Category: Watching

I try to not notice the wires that are inevitably visible in the effects in 50’s science fiction.  So here was something that shocked me: not only did I not once accidentally see wires suspending George Pal’s spaceships in War of the Worlds, I couldn’t even find them when I started looking for them.  As […]

I have always struggled with the albums and films that resulted from The Beatles sessions first released as the album Let It Be. The making of the previous album The Beatles (everybody calls it The White Album) was nearly their undoing, as they largely recorded as four solo performers.  The idea behind the Let It […]

There’s so little I can say about 2022’s Significant Other, it feels almost pointless to write about it.  I’m worried that whatever I choose to single out from it may provide too many clues for new viewers.  And, yet, I’m going to give it my best shot.  We open on a static shot of a […]

“Copyblancas”: that’s the word I finally came up with for all the films that try and fail to recapture the magic of Casablanca.  1949’s Rope of Sand has that film’s Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre.  It is also set in Africa; albeit, in South Africa this time.  Quite a bit of the action […]

As soon as there’s an “us”, there’s a “them”.  The 1947 UK film Frieda is ostensibly about a German girl who weds an Englishman and faces the scorn of a great many common folk, each of whom probably believes they don’t have any biases.  Even those who acknowledge this bias within them seem to believe […]

It is telling that nuclear holocaust films seemed to have been produced in the greatest number in the 50s and the 80s, two eras when the world felt especially close to that becoming a reality. 1955’s Five is, I believe, the earliest of this type of picture.  The core group of this is four, and […]

Here is the description of 1936’s The Petrified Forest from IMDB: “A waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert”.  That sounds like the start of some tired old joke.  If there was such a joke, I would probably enjoy it more than I did this […]

I’ll keep it short for a change. 2020’s Kindred is a British thriller that is largely a variation on the setup of Rosemary’s Baby. That’s not to say this film is derivative—more like it will appeal to those who like that type of movie. Tamara Lawrence is a pregnant woman imprisoned in the house of […]

I remember commercials for Brainstorm when I was a kid and wanting to see it.  I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to drag my parents to take me to a screening, nor why I never bothered to look for it in the intervening decades. But now I have seen it, and I’m glad I […]

The Outwaters is, as of this writing, the latest found footage sensation.  It was written by, directed by and starring Robbie Banfitch, with his brother Scott co-starring.  Here is how I imagine the conversation went between them as they decided to make this film… Robbie: “Waaaasuuuuup!” Scott: “ Waaaaasuuuuuuup!” “Dude, I have this bitchin’ idea!” […]

I love Futurama, and one of my most favorite scenes in the series involves a character asking a giant, diabolical, floating brain questions only an eternal being can answer.  One question is “what really killed the dinosaurs?”, in reply to which the brain bellows “MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”.  Cut to giant floating brains zapping dinosaurs with lightning bolts. […]

As a middle-aged, suburban, CIS man, I’m probably not going to be the best judge of a highly-experimental, post-apocalyptic, super lo-fi, lesbian film.  Lest you think my description of 1992’s Flaming Ears is less than objective, this is the description of the movie from the site of its US distributor: “Super-8 DIY filmmaking at its […]

I often stumble upon movies through a bizarre series of circumstances.  Often, I find my process is like a river, with one movie leading to another through circuitous routes. So I ended up seeing 2021’s She Will because I recently saw Alice Krige in 1980’s Ghost Story and realized I haven’t seen her in anything […]

Some of the most obscure titles in cinematic history have been released on disc, so it makes it even more frustrating when there’s one that hasn’t been given the dvd or blu-ray treatment yet.  I’m hoping what I am about to write will no longer be true at some point in the near future: the […]

Two years after Hammer Studios made the feature film of The Quatermass Xperiment, they made this sequel.  Wisely opting to not take any chances, the sequel has nearly the same people behind the camera, and at least one very important cast member reappearing in front of it. Brian Donlevy again portrays the titular professor.  In […]