An interesting gimmick employed by Hitchcock in most of his films was his inevitable cameo.  Often, these would be some sort of minor joke.  In 1956’s The Wrong Man, he makes it impossibly easy, as he addresses the audience directly before the opening credits.  It’s like a Where’s Waldo with that character being the only […]

Passive-agressiveness goes to extremes I have not seen before in 1970’s Bartleby, a UK adaptation of a story I was shocked to learn was written by Herman Melville.  I’m tempted to seek out that original short story, but I doubt whatever I find there would be as much of a shock as when I found […]

As I write this, Collins Dictionary has declared 2024’s word of the year to be “brat”.  Made famous by the same-titled Charli XCX album, the slang meaning of the word is to be bold and imperfect, even a bit messy. The character played by Hitomi Nozoe in 1958’s Giants and Toys is textbook definition of […]

I have always wondered why businesses ever advertise they are under new management.  That doesn’t seem to me to be incentive to patronize an establishment, unless you really hated the old manager.  The social club where all the gangsters hang out in 1932’s Scarface is constantly under new management, which is just as well, as […]

From today’s perspective, it is baffling to consider how many Caucasian actors, especially some of the best of their time, were cast at least once as an Asian.  Just off the top of my head, there’s Peter Sellers, Christopher Lee, Katherine Hepburn and Yul Brynner.  The less said about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s […]

It is weird to see the singer of “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy” in a gothic thriller, yet here he is starring as a 19th-century physician in 1972’s Demons of the Mind.  Paul Jones was no longer in Manfred Mann when cast in this picture, so he wouldn’t have the opportunity to sing that line in […]

This is one weird circus, what with Joan Crawford as your sexy grandma emcee.  Hard to believe that is far from the weirdest element of 1967’s Berserk. That is an appropriate title, as somebody is killing off the performers in her travelling circus in a number of bizarre ways.  The first person to die is […]

Humphrey Bogart was a justifiably legendary and singularly distinctive actor who I suspect I have unintentionally avoided learning more about.  I get the impression he was largely a mercurial and adversarial presence.  I wasn’t surprised to learn some described his performance in 1950’s In a Lonely Place as being the closest to his real-life persona. […]

I wonder why Harmony Korine so desperately wants to be hated.  I cannot think of another motivation for his directorial efforts starting with Gummo and leading down to the nadir of his oeuvre which is 2009’s Trash Humpers. I refuse to take the bait and be outraged by this film, though that is a reasonable […]

Chris Makepeace has returned from his first year of college to discover, as so many have in the same situation, his mother has completely changed his room.  But she didn’t make it into a craft or workout room.  No, it is still technically his room, except it has been overhauled in a motif of entirely […]

Menacing robots and cute robots.  Obvious aspirations for intelligent sci-fi ala 2001, devolving into a bunch of PEWPEWPEW laser gun fights that are clumsily edited and hard to follow.  1982’s The Black Hole was Disney’s leap into what they thought was sophisticated science fiction, except they made a film that could only possibly appeal to […]

These Severin box sets of folk horror films continue to pay rich dividends, especially as concerns titles based in locales I would not normally associate with the genre.  Consider the southern U.S.  I am well aware of the genre of southern gothic, but 1984’s The Enchanted has challenged me to wonder if some works I […]