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David Lynch has repeatedly said he is more interested in questions than answers.  1992’s The Music of Chance isn’t a Lynch picture; however, it has an intriguing premise which left a few threads entirely resolved at the end. But this is the rare kind of movie where I accepted the lack of complete closure.  I […]

While watching 1973 UK horror film The Mutations, I couldn’t help but think of the theme to The Residents’s Freak Show album: “Everyone comes to the freak show/to laugh at the freaks and the geeks/Everyone comes to the freak show/but nobody laughs when they leave.” There are real “freaks”, or people with various birth defects, […]

I didn’t know what to expect from this movie, but I doubt it is what I have just seen.  Actually, I’m not entirely certain what I saw, though I had a great time watching whatever it was. First thing I didn’t expect is this is a musical.  Actually, almost all the musical numbers except one […]

I have only been to Memphis once.  Primarily, it was to make the sacred pilgrimage to Graceland.  While there, we also went to the Stax Museum and Sun Studios, which are also amazing.  Then I started wondering if was possible to see Ardent Studios, where many amazing albums were recorded. The Replacements recorded Pleased to […]

Jimmy Stewart flew 20 combat missions in WWII, so he seems a natural choice as a pilot in 1965’s Flight of the Phoenix.  What doesn’t seem so natural is this is a rougher, harder Stewart than we have seen before. Before this picture, there had been glimpses of a range beyond his “aw shucks” persona.  […]

2022 “horror” movie Enys Men stars Mary Woodvine, in what is nearly a solo performance as a scientist losing a grasp on reality in her study of an isolated group of strange flowers, on a very deserted island (if you don’t count all the ghosts and/or figments of her imagination).  For this essay, the critic […]

Many years ago, I had the misfortune to have my hearing go awry for a couple of months.  I have always loved music even more than movies or books, so it was especially devastating to have songs I knew every note of turn into these nightmarish cacophonies.  Still, I forced myself to listen to music […]

A couple of years ago, a Danish show for children ages four to eight made news around the world because the title character had a prehensile penis that he employs as various tools.  This came to mind when as I watched 2022’s Moloch, a folk horror movie about a curse handed down though generations of […]

I was somehow completely oblivious to the existence of 2011’s Priest, a big-budget action/vampire (note how I didn’t use the word “horror”) movie.  It is unlikely I failed to miss all advertising for it at the time of its release, and yet I have zero recollection of it.  Courtesy of a budget twofer bluray release […]

Back-to-back Stanley Kramer movies—what was I thinking?  It wasn’t a conscious decision, as I actually grabbed two discs more or less at random.  At least, I didn’t realize at the time they shared the same director. Many directors have a signature style, but I have trouble finding consistency across Kramer’s body of work.  Here I […]

I wish I could review just the first half-hour or so of this 2 ½ hour film.  The Music Man starts out strong from the first frame.  Miniature marching band figures animated through stop-motion are used in the opening credits.  Columns of the figures spell out some names.  For some titles, they form outlines of […]

1997’s Hysteria is the kind of movie which I feel justifies my purchases of cheap discs at places like Hamilton Books.  If it hadn’t been for seeing this bluray in one of their monthly drops, I like would never have been aware of this title.  And this is a deeply weird, thought-provoking film I’m glad […]