Like the central character of 1986’s I Like Bats, I also like those mammals, and feel they are unfairly maligned.  Just look at the bodies, sans those leathery wings, and they’re a bit like small dogs.  The opening credits roll over one eating some sort of fruit, possibly an orange, and it is adorable. Still, […]

I have been trying in vain to find a list of neo-noir films that either were originally intended for cable television or the video market and which instead found theatrical distribution, or vice-versa.  I’m not having any luck with that, but I wondered if 1990’s Buried Alive was ever shown theatrically, despite being made for […]

As I write this, the Disney Movie Club will soon be ending its operations.  By the time this piece goes live, that will have already happened.  This was a service essentially based on the old Columbia House model: get a few titles for next to nothing, then be stuck having to buy titles at full […]

For a couple of months, I once worked at a post office distribution facility as auxiliary seasonal help.  It was deeply horrible experience.  I was routinely called a “scab”.  One time, I had a manager tell me to move a cart, but I was immediately advised by a co-worker, “You’ll get hurt if you move […]

The back cover of the blu-ray for 1961’s Night Tide puts this indie horror film in such storied company as Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls.  Both of those films have been inducted into the Criterion Collection.  This one hasn’t, and I don’t believe it has any chance of doing so.  Maybe […]

There has been no shortage of documentaries about The Beatles, not to mention the various biopics and even fully fictional works associated with them.  I wouldn’t think any more such works were warranted, but yet they keep cranking them out, and I keep watching them.  I wouldn’t think it was possible to provide any insights […]

2010’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a remake of a 70’s made-for-TV horror movie.  As a big fan of that particular niche, I have seen the original film.  It isn’t one of my favorite horror telefilms, but it is pretty solid.  Kim Darby played a housewife who was trying to not be abducted […]

I’m always fascinated by star quality, that elusive aspect of an actor that makes them stand out from the rest of the crowd.  The person who, in a frame otherwise filled with people, will have you going, “Hey, what is that person there doing?”  Dirk Bogarde would eventually have this, but doesn’t quite yet in […]

I may love Kino’s noir sets, but they sometimes stretch the definition of that genre until it almost breaks.  Such is the case with 1955’s Hold Back Tomorrow.  It may be in the black and white, it may take place almost entirely within a prison cell, but I would never describe it as noir. This […]

Many of the most famous films legendary stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen worked on were produced by Charles H. Schneer.  I normally couldn’t care less about who was a producer on a film, which is odd when I really think about it, as some producers have had a greater impact on many pictures than the […]

I have seen a great many heist movies, yet have never seen one as economical as 1957’s The Flying Scot (a.k.a. The Mailbag Robbery).  This UK production has three criminals on a passenger train trying to steal a wealth of old money on its way to London to be destroyed, having been pulled from circulation.  […]

Peter Cushing is one of my favorite actors.  For one thing, I have yet to see him in anything where I felt he gave less than his best efforts, regardless of budget or quality of the material.  Also, regardless of the character he plays, there’s always an element beneath it all of a kindly grandfather.  […]

One of my favorite lyrics of any song “Slide” by 90’s alternative band Luna: “You can never give the finger to the blind.”  This is the mistake young Brandon Call makes in 1989’s Blind Fury when he tries to do this to a blind Rutger Hauer, and the man startles the boy by snatching his […]

One of my wife’s interests is miniatures and, through her, I have come to appreciate the art.  I have seen pictures of entire rooms done in the form and did not realize I was seeing something sized at a fraction of the real thing.  And some work of this kind is beyond the forms and […]

There are times a movie can push all the right buttons for me and yet somehow still not be a completely fulfilling experience.  For me, one of those movies was 1948 noir Force of Evil.  It has some incredibly sharp dialog.  It has some great chiaroscuro photography.   Martin Scorsese has cited it as a major […]