccharine sweetness of so much Christmas entertainment.  Much […]

It has always been difficult to make a stellar Christmas movie, though that doesn’t keep studios from trying every year.  Even in the earlier years of cinema, you had to sit through a lot of dreck around the holidays.  The real miracle of the original Miracle on 34th Street is what an outstanding film that […]

Bill Forsyth makes interesting movies.  I doubt I would be able to tell a picture is one of his without knowing that in advance, but the ones I have seen so far have a humanity to them I greatly appreciate.  There’s also a quirkiness that goes beyond expected human behavior but never crosses into anything […]

I was recently shocked to discover how much I enjoyed 1939’s Remember the Night, which stars Barbara Stanwyck.  This was allegedly a Christmas movie, though I believe it would be enjoyable any time of year.  Six years later, Stanwyck was cast in a yet another Christmas screwball comedy, Christmas in Connecticut. The plot is a […]

The first thing we see in 1965’s A Study in Terror–the very first frame–is of a woman’s feet as she treads a cobblestone road at night in crimson, high-laced shoes.  It is odd how much is telegraphed by that image, even to one who doesn’t know anything else about the movie they’re about see: this […]

2015’s The Wave was a pleasantly surprising disaster-action export from Norway.  At its center was Kristoffer Joner as a geologist at a station where they monitor sensors in an unstable mountainside.  His intuition is stronger than the sensors, and his actions start residents of a nearby town evacuating before a landslide, and resulting tidal wave, […]

It may appear I am excessively harsh to most movies I write about, but I really try to find something positive to say about each.  Then there’s movies I fall in love with, and I really can’t seem to shut up about those.  Such is the case with 1939’s Remember the Night. I liked Barbara […]

The folk tale of Bluebeard is at least 400 years old.  I am amazed it has persisted into the public consciousness to this day, as it is a very simple, and rather repulsive, story.  It has been made into a movie many times over. There is not enough material to warrant the length of a […]