Movie: The Turning Point (1952)

There’s an odd recurring trope in noir movies where a reporter takes the initiative to do the kind of investigations it seems police should be handling.  In 1952’s The Turning Point, William Holden plays a newspaper reporter who, for whatever reason, keeps doing what should be his friend’s job, namely that of special prosecutor. That […]

Movie: Say Amen, Somebody (1982)

I am not religious.  I am not Black.  And yet I feel a strong attraction to gospel music. Admittedly, the kind of gospel I prefer is gritty, lo-fi and from the 60’s and early 70’s—much like the majority of the garage rock I like.  I don’t believe I enjoy this music in a patronizing way, […]

Movie: The Nutty Professor (1963)

I’ll confess: I have been holding a bias against Jerry Lewis without actually watching any of his movies. I’m afraid his legend precedes him.  The clips I have seen of him shamelessly mugging.  The way we look down on the French for how much they supposedly love him.  His notoriety for being one of the […]

Movie: War of the Worlds (1953)

I try to not notice the wires that are inevitably visible in the effects in 50’s science fiction.  So here was something that shocked me: not only did I not once accidentally see wires suspending George Pal’s spaceships in War of the Worlds, I couldn’t even find them when I started looking for them.  As […]

Book: Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, 1994)

Strange but apparently true: stealth aircraft are so effective at avoiding radar, bats fly into them.  I like bats, so I wasn’t thrilled to learn this.  The aircraft also deflect sonar, which makes it almost impossible to take a Polaroid picture of one.  Those types of cameras use a form of sonar to auto-focus, which […]

Movie: Get Back (2021)

I have always struggled with the albums and films that resulted from The Beatles sessions first released as the album Let It Be. The making of the previous album The Beatles (everybody calls it The White Album) was nearly their undoing, as they largely recorded as four solo performers.  The idea behind the Let It […]

Movie: Significant Other (2022)

There’s so little I can say about 2022’s Significant Other, it feels almost pointless to write about it.  I’m worried that whatever I choose to single out from it may provide too many clues for new viewers.  And, yet, I’m going to give it my best shot.  We open on a static shot of a […]

Movie: Rope of Sand (1949)

“Copyblancas”: that’s the word I finally came up with for all the films that try and fail to recapture the magic of Casablanca.  1949’s Rope of Sand has that film’s Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre.  It is also set in Africa; albeit, in South Africa this time.  Quite a bit of the action […]

Movie: Frieda (1947)

As soon as there’s an “us”, there’s a “them”.  The 1947 UK film Frieda is ostensibly about a German girl who weds an Englishman and faces the scorn of a great many common folk, each of whom probably believes they don’t have any biases.  Even those who acknowledge this bias within them seem to believe […]

Movie: Five (1955)

It is telling that nuclear holocaust films seemed to have been produced in the greatest number in the 50s and the 80s, two eras when the world felt especially close to that becoming a reality. 1955’s Five is, I believe, the earliest of this type of picture.  The core group of this is four, and […]

Movie: Kindred (2020)

I’ll keep it short for a change. 2020’s Kindred is a British thriller that is largely a variation on the setup of Rosemary’s Baby. That’s not to say this film is derivative—more like it will appeal to those who like that type of movie. Tamara Lawrence is a pregnant woman imprisoned in the house of […]

Movie: Brainstorm (1983)

I remember commercials for Brainstorm when I was a kid and wanting to see it.  I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to drag my parents to take me to a screening, nor why I never bothered to look for it in the intervening decades. But now I have seen it, and I’m glad I […]