I wasn’t much impressed by 1939’s Only Angels Have Wings, a testosterone-fueled Howard Hawks drama about a small airline dying to obtain a lucrative air mail contract.  And they were literally dying to do so, as pilots kept crashing and dying.  I’m sure there are other movies like it, but I was quite surprised to […]

A large amount of the books I read concern movies and filmmaking.  I also tend to watch the special features on the discs for movies, and even sometimes listen to commentary tracks.  Then there are the documentaries about films and it is no surprise most of those are about the worst moviemaking experiences.  The movies […]

Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was more than just making jokes at the expense of movies, as there were also the wraparound segments.  In the Trace Beaulieu years, he was evil scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester, who had an assistant first played by J. Elvis Weinstein and then Frank Conniff.  Not that these characters had any real […]

By 1962, Hammer had already made movies around Dracula, Frankenstein and a werewolf, so it seems logical the next step would be to make their own The Phantom of the Opera.  Like their takes on those other characters, they put their own spin on it, in what is a very satisfying take on this property […]

UK’s Tigon Pictures wasn’t active for very long, though they did leave behind a catalog of horror films with some standout examples, such as Witchfinder General and The Blood on Satan’s Claw.  Mind you, I didn’t really like either of those films, but I can still appreciate them.  Both were rather unpleasant films which seemed […]

1944’s Cry of the Werewolf opens at the LaTour museum.  I would have thought this institution would have been devoted to that 90’s electronica outfit which had a minor hit with the song “People Are Still Having Sex”.  Alas, it is instead a horror museum, devoted largely to the same-named family who lived there when […]

During the only time I have been to Los Angeles, I visited the legendary Mann’s Chinese Theatre and saw the various handprints and signatures forever sealed in cement there.  For whatever reason, I was most impressed by that of Marcello Mastroianni, though I think I had only seen him in 8 ½ at that point. […]

David Jason had quite a career in television, but one gets the feeling he could have been so much more.  He was part of the ensemble of the counterculture kids show Do Not Adjust Your Set, alongside Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.  That show even had Terry Gilliam doing some animations.  Even among […]

It seems difficult now to recall a time when we were excited about the world of tomorrow, and often using that exact term.  There were visions of jetpacks, life without labor and items which would last forever.  Of course, when we got closer to another those becoming a reality, we realize what a nightmare that […]

Nothing good ever happens on New Year’s Eve.  Somebody told me a long time ago their alcoholic father described is as “amateur night”.  Then there was that terrible romantic comedy ensemble piece New Year’s Eve in 2011.  Hell, even one of the worst Peanuts specials takes place on the holiday.  But nothing associated with the […]

I love hearing true stories in which cat adopts a person, essentially walking up to them, or even going directly into a house, and going, “You there, human.  You are going to take me in and submit to my every whim.”  We lost our beloved male cat, Sebastian, this year and we had found him […]

True story: I proposed to my wife at an IHOP.  There was a combination of factors for why I did so at that particular place.  Part of it was I had never seen one before, and I always thought they were supposed to look like that kitsch Swiss chalet design they apparently stopped using a […]

For a few months of my time in the third grade I lived in Tucumcari, New Mexico.  It is the only time I have even visited the deserts of the southwest, and my memories of that brief time are so strange as to make it feel as if I am somehow recalling somebody else’s memories.  […]

There were some strong trends in the early 1980’s which identify a picture as being of that vintage.  There was a significant increase in gore of the likes one had not previously seen in the output of the major studios.  You also had much stronger sexual content that had been in such fare previously.  And, […]

Jennie Linden is having recurring nightmares about her insane mother, a woman currently committed to an asylum after stabbing to death Linden’s father on the girl’s birthday several years ago.  Now Linden is seeing what appears to be the woman out and about and, on a particular night, walking around the family mansion.  Linden follows […]