While watching 1968’s The Shakiest Gun in the West, I couldn’t stop thinking about The Avalanches’s song “Frontier Psychiatrist”. It is a track made of all kinds of crazy samples, including one I’ve always wondered the source of, where a guy is saying, “and he made false teeth”. Don Knotts may not be a psychiatrist […]
Movie: The Destructors (1974)
When my father-in-law died, his eulogy included a mention of his cat Fang, which was short for “fangool”. There were ripples of laughter in the crowd of mourners, as many were in the know that this is Italian for “fuck you”. The only time I can recall hearing the word in a film is 1974’s […]
Movie: The Voice of the Whistler (1945)
The Voice of the Whistler is the fourth film in the Whistler series, where each film has a different theme. This time it is loneliness. In his opening narration, The Whistler introduces us to a woman who supposedly lives all alone in an abandoned lighthouse. But she’s holding some kittens and, let me tell you, […]
Movie: Obsession (1949)
I find it odd I wasn’t weirded out by Robert Newton keeping Phil Brown chained for weeks on end in an abandoned building. What I did find unnerving was the white line on the floor he had put down in advance, making the farthest Brown can reach. Not exactly sure why, but I was reminded […]
Movie: The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)
Parental expectations can be a cruel thing. Just look at WWI war veteran Arthur O’Connell and how he treats his son Don Knotts. His rearing of Knotts was apparently militaristic in nature, with him being literally marched around the house at his father’s command. Then he sends in an application to NASA for Knotts to […]
Movie: Song of the South (1946)
The forbidden film arrived in the mail years after buying it. The unlabeled, burned blu-ray arrived in a paper sleeve. I felt unclean just owning this, as if I was part of a tape trading community for some horrific form of pornography. It seems surreal to me one can walk into a Barnes & Noble […]
Music: Document (R.EM., 1987)
There are a few ways one can cleanly divide the catalog of R.E.M. The easiest is their initial run of albums on I.R.S. records before moving to Warner Brothers. But that wasn’t as radical of a break as their work immediately preceding, and soon following, the departure of drummer Bill Berry. As for myself, I […]
Movie: Sugar Hill (1974)
1974’s Sugar Hill is a weird beast, a hybrid of zombie, gangster and Blaxploitation genres. It is truly number one in a field of one. Marki Bey stars as the title character. She’s hellbent on revenge for the murder of husband Larry Don Johnson, emphasis on “hell”. With the assistance of an old voodoo woman […]
Movie: It’s Never Too Late to Mend (1937)
One my favorite novels is Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix. In his book, a store that is obviously a surrogate for Ikea is haunted by the ghosts of guests of the prison that used to occupy the land a century before. Those ghosts then subject unfortunate employees to such tortures as they endured in their rehabilitation […]
Movie: Mysterious Intruder (1946)
I have now seen five of the eight Whistler films Columbia Pictures made in the 1940’s. By now, I thought I would have memorized the incredibly strange tune The Whistler whistles at the beginning and end of each installment. Instead, I find myself increasingly frustrated by the piece. It seems to start with the first […]
Movie: Lynch/Oz (2022)
I first cottoned to the work of David Lynch through his Blue Velvet, just a little before Twin Peaks became a sensation. I even have a weird association with his Eraserhead, as I accidentally burned microwave popcorn the first time I saw it, so I now smell that if I so much as think about […]
Movie: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
I used to sneer at light entertainment, thinking “harmless” was an adjective one should only use in the pejorative. Live long enough, and the harsh realities of the world tend to make one have a greater appreciation of fare one might describe in that way. 1966’s The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is the textbook example […]
Movie: Apollo 18
The Atari 2600 had some gloriously batshit titles. For example, there was Communist Mutants from Outer Space, which is actually an incredibly solid game, almost in spite of the silly name. 2011 found footage sci-fi horror film Apollo 18, has aliens that can disguise themselves as rocks destroy our flag. And this is near a […]
Movie: The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936)
UK censors have always been more concerned about violence than their equivalents in the US, which makes it all the more surprising 1936 British thriller The Crimes of Stephen Hawke is about a villain who breaks the spines of their victims. What’s even worse is Tod Slaughter, as that fiend, tends to giggle mischievously after […]
Movie: Footprints (1975)
Italy’s first lunar mission isn’t going well. I’d say the first problem is their spaceship is a paper cut-out of the Apollo 11 lunar module. It lands successfully, but something happens to one of the astronauts, rendering them unconscious. Another of the crew is apparently sick of their shit, dragging them away from the lunar […]