Category: Movies
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Crimes Of The Future
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Read more: Crimes Of The Future1 hour 45 minutes, Rated R for autopsies, surgeries, weird groping of internal organs Fair Value of Crimes of the Future: $8.00. It sounds strange to call this the most essential and the most inessential of David Cronenberg’s films, but here goes it is the best Cronenburg primer, the best introduction to ‘here are the…
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Lightyear
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Read more: Lightyear“Lightyear” – That’s why Andy wanted a Buzz Lightyear doll? As I usually do for animated flicks, I interviewed my now ten-year old son to talk about the movie. In hindsight, I definitely should have done this before he played in a three-day baseball tournament and forgot half the movie. Stick around at the end…
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Starring debuts #20: Lorraine Stanley in London to Brighton (2006)
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Read more: Starring debuts #20: Lorraine Stanley in London to Brighton (2006)“Nice isn’t it? To see a bit of color.” So says Kelly (Stanley) as she looks at the green fields through a train window on the way from London to the seaside. It’s a banal observation and yet so telling. There is no color in Kelly’s life. No joy, no hope, no normality. Every day…
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Delta-Endorsed Bonkery -or-the Southern Gothic Metric of Madness
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Read more: Delta-Endorsed Bonkery -or-the Southern Gothic Metric of MadnessMen behaving badly is the foundation of international drama. Since you need conflict, you need a motivation for bad behavior. I first learned to write in the smoky southern bars off the main college drag. I was haunted by cream-suited artistes sitting at the same booth, hunched over the same manuscript and nursing the same…
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My brain…? It’s my second favorite organ.
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Read more: My brain…? It’s my second favorite organ.Woody Allen is a prolific artist who’s been making roughly a film a year since the late sixties. His timid yet talkative onscreen persona (simultaneously intellectual and stupid, riddled with self-doubt and wrapped up in his weedy, balding, bespectacled frame) surely places him among the most distinctive film stars of all time. It’s a double-edged…
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Blast Of Cannon: Part 2
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Read more: Blast Of Cannon: Part 2Lifeforce (1985) Horror director Tobe Hooper made three flicks with Cannon in rapid succession, but the relationship only further sullied his artistic reputation. Together they coughed up the derided remake Invaders from Mars, a comedic sequel to his blistering Texas Chainsaw, and the box office bomb Lifeforce. Still, at least this sci-fi flick has reached…
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Little Monsters (1989)
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Read more: Little Monsters (1989)On its surface, Little Monsters is merely a fun, visually compelling mashup of Peter Pan and Beetlejuice, as well as a movie that seriously overestimates the charms of one Howie Mandel. Beneath that surface, its intended subtext taps into common childhood anxieties about moving to a new place, fitting in, and the overwhelming dread that…
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Blast of Cannon: Part 1
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Read more: Blast of Cannon: Part 1You’ve probably heard of MGM and United Artists, but what about the very lovely Cannon Films? It was a studio that took on the Hollywood big boys in the 1980s. For a glorious, plate-spinning few years it became the world’s largest independent movie production company, cranking out up to six low-budget pictures a month. How…
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The Shawshank Redemption
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Read more: The Shawshank RedemptionFor a movie that featured busting a load in another man’s mouth as repeated punishment for (and get a load of this) resisting the idea of taking the load to begin with, The Shawshank Redemption struck me as surprisingly tame during its first hour. Though never shown, this was twice insinuated to the victimized protagonist…
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Jaws
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Read more: JawsDUHHHHN-DUH DUHHHHN-DUH DUHN-DUH-DUHN-DUH-DUHN-DUH deeleee-dee! DUHN-DUH-DUHN DUH-DUHN Yes, I have it on good authority that’s how the famous danger theme of Jaws was written, by the same man who wrote the Star Wars score, John Williams…here’s a sample from his notebook entitled “Imperial March”: “BWAHM-BWAHM-BWAHM-teedee-BWAHM-teedee BWAHM (higher) BWAHM-BWAHM-BWAHM-diddliy-BWAHM-teedee-BWAHM (maybe a little ‘toodley-deedly’ here–ask George–too many BWAHMs?)”…