A hearse pulls up to the cemetery and the back door opens.  A woman in her 20’s bursts out.  Her long legs stumble just a bit as she walks, like those documentaries showing baby antelopes taking their first steps.  Soon, she is enthusiastically doing a rubbing of a tombstone. The actress is Zohra Lampert, and […]

The cliché says you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.  By that logic, you probably shouldn’t judge a movie by its title, either.  But somebody designed that book cover and somebody named that movie and, by doing so, they were trying to convey something to appeal to certain audiences. So I pounced immediately when […]

Automatic pilot and x-ray spex We were kissing in the cockpit when the airplane wrecked – “Dragon Lady”, The Geraldine Fibbers “We’re going to crash somehow.” “We will, but let’s go down flaming” –Times Square I thought about music the entire time I watched this 1983 movie, and it wasn’t just because of a killer […]

Zombie Nazis on a ghost ship attack a 70s version of the Gilligan’s Island passengers and crew.  If that sounds promising, then you’ll likely have a good time watching 1977’s Shock Waves. As Peter Cushing will eventually explain, these zombies are super-soldiers developed by the Nazis.  Cushing commanded this unit of the undead and captained […]

It must be difficult to make a movie about heavier subjects without lapsing into melodrama, given how many films fall on the wrong side of that fence.  2006’s Red Road is one of the pictures that immediately stands out in my mind as being a solemn drama that not once lapses into mawkish sentiment. Kate […]

About a decade ago, I finally managed to finish James Joyce’s Ulysses after three prior, aborted attempts.  This may seem an odd comparison, but I have had a similar relationship with It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, I kept starting this 2 ½ hour comedy numerous times, and repeatedly bailed after a half hour […]

We are in a city and it is late at night.  There is no traffic, car or pedestrian.  A hard rain is coming down.  Bundled against the rain, a figure in coat and hat is closing in on a darkened storefront.  That rain has to be cold, yet we can almost feel waves of hate […]

Over the years, I have had far more conversations about punk rock than about any other kind of music.  I know many people who feel strongly that punk music is all about the sound: fast and loud.  Many such people I have spoken with believe punk music still exists today, even when it is highly […]

Some people know they have reached rock bottom when they wake up in bed with the wrong person, or they suddenly find themselves digging for food in a dumpster.  Few people expect their path their life takes to end up at “magician’s assistant”, but that is where Loretta Young finds herself after doing a stint […]

 I’m watching a movie that starts with police officers looking into devastation at two different desert locales.  At a destroyed trailer, they take note there is a box of sugar cubes on the counter.  Later, at a general store, they note sugar seemed to be focus of some bizarre heist. Already, I couldn’t stop thinking […]

It has been roughly 15 years since Bernie Madoff was convicted of operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, and it is shame there has been so much high-profile white-collar crime since then that many may struggle to remember who Madoff was and what he did. 2011’s Tower Heist was made when that conviction was […]

As a general rule, film noir should take place in urban environments and be filmed in black and white.  Yet there are a few canonical noir films that are in color.  Curiously, those movies usually also take place in the desert. Such is the case with 1959’s The Trap, where Richard Widmark tries to prevent […]

Some may think it is strange watching folk horror from Asian cultures but, let’s face it, their old spirits are a hell of a lot older than the UK or Europe’s gods. South Korea’s The Wailing centers on a rural policeman (played by Kwak Do-won) investigating a bizarre series of murders committed by otherwise unremarkable […]

Andrew Dice Clay once made a movie, Dice Rules, that had the rare distinction of not only being one of the few films ever to receive a NC-17 but, shockingly, to do so only for foul language.  I have never seen that Andrew Dice Clay concert film, nor do I ever intend to, but I […]

What happens when you make an early 80’s type of slasher film full of nudity and gore, but make it using the production values of an early 60’s low-to-mid budget set-bound movie?  Why, you split the difference and get 1972’s Tower of Evil. This isn’t just a bad movie, but a rather uniquely bad one.  […]