The devil comes in many forms
Horror in other guises
Late Night with the Devil (2023) 🎃
All fluffed up and nowhere to go. This spends so much time preening and announcing all its work and detail to mock up 70s talkshow TV that it doesn't even seem to care it's evoking nothing of it. In that environment, the horror is as much a show as the foil keeps exclaiming -- a professional debunker (like The Amazing Randi) -- and all that is tiresomely overwritten and dragged out. They took the idea of an Exorcist like occurrence on broadcast TV and wrote it all out of a feature-length production.
Buddy (2026) 🎃
By contrast to Late Night with the Devil, this aims at the uncanny or just creepy already in the form of its object, a TV show like Barney and Friends, and it also more cleverly plays with that as a dimension and portal. But in bringing that again to the more conspicuous kinds of horror, violence or gore, it demonstrates again how horror has become its own formalization and thus, apparently paradoxically, literalization. Compare again to Jordan Peele or Zach Cregger, where context, incongruity and payoff work better if not more on the model of joke or humor, then certainly from the ability to handle or mix more qualities, senses or feelings.
The Incomer (2026) 💀
This works the best (see above) at casting through a surreal, nearly absurd, if even humorous prism so we're not even sure what the form is: folklore, horror, parody? That makes it more dynamic even dramatically. It necessarily has the problem of becoming more prosaic as it unfolds the practical matter of the situation, but writer/director Louis Paxton does a good job of not going too much one way or the other, and even shows how the mainlanders are as off kilter in their way, a sort of more comic companion to The Wicker Man. The ending, however, seems to rehabilitate the whole thing in a more movie-ordinary romantic reassuring way. I thought something more blunt, flat, ambiguously poised, about life in the rest of the world would've kept more questions open.
You Won't Be Alone (2022) 🎃
Unlike Bones and All, this horror movie a la Terrence Malick has some basis in folklore to keep it from seeming absurdly reverent for its story's flightiness. But as it goes on it becomes more the artsy reverie and less an interesting tack about being the monster and more generally the pangs of becoming. Sometimes the framing is just speciously odd.
Slither (2006) 💀
In the vein of Tremors, but a bit more schizophrenic because its comedy and its horror are more, well, pungent. The satire and the horror sublimation aren't so much at odds as trying to outdo each other. Mashup: mashes together zombies, bugs, alien invasion, body-snatching, infection, the blob, body horror, and lots of mashing together. Certainly makes for a Halloween joyride, like a Christmas of horror.
Horror in other guises
Late Night with the Devil (2023) 🎃
All fluffed up and nowhere to go. This spends so much time preening and announcing all its work and detail to mock up 70s talkshow TV that it doesn't even seem to care it's evoking nothing of it. In that environment, the horror is as much a show as the foil keeps exclaiming -- a professional debunker (like The Amazing Randi) -- and all that is tiresomely overwritten and dragged out. They took the idea of an Exorcist like occurrence on broadcast TV and wrote it all out of a feature-length production.
Buddy (2026) 🎃
By contrast to Late Night with the Devil, this aims at the uncanny or just creepy already in the form of its object, a TV show like Barney and Friends, and it also more cleverly plays with that as a dimension and portal. But in bringing that again to the more conspicuous kinds of horror, violence or gore, it demonstrates again how horror has become its own formalization and thus, apparently paradoxically, literalization. Compare again to Jordan Peele or Zach Cregger, where context, incongruity and payoff work better if not more on the model of joke or humor, then certainly from the ability to handle or mix more qualities, senses or feelings.
The Incomer (2026) 💀
This works the best (see above) at casting through a surreal, nearly absurd, if even humorous prism so we're not even sure what the form is: folklore, horror, parody? That makes it more dynamic even dramatically. It necessarily has the problem of becoming more prosaic as it unfolds the practical matter of the situation, but writer/director Louis Paxton does a good job of not going too much one way or the other, and even shows how the mainlanders are as off kilter in their way, a sort of more comic companion to The Wicker Man. The ending, however, seems to rehabilitate the whole thing in a more movie-ordinary romantic reassuring way. I thought something more blunt, flat, ambiguously poised, about life in the rest of the world would've kept more questions open.
You Won't Be Alone (2022) 🎃
Unlike Bones and All, this horror movie a la Terrence Malick has some basis in folklore to keep it from seeming absurdly reverent for its story's flightiness. But as it goes on it becomes more the artsy reverie and less an interesting tack about being the monster and more generally the pangs of becoming. Sometimes the framing is just speciously odd.
Slither (2006) 💀
In the vein of Tremors, but a bit more schizophrenic because its comedy and its horror are more, well, pungent. The satire and the horror sublimation aren't so much at odds as trying to outdo each other. Mashup: mashes together zombies, bugs, alien invasion, body-snatching, infection, the blob, body horror, and lots of mashing together. Certainly makes for a Halloween joyride, like a Christmas of horror.
Sputnik (2020) 🎃
There's a more restrained delivery, especially with the actors -- basically not the histrionic that is the accepted form of American pop movies -- but the concoction isn't particularly more sophisticated. It seems cobbled together from other ideas, and though there's an attempt to emphasize context and situation, the set and special effects end up feeling less solid with the premise.
There's a more restrained delivery, especially with the actors -- basically not the histrionic that is the accepted form of American pop movies -- but the concoction isn't particularly more sophisticated. It seems cobbled together from other ideas, and though there's an attempt to emphasize context and situation, the set and special effects end up feeling less solid with the premise.
Megaforce (1982)
Barry Bostwick looks like a disco Barbie Ewok. "The film had no credited costume designer; all the clothes were designed by the toy company Mattel" (Wikipedia). Hal Needham, the former stuntman (most famously for Burt Reynolds, but he did many more famous things) directed and co-wrote it (with Albert S. Ruddy of Godfather fame, among others), and told stories about all the intelligence people coming to the shoots to check out the technology. I'm sure they were impressed by the motorcycles and dune buggies more advanced than tanks and the disco unitards. And Needham thought it was going to be a blockbuster. If you think all that's not enough for "what were they thinking," make it to the flying motorcycle scene. RiffTrax can help you get there.
Barry Bostwick looks like a disco Barbie Ewok. "The film had no credited costume designer; all the clothes were designed by the toy company Mattel" (Wikipedia). Hal Needham, the former stuntman (most famously for Burt Reynolds, but he did many more famous things) directed and co-wrote it (with Albert S. Ruddy of Godfather fame, among others), and told stories about all the intelligence people coming to the shoots to check out the technology. I'm sure they were impressed by the motorcycles and dune buggies more advanced than tanks and the disco unitards. And Needham thought it was going to be a blockbuster. If you think all that's not enough for "what were they thinking," make it to the flying motorcycle scene. RiffTrax can help you get there.
Retro Puppet Master (1999)
Worth a historical note that Greg Sestero was in a bad movie before The Room (he was in Gattaca and Patch Adams even before this). More worth noting and a look: he tries to do an accent that sounds worse than Tommy Wiseau. It's supposed to be French, which Sestero supposedly speaks, "with European parental influence," as an anonymous bioblurb on IMDb puts it, nonetheless of no avail for his accent. This was direct to video, and in a long line of glossy bad 90s movies -- it was a "prequel" following five sequels and another prequel -- and Sestero looks 14. RiffTrax was also on the case.
Worth a historical note that Greg Sestero was in a bad movie before The Room (he was in Gattaca and Patch Adams even before this). More worth noting and a look: he tries to do an accent that sounds worse than Tommy Wiseau. It's supposed to be French, which Sestero supposedly speaks, "with European parental influence," as an anonymous bioblurb on IMDb puts it, nonetheless of no avail for his accent. This was direct to video, and in a long line of glossy bad 90s movies -- it was a "prequel" following five sequels and another prequel -- and Sestero looks 14. RiffTrax was also on the case.
Norm: The Tale of Norm MacDonald (2026)
Judd Apatow finds no bones in compiling a bunch of Norm MacDonald clips that can also be found on the Internet, or to put it another way, he makes the whole thing out of other people's bones. The express comment is made in the movie about this experience of Norm MacDonald: looking up clips of him on the Internet, going down rabbit holes of him, etc. There are some additions, material not previously seen: home video and photos, archival footage, fan photos. It would be useless to describe this as any sort of definitive version of even that experience, but it's nonetheless a tribute to that as well.
10/20/26
Judd Apatow finds no bones in compiling a bunch of Norm MacDonald clips that can also be found on the Internet, or to put it another way, he makes the whole thing out of other people's bones. The express comment is made in the movie about this experience of Norm MacDonald: looking up clips of him on the Internet, going down rabbit holes of him, etc. There are some additions, material not previously seen: home video and photos, archival footage, fan photos. It would be useless to describe this as any sort of definitive version of even that experience, but it's nonetheless a tribute to that as well.
The Naked Spur (1953)
A medias res segment with just five characters thrown together and we learn about them as they do in the intersection of a fraught situation. It unrolls with the turns each one brings. The visual plan complements this, compelling with the spacing of the characters against the mountains, forests, rivers and bluffs without the conspicuous vista treatment more typically used to show off the scenery. The actors present as interesting a contrast as their characters, each compromised or seen in different light. Just not sure about that title.
A medias res segment with just five characters thrown together and we learn about them as they do in the intersection of a fraught situation. It unrolls with the turns each one brings. The visual plan complements this, compelling with the spacing of the characters against the mountains, forests, rivers and bluffs without the conspicuous vista treatment more typically used to show off the scenery. The actors present as interesting a contrast as their characters, each compromised or seen in different light. Just not sure about that title.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) 💀
The first half is great, building up to a recasting of the slasher movie in an almost musical expression. At just the point where I thought it was stating things more than showing, it caught even that up in a formal play. And play's the word, express from the movie itself. But the second half makes more curls and loops, and even its last statement, despite the play with the French expression and all that via Lacan, without the same poetic elan. Gillian Anderson gets a great role and gives a great performance, suggesting Gloria Swanson besides the express call, but playing a more natural, certainly less flamboyant, air and fragility.
The first half is great, building up to a recasting of the slasher movie in an almost musical expression. At just the point where I thought it was stating things more than showing, it caught even that up in a formal play. And play's the word, express from the movie itself. But the second half makes more curls and loops, and even its last statement, despite the play with the French expression and all that via Lacan, without the same poetic elan. Gillian Anderson gets a great role and gives a great performance, suggesting Gloria Swanson besides the express call, but playing a more natural, certainly less flamboyant, air and fragility.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
Now that all the mergers allow Marvel to mix their properties together, Spider-Man gets to pile in with not just other non-mutant superheroes, but all of them with the X-men and their mutant world. And we get to see how much all that is the effect of the X-Men, but also the DC movies since Tim Burton: all superheroes now have the ambivalent quality of the mutants, and all superhero movies now have the pile-on story lines with multiple villains or heroes -- hero sandwich. Team-ups in the comics. It's enough of a twist to be interesting, here, that all the drama is in shop, so to speak, but they certainly used the occasion to make Spider-Man more mutant-like and Hulk-like. A sleeker pace tones down the grandstanding, but also spreads the mopiness into a more general seriousness. The end credit sequence is the epitome, a nice visual poem of New York City, but with an air of first responder reverence.
Now that all the mergers allow Marvel to mix their properties together, Spider-Man gets to pile in with not just other non-mutant superheroes, but all of them with the X-men and their mutant world. And we get to see how much all that is the effect of the X-Men, but also the DC movies since Tim Burton: all superheroes now have the ambivalent quality of the mutants, and all superhero movies now have the pile-on story lines with multiple villains or heroes -- hero sandwich. Team-ups in the comics. It's enough of a twist to be interesting, here, that all the drama is in shop, so to speak, but they certainly used the occasion to make Spider-Man more mutant-like and Hulk-like. A sleeker pace tones down the grandstanding, but also spreads the mopiness into a more general seriousness. The end credit sequence is the epitome, a nice visual poem of New York City, but with an air of first responder reverence.
The Retrievers aka Hot and Deadly (1982)
One of the more obscure titles even for RiffTrax, this holdover from 70s action flicks has some decent, not exactly formulaic ideas -- the whole line about trying to put out a book and stop that -- and a somewhat more realistic approach to fighting, but that's still at a level somewhere between sub-TV movie and amateur. The artistic flourishes include a romance montage that is itself abruptly jumped to and a still montage of the printing process that certainly economizes on expression.
10/13/26
One of the more obscure titles even for RiffTrax, this holdover from 70s action flicks has some decent, not exactly formulaic ideas -- the whole line about trying to put out a book and stop that -- and a somewhat more realistic approach to fighting, but that's still at a level somewhere between sub-TV movie and amateur. The artistic flourishes include a romance montage that is itself abruptly jumped to and a still montage of the printing process that certainly economizes on expression.
Legend (1986) 🎃
Unibrows and unicorns in an allergy commercial. If you want to see Tom Cruise looking, and for some inexplicable reason acting, like a Neanderthal, and how bad Ridley Scott can be, even before Gladiator or Prometheus, try watching this. If you can make it to the part where he finally appears, Tim Curry in the Lord of Darkness getup is fascinating.
Unibrows and unicorns in an allergy commercial. If you want to see Tom Cruise looking, and for some inexplicable reason acting, like a Neanderthal, and how bad Ridley Scott can be, even before Gladiator or Prometheus, try watching this. If you can make it to the part where he finally appears, Tim Curry in the Lord of Darkness getup is fascinating.
Day of the Assassin (1979)
Glen Ford, Chuck Connors, Richard Roundtree and Henry Silva got roped into this international production, which means where B-movies went in the 60s and 70s. While the others are oddly minimized -- Roundtree doesn't speak -- Connors is the lead and his hokey high spirits don't seem to belong in the movie, or the role of an assassin, nor the fact he models a collection of MLB caps. A woman goes to Connors' hotel room and finds him playing a flute. It's more outrageous that he's literally playing a flute. It's almost likeable, as if he's laughing at the whole thing with us, except for how with the young women in the movie he comes off as a grandpa masher. The highlight of the movie is the introductory action sequence of a man paragliding to throw grenades at boats. RiffTrax takes care of it.
Glen Ford, Chuck Connors, Richard Roundtree and Henry Silva got roped into this international production, which means where B-movies went in the 60s and 70s. While the others are oddly minimized -- Roundtree doesn't speak -- Connors is the lead and his hokey high spirits don't seem to belong in the movie, or the role of an assassin, nor the fact he models a collection of MLB caps. A woman goes to Connors' hotel room and finds him playing a flute. It's more outrageous that he's literally playing a flute. It's almost likeable, as if he's laughing at the whole thing with us, except for how with the young women in the movie he comes off as a grandpa masher. The highlight of the movie is the introductory action sequence of a man paragliding to throw grenades at boats. RiffTrax takes care of it.
Max Havoc: Ring of Fire (2006)
Vancouver plays medieval Seattle in this story of a kickboxer turned sports photographer who does fashion photography and just happens to stay at the hotel run by the crime lord of the city -- or the medieval slum mission part of it, anyway. Just why this would be Seattle, rather than say Vancouver or New York City or Firenze, or star Mickey Hardt's Switzerland or Luxembourg, is not made express by anything. RiffTrax follows the action and hair styling at least.
10/7/26
Vancouver plays medieval Seattle in this story of a kickboxer turned sports photographer who does fashion photography and just happens to stay at the hotel run by the crime lord of the city -- or the medieval slum mission part of it, anyway. Just why this would be Seattle, rather than say Vancouver or New York City or Firenze, or star Mickey Hardt's Switzerland or Luxembourg, is not made express by anything. RiffTrax follows the action and hair styling at least.
Kill and Kill Again (1981)
Next to Honor and Glory this looks like it's taking itself too seriously. Oh, it's plenty goofy, still in the cheese-squirrel realm. When mind-control villains have their minions spread in line drills across the landscape on hills and rocks for different levels, it's more just an odd Busby Berkeley conceit of epic movie-making than the aspirational marketing of that other. RiffTrax riff and riff again.
Next to Honor and Glory this looks like it's taking itself too seriously. Oh, it's plenty goofy, still in the cheese-squirrel realm. When mind-control villains have their minions spread in line drills across the landscape on hills and rocks for different levels, it's more just an odd Busby Berkeley conceit of epic movie-making than the aspirational marketing of that other. RiffTrax riff and riff again.
Honor and Glory (1992)
This is the primping of martial arts movies. It is the adolescent preening and fawning over itself in the mirror version of every cheesy, goofy, squirrelly martial arts movie. This is even more literal than you might think, as there is more of the warmup posing stuff than actual fighting. And it's not just the stances before the fights. It's many scenes of people doing it by themselves, masturbatory, then even together -- but which is the more cringy of the suggestions? -- and then injected as bizarre playful spurts in things like "guess who" or eating string beans with chopsticks. It's so cornily coiffed, you'd swear it was in the suffocating gelatinous middle of the 80s. It doesn't even need RiffTrax, but of course they'd take it on.
This is the primping of martial arts movies. It is the adolescent preening and fawning over itself in the mirror version of every cheesy, goofy, squirrelly martial arts movie. This is even more literal than you might think, as there is more of the warmup posing stuff than actual fighting. And it's not just the stances before the fights. It's many scenes of people doing it by themselves, masturbatory, then even together -- but which is the more cringy of the suggestions? -- and then injected as bizarre playful spurts in things like "guess who" or eating string beans with chopsticks. It's so cornily coiffed, you'd swear it was in the suffocating gelatinous middle of the 80s. It doesn't even need RiffTrax, but of course they'd take it on.
House on Haunted Hill (1959) 🎃
William Castle gave more effort to the exhibition event of his movies than he did to the movies themselves. In this case, with the "Emergo" gimmick a skeleton flew over the audience on a wire in the original screenings. The script for this is the kind of poor theater that argues its own premise. The production isn't so much incompetent as just cheap on effect, although it gets kookier by the ending to have a bit more zip to the starch. Vincent Price starred as the haunted house host and featured works from his own collection in the set, and Elisha Cook Jr. was another veteran name, his character possibly even more of a patsy than in The Maltese Falcon. This is another famous appearance of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House, used also in Blade Runner, there as interior only, here as only exterior, in a repeated dark shot that hopes to convey the innovative Mayan temple style as spooky, as the RiffTrax crew pick out and on in their treatment of the movie.
William Castle gave more effort to the exhibition event of his movies than he did to the movies themselves. In this case, with the "Emergo" gimmick a skeleton flew over the audience on a wire in the original screenings. The script for this is the kind of poor theater that argues its own premise. The production isn't so much incompetent as just cheap on effect, although it gets kookier by the ending to have a bit more zip to the starch. Vincent Price starred as the haunted house host and featured works from his own collection in the set, and Elisha Cook Jr. was another veteran name, his character possibly even more of a patsy than in The Maltese Falcon. This is another famous appearance of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House, used also in Blade Runner, there as interior only, here as only exterior, in a repeated dark shot that hopes to convey the innovative Mayan temple style as spooky, as the RiffTrax crew pick out and on in their treatment of the movie.
Boorman and the Devil (2025)
The Exorcist II: The Heretic seems unlikely as a central subject, as far as status among 70s movies goes, or John Boorman's body of work, let alone movies in general. But this documentary laces together strands and contexts of so many of the participants besides Boorman and his other work before and after, such as Richard Burton and Louise Fletcher, movie production and economics leading up to the 70s and the new blockbuster, so many technical aspects of movie-making at that time routine and innovative, and the struggles between financial and aesthetic concerns also as plain practical management. As well as a look at practical and optical effects before the digital era that provides a good contrast, this also provides a great account of all the factors that converge for success or failure, the effects those can have directly, including the personal reactions and thus later on.
The Exorcist II: The Heretic seems unlikely as a central subject, as far as status among 70s movies goes, or John Boorman's body of work, let alone movies in general. But this documentary laces together strands and contexts of so many of the participants besides Boorman and his other work before and after, such as Richard Burton and Louise Fletcher, movie production and economics leading up to the 70s and the new blockbuster, so many technical aspects of movie-making at that time routine and innovative, and the struggles between financial and aesthetic concerns also as plain practical management. As well as a look at practical and optical effects before the digital era that provides a good contrast, this also provides a great account of all the factors that converge for success or failure, the effects those can have directly, including the personal reactions and thus later on.
Coyote vs. Acme (2026)
Following suit of James Gunn -- the script by Samy Burch is from a story idea developed with Gunn and Jeremy Slater -- of more modest bearing and proportion, relative to the grandiosity of uplift and general movie milking, this is streamlined, rolls things along in the spirit of the Warner Brothers cartoons as well as that of the original joke idea from a New Yorker piece, without laboring the humor with too much more plot. The animation and live action are blended well, though that's more a matter of course now with all the digital control and post-production. And it manages to make a case for loser Wile C. Coyote as affecting as that for a punk Superman.
Following suit of James Gunn -- the script by Samy Burch is from a story idea developed with Gunn and Jeremy Slater -- of more modest bearing and proportion, relative to the grandiosity of uplift and general movie milking, this is streamlined, rolls things along in the spirit of the Warner Brothers cartoons as well as that of the original joke idea from a New Yorker piece, without laboring the humor with too much more plot. The animation and live action are blended well, though that's more a matter of course now with all the digital control and post-production. And it manages to make a case for loser Wile C. Coyote as affecting as that for a punk Superman.
The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012)
As it starts off, it feels waggish, but the tone, music, focus, even the dramatizations, are not only interesting because they're not like cliched documentary styles, sensational or respectable, but because they're on the track of how all this really came off. It's a study of the banality of evil, indeed. Apartment building neighbors, people who sold chemicals or a 55-gallon drum, or the detective who interviewed Dahmer demonstrate the ordinary through which, the guise of at least, all the horrible transpired. Detective Pat Kennedy's account alone is remarkable for the conversational tone, what could be taken for aplomb, in which he relates all the feelings and reactions of interacting with Dahmer, and then the aftermath of it, significant effect on his life. The dramatizations are also relatively affectless, quite against the grain of the swoosh-bang lurid types. Dramatization, whether documentary or more fictionalized, tries to show us what often life does not, the feelings people have behind the course of carrying on. Counterpoint isn't just a formal choice or ploy.
10/1/26
As it starts off, it feels waggish, but the tone, music, focus, even the dramatizations, are not only interesting because they're not like cliched documentary styles, sensational or respectable, but because they're on the track of how all this really came off. It's a study of the banality of evil, indeed. Apartment building neighbors, people who sold chemicals or a 55-gallon drum, or the detective who interviewed Dahmer demonstrate the ordinary through which, the guise of at least, all the horrible transpired. Detective Pat Kennedy's account alone is remarkable for the conversational tone, what could be taken for aplomb, in which he relates all the feelings and reactions of interacting with Dahmer, and then the aftermath of it, significant effect on his life. The dramatizations are also relatively affectless, quite against the grain of the swoosh-bang lurid types. Dramatization, whether documentary or more fictionalized, tries to show us what often life does not, the feelings people have behind the course of carrying on. Counterpoint isn't just a formal choice or ploy.
The War Wagon (1967)
The most turned-out, wink-wink of John Wayne's Westerns, not exactly the broad character comedy of The Quiet Man, which was attempted in McClintock, though it has those elements. Kirk Douglas does give it verve, his character similar to that in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, even appearing with a woman on each arm as in that, though here in a leather dandy outfit that reportedly irked Wayne. Bruce Dern also appears in a small role, before his famous part in The Cowboys with Wayne.
The most turned-out, wink-wink of John Wayne's Westerns, not exactly the broad character comedy of The Quiet Man, which was attempted in McClintock, though it has those elements. Kirk Douglas does give it verve, his character similar to that in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, even appearing with a woman on each arm as in that, though here in a leather dandy outfit that reportedly irked Wayne. Bruce Dern also appears in a small role, before his famous part in The Cowboys with Wayne.
Rio Bravo (1959)
The opening sequence without dialogue is great, compelling, but the movie settles into a prosaic talkiness, shuffling back and forth, and between different modes rather like the vultures are gathering for a variety show. The popularity of it nonetheless led to more direct corniness in John Wayne's own Batjac productions, see The War Wagon. The most significant contribution of this is Dmitri Tiomkin's Mexican bugle music, based on "El Deguello," explained by Ricky Nelson's character in the movie. Sergio Leone asked Ennio Morricone to use this as a model for A Fistful of Dollars.
The opening sequence without dialogue is great, compelling, but the movie settles into a prosaic talkiness, shuffling back and forth, and between different modes rather like the vultures are gathering for a variety show. The popularity of it nonetheless led to more direct corniness in John Wayne's own Batjac productions, see The War Wagon. The most significant contribution of this is Dmitri Tiomkin's Mexican bugle music, based on "El Deguello," explained by Ricky Nelson's character in the movie. Sergio Leone asked Ennio Morricone to use this as a model for A Fistful of Dollars.
A Gunfight (1971)
Featuring Johnny Cash alongside Kirk Douglas, this movie written by Harold Jack Bloom, who wrote The Naked Spur as well as lots of TV series such as Bonanza and The Man from U.N.C.L.E, has the speculative airs of 60s TV shows, even a bit like The Twilight Zone. But it still also tends toward a more tidy palatable exercise, making the proposition of selling their quick-draw showdown more like a working-class struggle than plumbing the hired gun life for the frank brutality or ballyhoo of the West, or even something more surreal. The best rhetorical segment involves a bullfight, making the point less didactically, if obvious.
Featuring Johnny Cash alongside Kirk Douglas, this movie written by Harold Jack Bloom, who wrote The Naked Spur as well as lots of TV series such as Bonanza and The Man from U.N.C.L.E, has the speculative airs of 60s TV shows, even a bit like The Twilight Zone. But it still also tends toward a more tidy palatable exercise, making the proposition of selling their quick-draw showdown more like a working-class struggle than plumbing the hired gun life for the frank brutality or ballyhoo of the West, or even something more surreal. The best rhetorical segment involves a bullfight, making the point less didactically, if obvious.
Dead Souls (2025)
Resetting Nikolai Gogol's novel in the American West (shot partly in Spaghetti Western Spain) and casting himself as the cipher at the center, Alex Cox starts off promising, something that seems to have more devising. But as if it wouldn't be hard enough to understand in the context of the Russian serf system, what Cox is doing with this character drifts more to vagary and it ends up more like Straight to Hell.
Resetting Nikolai Gogol's novel in the American West (shot partly in Spaghetti Western Spain) and casting himself as the cipher at the center, Alex Cox starts off promising, something that seems to have more devising. But as if it wouldn't be hard enough to understand in the context of the Russian serf system, what Cox is doing with this character drifts more to vagary and it ends up more like Straight to Hell.
Reefer Madness (1939)
This infamous movie has gone through so many rounds of notoriety that it's moot unless you've never seen it. A propaganda film created by a church group (originally titled Tell Your Children), it became an exploitation movie catering to exactly the opposite of what was originally intended, and more significantly than the line of bad movies in general, it's the precursor to all the patronizing movies of the 40s, 50s and 60s under the guise of promotion, safety or education and the camp art citation those became later. It still stands as an example of straw man argument and particularly the kind for drugs that became commonplace in the 60s and 70s: pot leads to LSD and walking out a high rise window. Here, apart from the famous shot of laughing like a maniacal monkey, running over pedestrians and fighting with loaded guns are causally hogtied to marijuana. A 2004 DVD release, Reefer Madness: Special "Addiction," with a colorized version, has commentary by Mike Nelson, a solo riffing gig in between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax.
This infamous movie has gone through so many rounds of notoriety that it's moot unless you've never seen it. A propaganda film created by a church group (originally titled Tell Your Children), it became an exploitation movie catering to exactly the opposite of what was originally intended, and more significantly than the line of bad movies in general, it's the precursor to all the patronizing movies of the 40s, 50s and 60s under the guise of promotion, safety or education and the camp art citation those became later. It still stands as an example of straw man argument and particularly the kind for drugs that became commonplace in the 60s and 70s: pot leads to LSD and walking out a high rise window. Here, apart from the famous shot of laughing like a maniacal monkey, running over pedestrians and fighting with loaded guns are causally hogtied to marijuana. A 2004 DVD release, Reefer Madness: Special "Addiction," with a colorized version, has commentary by Mike Nelson, a solo riffing gig in between Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax.
Pistachio Wars (2024)
Yasha Levine's documentary about the billionaire couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick and their Wonderful Company, with particular emphasis on their pistachio business, situates the latest version of economic and ecological exploitation in the history of California's water wars. He also puts himself in the context, and if it's not quite gonzo, more sort of DIY 60 Minutes, it's not exactly unslick in its collection and presentation. The approach also lets in gossip, hearsay, aspersion, nonetheless part of the issue, and Stephen Colbert gets dragged in.
9/22/26
Yasha Levine's documentary about the billionaire couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick and their Wonderful Company, with particular emphasis on their pistachio business, situates the latest version of economic and ecological exploitation in the history of California's water wars. He also puts himself in the context, and if it's not quite gonzo, more sort of DIY 60 Minutes, it's not exactly unslick in its collection and presentation. The approach also lets in gossip, hearsay, aspersion, nonetheless part of the issue, and Stephen Colbert gets dragged in.
The Alphabet Murders (1965)
An attempt at a humorous rendition of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot in that bleating, circus style of 60s self-referential comedy, with direct address and lurid camera angles and movement. Tony Randall's casting seems to draw on his 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, the role more so on roles and performances of Peter Sellers, who was interested in Lao before it went to contracted and less expensive Randall. The rumpus seems intended with the idea that nobody's going to follow the convolutions of the murder mystery.
An attempt at a humorous rendition of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot in that bleating, circus style of 60s self-referential comedy, with direct address and lurid camera angles and movement. Tony Randall's casting seems to draw on his 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, the role more so on roles and performances of Peter Sellers, who was interested in Lao before it went to contracted and less expensive Randall. The rumpus seems intended with the idea that nobody's going to follow the convolutions of the murder mystery.
The End of Oak Street (2026)
By contrast to Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, this is like having someone just state the premise rather than engage you with the storytelling. It's all so blah rather than even interestingly bad. On top of everything else it repeats, express homage to Spielberg is tautologous.
By contrast to Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, this is like having someone just state the premise rather than engage you with the storytelling. It's all so blah rather than even interestingly bad. On top of everything else it repeats, express homage to Spielberg is tautologous.
The Lego Movie (2014)
This makes fun of and with blockbuster movies, animated and computer animated movies, movies based on products and inter-licensed franchises, pretty much the range of merchandising and product placement toys, as well as the range of toys and play, the modern version of Candide-ism "everything is awesome," pop music, corporate extrapolation of egomania, cultural fads and exploitation of them, and all sorts of members of those you'd have to watch it to list. Can a giant toy corporation get away with exploiting so much irreverence for exploitation? It's clever enough and makes better digital animation and movies like it does toys.
This makes fun of and with blockbuster movies, animated and computer animated movies, movies based on products and inter-licensed franchises, pretty much the range of merchandising and product placement toys, as well as the range of toys and play, the modern version of Candide-ism "everything is awesome," pop music, corporate extrapolation of egomania, cultural fads and exploitation of them, and all sorts of members of those you'd have to watch it to list. Can a giant toy corporation get away with exploiting so much irreverence for exploitation? It's clever enough and makes better digital animation and movies like it does toys.
Big Trouble (2002)
Much like Get Shorty also directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, with the pinball game of characters, though not as slick looking and slickly performed, it's actually more fun.
Much like Get Shorty also directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, with the pinball game of characters, though not as slick looking and slickly performed, it's actually more fun.
The Woman in the Window (1944)
Stodgier Fritz Lang, certainly than his earlier German work, but also than Scarlet Street, which involves a common trio of actors: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. The script by Nunally Johnson is literally an armchair drama, so much of it played as the discussion of the crime between friends at a men's club. Duryea injects more intriguing shadiness when he shows up, but it's part of a staggered movement like separate acts along with the bigger tone shift of the ending Lang added, and which divides audiences between those who want the noir effect this movie nonetheless helped develop, and those who like the psychological implications of the shift.
Stodgier Fritz Lang, certainly than his earlier German work, but also than Scarlet Street, which involves a common trio of actors: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. The script by Nunally Johnson is literally an armchair drama, so much of it played as the discussion of the crime between friends at a men's club. Duryea injects more intriguing shadiness when he shows up, but it's part of a staggered movement like separate acts along with the bigger tone shift of the ending Lang added, and which divides audiences between those who want the noir effect this movie nonetheless helped develop, and those who like the psychological implications of the shift.
Resident Evil (2026) 💀
Zach Cregger makes the carnival ride kind of video game interesting, which is no mean feat for video games, let alone a movie. Cregger trusts the situation, the more basic pretending by which we already get the premise, without feeling it has to be amplified, and also understands counterstroke and mixed tone. He even gets in some first-person perspective, and pulls that off because it's in the same flow he makes of all of it with the suspense. It's that sort of fun of exploring the environment that video games have, and that movies have in unfolding, before either of them make you feel trapped by a foregone conclusion or sheer repetition. Even with that -- it's not really new territory here -- there's still the deft flourish of the storytelling. Austin Abrams, who was so good in a smaller role in Weapons, shows he can carry the movie as well as the organ cooler.
Zach Cregger makes the carnival ride kind of video game interesting, which is no mean feat for video games, let alone a movie. Cregger trusts the situation, the more basic pretending by which we already get the premise, without feeling it has to be amplified, and also understands counterstroke and mixed tone. He even gets in some first-person perspective, and pulls that off because it's in the same flow he makes of all of it with the suspense. It's that sort of fun of exploring the environment that video games have, and that movies have in unfolding, before either of them make you feel trapped by a foregone conclusion or sheer repetition. Even with that -- it's not really new territory here -- there's still the deft flourish of the storytelling. Austin Abrams, who was so good in a smaller role in Weapons, shows he can carry the movie as well as the organ cooler.
Tony (2026)
It manages to be affecting in its own way, despite not following precisely the details of Anthony Bourdain's life as he wrote them, nor necessarily being like him. What it evokes about finding your sea legs when you set sail in life, or about being so smart and so dumb, or seaside towns or working in restaurants or gawky romance, may be analogous to what Bourdain evokes of his own experience or in general, but it isn't really in the same tone he used about himself. It's clever enough and has some bite, but it tends to the lyricism of a modern rendition of coming-of-age stories ("buildings Roman" as it has Tony mispronounce "Bildungsroman"), a post-biographical movement version of Afterschool Special. Antonio Banderas provides a more unmassaged manner, more the feel of a background.
9/15/26
It manages to be affecting in its own way, despite not following precisely the details of Anthony Bourdain's life as he wrote them, nor necessarily being like him. What it evokes about finding your sea legs when you set sail in life, or about being so smart and so dumb, or seaside towns or working in restaurants or gawky romance, may be analogous to what Bourdain evokes of his own experience or in general, but it isn't really in the same tone he used about himself. It's clever enough and has some bite, but it tends to the lyricism of a modern rendition of coming-of-age stories ("buildings Roman" as it has Tony mispronounce "Bildungsroman"), a post-biographical movement version of Afterschool Special. Antonio Banderas provides a more unmassaged manner, more the feel of a background.
Sting of Death (1966)
Movie Brains Special Investigative Unit monitored the cinema exhibition of the MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments first offering. The format revival featured a tight production highlighted by reconceptualization of the door tunnel with special nods to Kubrick; Mike Nelson taking on the subject movie title as the mononymous singer songwriter sung to "King of Pain"; another wily spoof song inspired by the subject movie; and olive loaf. The target is another in the great string of 50s/60s cheap flicks to combine bad monster suits and dancing to hyperactive gentrified rock, though here they managed something more ska-like (by Neil Sedaka) and to be more colorful with the high-waist pants, bouffant and evil grotto lair pad. Apart from the laughable monster suit that turns out to be both not one and still one, this movie is also historically significant for intentionally shooting out of focus to disguise the cheapness of its fake jellyfish. Do the Jellyfish, indeed. MST3K and RiffTrax have provided an important historical record so that if you think your own formative decade was so awful, you can just look at another.
The Shadowramma is back.
Movie Brains Special Investigative Unit monitored the cinema exhibition of the MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments first offering. The format revival featured a tight production highlighted by reconceptualization of the door tunnel with special nods to Kubrick; Mike Nelson taking on the subject movie title as the mononymous singer songwriter sung to "King of Pain"; another wily spoof song inspired by the subject movie; and olive loaf. The target is another in the great string of 50s/60s cheap flicks to combine bad monster suits and dancing to hyperactive gentrified rock, though here they managed something more ska-like (by Neil Sedaka) and to be more colorful with the high-waist pants, bouffant and evil grotto lair pad. Apart from the laughable monster suit that turns out to be both not one and still one, this movie is also historically significant for intentionally shooting out of focus to disguise the cheapness of its fake jellyfish. Do the Jellyfish, indeed. MST3K and RiffTrax have provided an important historical record so that if you think your own formative decade was so awful, you can just look at another.
The Shadowramma is back.
Strange Wilderness (2008)
You can make a comedy with clever observations about being on drugs, and you can make a comedy about some other situation or premise, for example a wildlife show that gets a lead on Bigfoot. Or you can take the latter premise as just something to pin a bunch of stoner curlicues on, like this movie.
You can make a comedy with clever observations about being on drugs, and you can make a comedy about some other situation or premise, for example a wildlife show that gets a lead on Bigfoot. Or you can take the latter premise as just something to pin a bunch of stoner curlicues on, like this movie.
The Ridiculous 6 (2015)
Even being intentionally juvenile doesn't avoid what makes us use that pejoratively, but what's winning in Adam Sandler comedy, when it's not bumping into anything witty or reaching the right level of absurdity, is that sort of inclusive, good-hearted silliness. Here, attempts at even that are bare reaches written in, like the title itself ringing on something that's not touched otherwise, or digressive jags like the one on baseball that overworks the way SNL does sketch premises.
Even being intentionally juvenile doesn't avoid what makes us use that pejoratively, but what's winning in Adam Sandler comedy, when it's not bumping into anything witty or reaching the right level of absurdity, is that sort of inclusive, good-hearted silliness. Here, attempts at even that are bare reaches written in, like the title itself ringing on something that's not touched otherwise, or digressive jags like the one on baseball that overworks the way SNL does sketch premises.
The Whisper Man (2026)
There's intrigue in the unfolding, especially with the cast -- Adam Scott, Michelle Monaghan, Robert De Niro, Michael Keaton, Owen Teague -- but even they can't save it from the run-of-the-mill feeling, unfortunately because of so many crime and serial killer movies and shows now. The reflexive thread involving serial killer hype plays so caricaturish it's as if they're afraid of having more resonance for the sensationalism. The now common element, not to say device, of consulting an imprisoned killer about a new case inadvertently allows another reflection, because of De Niro and Keaton. Even something like this trying to be less sensational tends toward the serial killer as mastermind. Rarely do we see a portrayal of the affectless kind of killer, something De Niro's retiring manner, in real life as well as acting, would be more suitable for.
9/10/26
There's intrigue in the unfolding, especially with the cast -- Adam Scott, Michelle Monaghan, Robert De Niro, Michael Keaton, Owen Teague -- but even they can't save it from the run-of-the-mill feeling, unfortunately because of so many crime and serial killer movies and shows now. The reflexive thread involving serial killer hype plays so caricaturish it's as if they're afraid of having more resonance for the sensationalism. The now common element, not to say device, of consulting an imprisoned killer about a new case inadvertently allows another reflection, because of De Niro and Keaton. Even something like this trying to be less sensational tends toward the serial killer as mastermind. Rarely do we see a portrayal of the affectless kind of killer, something De Niro's retiring manner, in real life as well as acting, would be more suitable for.
Mayday (2026)
Milder sort of blockbuster stuff, cooling it down a bit for Ryan Reynolds, and the lighter tone gives Kenneth Branagh a chance to make his understatement look good. It's good-natured enough, and the rapport between the two holds up, even though the fight sequences, the Cold War trappings, the sentiments that turn the plot, and even the Top Gun references aren't the most imaginative.
Milder sort of blockbuster stuff, cooling it down a bit for Ryan Reynolds, and the lighter tone gives Kenneth Branagh a chance to make his understatement look good. It's good-natured enough, and the rapport between the two holds up, even though the fight sequences, the Cold War trappings, the sentiments that turn the plot, and even the Top Gun references aren't the most imaginative.
Patton (1970)
More sophisticated, or at least interesting, rhetorically, certainly than yarn-spinning such as The Battle of the Bulge, for either war or bio pictures. The cinematography -- both the technology (it was one of only two commercial feature-length movies made with the Todd-AO Dimension 150 process) and the technique -- serves as microcosm. The film has a sharper depth to it, literally the way it looks, the kind of expanse of Westerns, introspection and desolation, but at times drops into the flatter look of studio lighting. In the same way, the contradictions of war and culture -- George S. Patton wasn't so much a contradiction to himself -- seem less what is observed than the method. Scenes in the German command resemble the adventure story tactics of other war movies like Bulge and inflate Patton's importance in that manner, tall-tale. George C. Scott's performance is so good it may confer its own sort of majesty and proportion problem.
9/2/26
More sophisticated, or at least interesting, rhetorically, certainly than yarn-spinning such as The Battle of the Bulge, for either war or bio pictures. The cinematography -- both the technology (it was one of only two commercial feature-length movies made with the Todd-AO Dimension 150 process) and the technique -- serves as microcosm. The film has a sharper depth to it, literally the way it looks, the kind of expanse of Westerns, introspection and desolation, but at times drops into the flatter look of studio lighting. In the same way, the contradictions of war and culture -- George S. Patton wasn't so much a contradiction to himself -- seem less what is observed than the method. Scenes in the German command resemble the adventure story tactics of other war movies like Bulge and inflate Patton's importance in that manner, tall-tale. George C. Scott's performance is so good it may confer its own sort of majesty and proportion problem.
Crime family: Capone triad
Josef von Sternberg's Underworld kicked off the crime or gangster movie craze as box office in 1927, and with the addition of sound after 1929, movies were ready to hear cars, sirens, machine guns and voices to the gangster jargon. And it wasn't just Hollywood, as Howard Hughes got in the game with an independent production. Hundreds of crime movies came out between 1929 and 1934, but three of them became the standard for the era and the genre to come. All three were based on Al Capone. Chicago mobsters and movie stars were the best known personalities of the era, and Capone's exploits and character would create more movies stars.
Little Caesar (1931)
The one most about Capone character type centers on the performance of Edward G. Robinson and shot him to stardom. In turn, the RICO Act was supposedly named after Robinson's character, Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello, Racketer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations worked out to make that as its acronym. Directer Mervyn Leroy defers to the performances, if he does also break up staginess with some more intimate angles, including facing point-of-view shots. Parts of the story, particularly with the friend played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., still have silent movie airs. A shooting on church steps and the funeral procession right after are more striking now since The Godfather echoed them.
The Public Enemy (1931)
This is more the portrait of the milieu from which gangsters are created, though lots of events are similar to Capone ones. It opens up to more location shooting, especially in a longer sequence in the beginning, and developed the Warner Brothers reputation for grittiness. James Cagney leaps rather than stands out, and it's his performance, as much as Robinson's, through which American vernacular, character traits and even ironic citation, tragic or comic, could leave behind the glowering and swooning of the silent era. The context of candor, in which things like the famous grapefruit scene occur, give it more punch than gore or violence by today's standards, but the ending, of Cagney's character, remains one of the most striking scenes in crime movies, cutting against the grain of the ceremonious death of the gangster with a more blunt statement of payment on their own terms.
Scarface (1932)
This looks very different from the two other Capone-based movies, as it does from even most 30s movies. It came out one year later because it took Howard Hughes more time to get it made, longer production, struggles with censors, and then more production. The technique with more than the photography is ahead of its time, anticipating the 40s and even the sensuous approach of Scorsese. Though it looks more studio bound than Public Enemy, it's more visually dynamic. Beyond the characterization of the performers, or the locations and settings and mise en scene, it gets into the full characterization of the form: play with visual symbols; newspaper men dropped into the rhythm but as formal elements, more salty and declamatory at the same time; more generalized characterization and rhetorical function, as with the gangster's suits. Howard Hawks directed, and the script is by Ben Hecht, who also wrote Underworld, Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin, and W.R. Burnett, who wrote the book Little Caesar was based on. The slicker version of Hecht's The Front Page that Hawks made with His Girl Friday also shows how Scarface was ahead of its time. The fluid style and the play with the whole delivery system of the movies compares to another movie of 1932, a peak of the 30s and all movies, Ernst Lubitsh's Trouble in Paradise.
Josef von Sternberg's Underworld kicked off the crime or gangster movie craze as box office in 1927, and with the addition of sound after 1929, movies were ready to hear cars, sirens, machine guns and voices to the gangster jargon. And it wasn't just Hollywood, as Howard Hughes got in the game with an independent production. Hundreds of crime movies came out between 1929 and 1934, but three of them became the standard for the era and the genre to come. All three were based on Al Capone. Chicago mobsters and movie stars were the best known personalities of the era, and Capone's exploits and character would create more movies stars.
Little Caesar (1931)
The one most about Capone character type centers on the performance of Edward G. Robinson and shot him to stardom. In turn, the RICO Act was supposedly named after Robinson's character, Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello, Racketer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations worked out to make that as its acronym. Directer Mervyn Leroy defers to the performances, if he does also break up staginess with some more intimate angles, including facing point-of-view shots. Parts of the story, particularly with the friend played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., still have silent movie airs. A shooting on church steps and the funeral procession right after are more striking now since The Godfather echoed them.
The Public Enemy (1931)
This is more the portrait of the milieu from which gangsters are created, though lots of events are similar to Capone ones. It opens up to more location shooting, especially in a longer sequence in the beginning, and developed the Warner Brothers reputation for grittiness. James Cagney leaps rather than stands out, and it's his performance, as much as Robinson's, through which American vernacular, character traits and even ironic citation, tragic or comic, could leave behind the glowering and swooning of the silent era. The context of candor, in which things like the famous grapefruit scene occur, give it more punch than gore or violence by today's standards, but the ending, of Cagney's character, remains one of the most striking scenes in crime movies, cutting against the grain of the ceremonious death of the gangster with a more blunt statement of payment on their own terms.
Scarface (1932)
This looks very different from the two other Capone-based movies, as it does from even most 30s movies. It came out one year later because it took Howard Hughes more time to get it made, longer production, struggles with censors, and then more production. The technique with more than the photography is ahead of its time, anticipating the 40s and even the sensuous approach of Scorsese. Though it looks more studio bound than Public Enemy, it's more visually dynamic. Beyond the characterization of the performers, or the locations and settings and mise en scene, it gets into the full characterization of the form: play with visual symbols; newspaper men dropped into the rhythm but as formal elements, more salty and declamatory at the same time; more generalized characterization and rhetorical function, as with the gangster's suits. Howard Hawks directed, and the script is by Ben Hecht, who also wrote Underworld, Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin, and W.R. Burnett, who wrote the book Little Caesar was based on. The slicker version of Hecht's The Front Page that Hawks made with His Girl Friday also shows how Scarface was ahead of its time. The fluid style and the play with the whole delivery system of the movies compares to another movie of 1932, a peak of the 30s and all movies, Ernst Lubitsh's Trouble in Paradise.
El Cid (1961)
It's in Charlton Heston's performance. While he still physically acts with that grandeur, the wide, slow reaches of a slouching superhero, there's an almost human tenderness here, not the bombast of Ben-Hur or the patronizing swagger of The Greatest Show on Earth. They have him conveying puzzled nobility, but perhaps for that hesitation there's a softness that's different. How he looks at Sophia Loren at the long table, the resignation to the tension of being in thrall and scorned, as if frozen in that amber. Someone called this a Western set in Spain, as probably just a blurb set piece because it's directed by Anthony Mann, but what it resembles more than his westerns is Shane, the sort of weird stately, reverent storybook simplistic. It sometimes works as an approximation for perhaps the crudity of the period, but mostly seems like Hollywood distillation. Which also means excesses like swashbuckling with greatswords. Apart from the absurdity, that also makes the fights some of the most tedious parts of the three hours afforded for epic status.
It's in Charlton Heston's performance. While he still physically acts with that grandeur, the wide, slow reaches of a slouching superhero, there's an almost human tenderness here, not the bombast of Ben-Hur or the patronizing swagger of The Greatest Show on Earth. They have him conveying puzzled nobility, but perhaps for that hesitation there's a softness that's different. How he looks at Sophia Loren at the long table, the resignation to the tension of being in thrall and scorned, as if frozen in that amber. Someone called this a Western set in Spain, as probably just a blurb set piece because it's directed by Anthony Mann, but what it resembles more than his westerns is Shane, the sort of weird stately, reverent storybook simplistic. It sometimes works as an approximation for perhaps the crudity of the period, but mostly seems like Hollywood distillation. Which also means excesses like swashbuckling with greatswords. Apart from the absurdity, that also makes the fights some of the most tedious parts of the three hours afforded for epic status.
Tim Curry died.
Apart from Rocky Horror, Pennywise, Home Alone 2, Clue, check out The Ploughman's Lunch.
Apart from Rocky Horror, Pennywise, Home Alone 2, Clue, check out The Ploughman's Lunch.
Get Shorty (1995)
It's doing the dance, glides along with elan, like the main character Chili Palmer played by John Travolta and like his performance, and with some flair from director Barry Sonnenfeld and a good soundtrack of collected music and original by John Lurie. But it doesn't really click the way it thinks it does, so it's a sort of foregone conclusion, if not more than a little smug, an outsider playing the fools in Hollywood. On the heels of Pulp Fiction, it was part of the wave of smart-assed, ironic or reflexive crime movies, with a big vein of influence from Badlands as well, that would roll into the 00s and still has plenty of trickle.
8/18/26
It's doing the dance, glides along with elan, like the main character Chili Palmer played by John Travolta and like his performance, and with some flair from director Barry Sonnenfeld and a good soundtrack of collected music and original by John Lurie. But it doesn't really click the way it thinks it does, so it's a sort of foregone conclusion, if not more than a little smug, an outsider playing the fools in Hollywood. On the heels of Pulp Fiction, it was part of the wave of smart-assed, ironic or reflexive crime movies, with a big vein of influence from Badlands as well, that would roll into the 00s and still has plenty of trickle.
A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
It's not really that dopey or groany, more a sort of mild hum. It's flat by contrast to its source, the Saturday Night Live sketch about the clubhoppers, because it's going in the opposite direction to everything that made that sketch different. Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell developed the skit when they were with The Groundlings in Los Angeles, and perhaps even more on national TV and SNL, it stood out because it was a snapshot without dialogue. Even the source for that, real-life people-watching in a club, is a different experience. It might be fun to invent entire backstories, but watching that as the sort of routine feature movie melodrama plot that douses so much comedy spark anyway isn't as fun.
It's not really that dopey or groany, more a sort of mild hum. It's flat by contrast to its source, the Saturday Night Live sketch about the clubhoppers, because it's going in the opposite direction to everything that made that sketch different. Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell developed the skit when they were with The Groundlings in Los Angeles, and perhaps even more on national TV and SNL, it stood out because it was a snapshot without dialogue. Even the source for that, real-life people-watching in a club, is a different experience. It might be fun to invent entire backstories, but watching that as the sort of routine feature movie melodrama plot that douses so much comedy spark anyway isn't as fun.
The Housemaid (2025)
Rather than blending modes or smudging lines, this is like different types crashed into each other and left a globby mass. There are moments where it suddenly tries to be camp, but it's too TV movie serious to carry that off. The worst parts are the sex scenes, terrible romance novel, screeching pop song cornball. The twist later is a good payoff, the one good idea for the movie, but it doesn't make the turn on the whole mess, justify it even as setup, and anyway gets drowned out by the way the whole thing is so laborious before and after. It goes on and on, one regress after another with most of it relegated to voiceover exposition, so much for all the production jazz. And it's one of those things that feels like it has 14 endings. Sydney Sweeney herself flickers between passable and astonishingly bad, as in by contrast to the melodramatic acting even in excess of Brandon Sklenar or Amanda Seyfried, a startling lack of presence.
Rather than blending modes or smudging lines, this is like different types crashed into each other and left a globby mass. There are moments where it suddenly tries to be camp, but it's too TV movie serious to carry that off. The worst parts are the sex scenes, terrible romance novel, screeching pop song cornball. The twist later is a good payoff, the one good idea for the movie, but it doesn't make the turn on the whole mess, justify it even as setup, and anyway gets drowned out by the way the whole thing is so laborious before and after. It goes on and on, one regress after another with most of it relegated to voiceover exposition, so much for all the production jazz. And it's one of those things that feels like it has 14 endings. Sydney Sweeney herself flickers between passable and astonishingly bad, as in by contrast to the melodramatic acting even in excess of Brandon Sklenar or Amanda Seyfried, a startling lack of presence.
The Invite (2026)
"I get a lot of value out of it." That's an asinine enough comment about anything, before you hear the context of it here, the sort of cloddish language common in business, but betraying similar expedience when used for precious "spiritual" expression. The context of this line, delivered by Edward Norton, makes it one of the funniest, and the sharpest, most deft take on the whole. Will McCormack and Rashida Jones wrote it, from the Spanish original by Cesc Gay -- he had a theatrical version and a 2020 film version -- and Olivia Wilde directs herself and Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Norton in savory, not so typical roles for all. She and her ensemble have a great bustle, talking on each other's heels, with a My Dinner with Andre dynamic, back and forth between what would be the esoteric, more like heady pop mystic, and the banal, or perhaps the inversion of those, the banal of the mystic psychosexual and the mysterious of the banal. It's the perpetual conundrum of the ecstatic, which works even with more common ideals: the very thing we want to lift us to some greater plane ends up making us devalue the rest or the other. The movie is best with a bounding pace to unraveling, and settles into a bit too well-made profundity in the last act, when the serious implications were just as easily at hand.
8/11/26
"I get a lot of value out of it." That's an asinine enough comment about anything, before you hear the context of it here, the sort of cloddish language common in business, but betraying similar expedience when used for precious "spiritual" expression. The context of this line, delivered by Edward Norton, makes it one of the funniest, and the sharpest, most deft take on the whole. Will McCormack and Rashida Jones wrote it, from the Spanish original by Cesc Gay -- he had a theatrical version and a 2020 film version -- and Olivia Wilde directs herself and Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Norton in savory, not so typical roles for all. She and her ensemble have a great bustle, talking on each other's heels, with a My Dinner with Andre dynamic, back and forth between what would be the esoteric, more like heady pop mystic, and the banal, or perhaps the inversion of those, the banal of the mystic psychosexual and the mysterious of the banal. It's the perpetual conundrum of the ecstatic, which works even with more common ideals: the very thing we want to lift us to some greater plane ends up making us devalue the rest or the other. The movie is best with a bounding pace to unraveling, and settles into a bit too well-made profundity in the last act, when the serious implications were just as easily at hand.
Save the Green Planet (2003)
The source of Bugonia, which was going to be an English-language remake directed by the same Korean writer and director, Jang Joon-hwan, until he backed out for health concerns. This also partly accounts for why Bugonia wasn't like Yorgos Lanthimos's other movies. Lanthimos cooled not only some of his own excesses, but the fast flourish Korean style. The original has the benefit of being more offhand about it's story by virtue of that very kinetic stylization, but it does drag things out, especially towards the end, into action suspense concoction. At one point, a martial arts fight complete with levitation moves juts in. It turns out to be an imagination of one of the characters, but shows the source of this style and what it moves towards.
The source of Bugonia, which was going to be an English-language remake directed by the same Korean writer and director, Jang Joon-hwan, until he backed out for health concerns. This also partly accounts for why Bugonia wasn't like Yorgos Lanthimos's other movies. Lanthimos cooled not only some of his own excesses, but the fast flourish Korean style. The original has the benefit of being more offhand about it's story by virtue of that very kinetic stylization, but it does drag things out, especially towards the end, into action suspense concoction. At one point, a martial arts fight complete with levitation moves juts in. It turns out to be an imagination of one of the characters, but shows the source of this style and what it moves towards.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)
The sort of sequel that contrives rapprochement for all the main characters regardless of what they were before and whatever antagonism was the attraction of the first movie. Or has any sequel ever quite done it like this? Mea culpas and hugs and appreciation and newfound buddy meets. It's kind of like what Christmas specials do with series.
8/3/26
The sort of sequel that contrives rapprochement for all the main characters regardless of what they were before and whatever antagonism was the attraction of the first movie. Or has any sequel ever quite done it like this? Mea culpas and hugs and appreciation and newfound buddy meets. It's kind of like what Christmas specials do with series.
Deep Water (2026)
A group of smaller production companies that includes Gene Simmons got Renny Harlin, of Die Hard 2 and Deep Blue Sea fame, to direct their own airplane sharks genre movie. Sharks on a plane? Even the combo no longer seems like Airport meets Jaws, as so many more recent B-movie, medium market to bottom dwelling attempts have been done, as much from just the shark movie line itself. But at this point, punching up has less reward than punching down. This movie is competent enough to be perfectly formulaic and bland, and doesn't have even the charm of the bigger production B-movie silliness of Deep Blue Sea.
A group of smaller production companies that includes Gene Simmons got Renny Harlin, of Die Hard 2 and Deep Blue Sea fame, to direct their own airplane sharks genre movie. Sharks on a plane? Even the combo no longer seems like Airport meets Jaws, as so many more recent B-movie, medium market to bottom dwelling attempts have been done, as much from just the shark movie line itself. But at this point, punching up has less reward than punching down. This movie is competent enough to be perfectly formulaic and bland, and doesn't have even the charm of the bigger production B-movie silliness of Deep Blue Sea.
Skyscraper (1996)
Nominee for worst performance ever: Anna Nicole Smith. The voice, the face with expressions that most of the time look like she's smelling something bad. Her own performance, perhaps. While this cheap ripoff of Die Hard has plenty of other performances and features to gawk and balk and laugh at, Smith out-strips them all.
Nominee for worst performance ever: Anna Nicole Smith. The voice, the face with expressions that most of the time look like she's smelling something bad. Her own performance, perhaps. While this cheap ripoff of Die Hard has plenty of other performances and features to gawk and balk and laugh at, Smith out-strips them all.
Cool as Ice (1991)
Vanilla Ice plays the main character in a movie that justifies behaving like an absolute joker to win a girl. Good thing the clothes rack of a "rapper" character he's playing is named Johnny. RiffTrax git wit it.
7/27/26
Vanilla Ice plays the main character in a movie that justifies behaving like an absolute joker to win a girl. Good thing the clothes rack of a "rapper" character he's playing is named Johnny. RiffTrax git wit it.
Dead Man's Wire (2025)
Gus Van Sant's homage to Dog Day Afternoon, if not solely for that purpose. Based on a similar true event in the 70s, a hostage crisis that got national attention, Van Sant even cast Al Pacino. Dacre Montgomery looks like Mark Slade, the actor who played Blue on High Chaparral, and Cary Elwes is doing a Columboesque Serpico. It doesn't have the speculative air of Elephant, nor the social satire of To Die For. For the former, I won't say it's a relief, but not necessarily a bad thing, as playing it more straight allows more of the events to show through, but it definitely lacks the zing of the latter. Pacino's hambone Southern shtick is not that, nor like his Dog Day Afternoon performance, nor for any reason I'm aware of.
Gus Van Sant's homage to Dog Day Afternoon, if not solely for that purpose. Based on a similar true event in the 70s, a hostage crisis that got national attention, Van Sant even cast Al Pacino. Dacre Montgomery looks like Mark Slade, the actor who played Blue on High Chaparral, and Cary Elwes is doing a Columboesque Serpico. It doesn't have the speculative air of Elephant, nor the social satire of To Die For. For the former, I won't say it's a relief, but not necessarily a bad thing, as playing it more straight allows more of the events to show through, but it definitely lacks the zing of the latter. Pacino's hambone Southern shtick is not that, nor like his Dog Day Afternoon performance, nor for any reason I'm aware of.
The Death of Robin Hood (2026)
It's a decent drama against the grain of Robin Hood lore, if it does reverse the affectation and play a bit hard on the muckraking. It's actually very similar to Logan, writer and director Michael Sarnoski parting from the source, the 17th century ballad Robin Hood's Death, by adding the young girl, daughter of Little John, as well as changing the ballad's betrayal by the prioress. All this turns the tale into a mea culpa of Robin Hood for the violence and harm he wrought, if nothing else, and something of a self-immolation, and swapping other legendary characters, Guy of Gisborne for Red Roger, if the original is more interesting for the prioress for similar reasons.
It's a decent drama against the grain of Robin Hood lore, if it does reverse the affectation and play a bit hard on the muckraking. It's actually very similar to Logan, writer and director Michael Sarnoski parting from the source, the 17th century ballad Robin Hood's Death, by adding the young girl, daughter of Little John, as well as changing the ballad's betrayal by the prioress. All this turns the tale into a mea culpa of Robin Hood for the violence and harm he wrought, if nothing else, and something of a self-immolation, and swapping other legendary characters, Guy of Gisborne for Red Roger, if the original is more interesting for the prioress for similar reasons.
Disclosure Day (2026)
A wad of bluster similar to Ready Player One. At first, it seems to be doing something interesting by falling into the middle of things so we're having to discover what's going on. But the next segment in the apartment with Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russell is so bad, everything like establishment shot, and this is everything in that overawed, hyped-up establishment, all the relationship stuff mashed in, quick shots edited in as pushy exposition, working up to the cardinal flying in as a magical moment, which just seems even louder, hackish pushy after the rest. It's Close Encounters injected with steroidal nanobots, and doesn't show up something like Mercy (see below).
A wad of bluster similar to Ready Player One. At first, it seems to be doing something interesting by falling into the middle of things so we're having to discover what's going on. But the next segment in the apartment with Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russell is so bad, everything like establishment shot, and this is everything in that overawed, hyped-up establishment, all the relationship stuff mashed in, quick shots edited in as pushy exposition, working up to the cardinal flying in as a magical moment, which just seems even louder, hackish pushy after the rest. It's Close Encounters injected with steroidal nanobots, and doesn't show up something like Mercy (see below).
The Apprentice (2024)
Director Ali Abbasi manages a grainy enough involvement beyond the grainy look and other faux verite indicators. The script by Gabriel Sherman works best as a tidy little comeuppance with Roy Cohn serving as the example and the most obvious person to learn the lesson spiraling well out to oblivion within the frame of the portrait, let alone where he is now. There's a kind of record of transition, without delving too much into the psychological causes, something a movie would be limited for anyway, and it's a good reminder not only of where Trump came from, but the specific contribution of Cohn. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong both give performances beyond imitation.
Director Ali Abbasi manages a grainy enough involvement beyond the grainy look and other faux verite indicators. The script by Gabriel Sherman works best as a tidy little comeuppance with Roy Cohn serving as the example and the most obvious person to learn the lesson spiraling well out to oblivion within the frame of the portrait, let alone where he is now. There's a kind of record of transition, without delving too much into the psychological causes, something a movie would be limited for anyway, and it's a good reminder not only of where Trump came from, but the specific contribution of Cohn. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong both give performances beyond imitation.
Mercy (2026)
After initial goofiness, it gets engaging, though it keeps everything at a fluffed up level, then keeps making curves on the signature, looping things back in flourishes, to ludicrous points, almost like a spoof skit. Chris Pratt is workably good, shows some acting chops on a useful level, and actually holds it together.
7/23/26
After initial goofiness, it gets engaging, though it keeps everything at a fluffed up level, then keeps making curves on the signature, looping things back in flourishes, to ludicrous points, almost like a spoof skit. Chris Pratt is workably good, shows some acting chops on a useful level, and actually holds it together.
Captain Marvel (2019)
A bit squeakier than the sharper smart-assedness of the Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool movies, and the formula can't help showing more just by this being one of so many in the line by its time, but it has its perks: Brie Larson's underplaying manner, a nice twist on good guys / bad guys, a scene with a Blockbuster video store that plays more with the frame than time.
A bit squeakier than the sharper smart-assedness of the Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool movies, and the formula can't help showing more just by this being one of so many in the line by its time, but it has its perks: Brie Larson's underplaying manner, a nice twist on good guys / bad guys, a scene with a Blockbuster video store that plays more with the frame than time.
Walking and Talking (1996)
Either badly edited by mistake or at someone else's instruction, or poorly timed by the director, the scenes cut off as if trying to avoid milking, but trying to be another kind of cutesy, it's often just awkward. While it has some good observations and strokes, because of the timing it never gets quite over a staged feeling. When did romantic comedy become rom-com? The term was used as early as the 60s to save space in news media, but what we think of as the rom-com now is widely considered to have started with When Harry Met Sally. The real tribute is owed to Annie Hall, although the way these comedies of mores have become formulaic makes them not the same.
Either badly edited by mistake or at someone else's instruction, or poorly timed by the director, the scenes cut off as if trying to avoid milking, but trying to be another kind of cutesy, it's often just awkward. While it has some good observations and strokes, because of the timing it never gets quite over a staged feeling. When did romantic comedy become rom-com? The term was used as early as the 60s to save space in news media, but what we think of as the rom-com now is widely considered to have started with When Harry Met Sally. The real tribute is owed to Annie Hall, although the way these comedies of mores have become formulaic makes them not the same.
Just Mercy (2019)
What we get of Michael B. Jordan is limited to such a solemn tone, it's as if someone -- director Destin Daniel Cretton? -- was worried there might not be enough gravitas to his indignation. Others, like Jamie Foxx and Tim Blake Nelson, get to breath more in their characters. Despite touches that are more reserved, the film does break out for a heartstrings crescendo. The title presents an aporia: what is just requires no mercy and mercy requires no justice. Unless it just means just mercy, by itself. Discuss amongst yourselves.
What we get of Michael B. Jordan is limited to such a solemn tone, it's as if someone -- director Destin Daniel Cretton? -- was worried there might not be enough gravitas to his indignation. Others, like Jamie Foxx and Tim Blake Nelson, get to breath more in their characters. Despite touches that are more reserved, the film does break out for a heartstrings crescendo. The title presents an aporia: what is just requires no mercy and mercy requires no justice. Unless it just means just mercy, by itself. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Docstalk: shaggy, sophisticated, compelling and confusing
A Double Life (2023)
A documentary about Stephen Bingham, civil rights lawyer, later with Bay Area Legal Aid, who fled the country after being accused of aiding Black Panther George Jackson's escape from San Quentin, is remarkably not quite coherent. Director Catherine Masud seems to think we'll keep up or catch up to all the threads of the story at the elliptical, jumping pace. But there are times when you can't be sure what the antecedent of a reference is, as when someone mentions evidence about a crime, but there's been more than one mentioned, or you don't know exactly where in the chronology a scene is or refers to before it's finished.
The Rainbow (2019)
About the restaurant bar owned by the same people as Whiskey a Go Go in L.A., the chummy anecdotal approach testifies to the homey generosity of the family that runs the place, their staff, and rock stars and hangers on alike, through the decades of the various waves of popularity, perhaps no better indexed than by the cross-section of the private drinking group Hollywood Vampires: Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz, John Lennon, Joe Walsh, John Belushi. Though it tilted towards hard rock and metal by the 80s and 90s, the participants there and here, among them Gene Simmons, Ozzy Osbourne, porn star Ron Jeremy, hold up the more longstanding and general rock 'n' roll ethos of welcoming outcasts.
Eno (2024)
This was made with a generative code (basically a random number generator) so that every time it's shown -- in exhibition situations -- it has a different order. That doesn't work for video copies: once copied, there's no further reordering. Director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) and company followed suit of Brian Eno's generative concept of art, mostly music in his practice, which is mainly about making works on the model of evolution, so that they have a function of change -- well, different from the usual, beyond typical repetition of notes, bars, verses, etc. As fancy as it all sounds, apart from the order of scenes, for the movie it's mostly decorous transitions, with the scenes showing how approachable Eno is with all of it.
Whatever It Takes: Inside the eBay Scandal (2024)
The story of eBay using a campaign of intimidation and harassment against a couple who ran a website that commented on eBay is compelling enough, and is worth knowing about as another case of conduct that even goes on, let alone is acceptable. And as for plausible deniability, how can one sense of executive oversight be better than the other? This tells the story and doesn't get too much in the way.
7/14/26
A Double Life (2023)
A documentary about Stephen Bingham, civil rights lawyer, later with Bay Area Legal Aid, who fled the country after being accused of aiding Black Panther George Jackson's escape from San Quentin, is remarkably not quite coherent. Director Catherine Masud seems to think we'll keep up or catch up to all the threads of the story at the elliptical, jumping pace. But there are times when you can't be sure what the antecedent of a reference is, as when someone mentions evidence about a crime, but there's been more than one mentioned, or you don't know exactly where in the chronology a scene is or refers to before it's finished.
The Rainbow (2019)
About the restaurant bar owned by the same people as Whiskey a Go Go in L.A., the chummy anecdotal approach testifies to the homey generosity of the family that runs the place, their staff, and rock stars and hangers on alike, through the decades of the various waves of popularity, perhaps no better indexed than by the cross-section of the private drinking group Hollywood Vampires: Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz, John Lennon, Joe Walsh, John Belushi. Though it tilted towards hard rock and metal by the 80s and 90s, the participants there and here, among them Gene Simmons, Ozzy Osbourne, porn star Ron Jeremy, hold up the more longstanding and general rock 'n' roll ethos of welcoming outcasts.
Eno (2024)
This was made with a generative code (basically a random number generator) so that every time it's shown -- in exhibition situations -- it has a different order. That doesn't work for video copies: once copied, there's no further reordering. Director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) and company followed suit of Brian Eno's generative concept of art, mostly music in his practice, which is mainly about making works on the model of evolution, so that they have a function of change -- well, different from the usual, beyond typical repetition of notes, bars, verses, etc. As fancy as it all sounds, apart from the order of scenes, for the movie it's mostly decorous transitions, with the scenes showing how approachable Eno is with all of it.
Whatever It Takes: Inside the eBay Scandal (2024)
The story of eBay using a campaign of intimidation and harassment against a couple who ran a website that commented on eBay is compelling enough, and is worth knowing about as another case of conduct that even goes on, let alone is acceptable. And as for plausible deniability, how can one sense of executive oversight be better than the other? This tells the story and doesn't get too much in the way.
Sam Neill died.
Much more than Jurassic Park, check out:
A Cry in the Dark
Possession
Reilly: Ace of Spies
Much more than Jurassic Park, check out:
A Cry in the Dark
Possession
Reilly: Ace of Spies
My Old Ass (2024)
The cleverest stroke is the way this poses one of the most difficult parts of living on in the manner of other kinds of regrets, or choices if you could relive your life (see "eternal return"), not quite a twist, more a surprise comparison delivery. Written and directed by Megan Park, with her dry soft approach delivered well by a cast including Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza and Percy Hynes White, it manages to hit its thematic points, including the biggest, despite not really doing that much with its main device.
The cleverest stroke is the way this poses one of the most difficult parts of living on in the manner of other kinds of regrets, or choices if you could relive your life (see "eternal return"), not quite a twist, more a surprise comparison delivery. Written and directed by Megan Park, with her dry soft approach delivered well by a cast including Maisy Stella, Aubrey Plaza and Percy Hynes White, it manages to hit its thematic points, including the biggest, despite not really doing that much with its main device.
Videoheaven (2025)
Backyard pedantic. Though this has interesting material, it becomes plodding well before its nearly three-hour run time. The ruminations on the experience of the video store via movie references circle around the same sort of existential social impressions, stating lots of obvious things in a manner like a college paper or the way museum captions usher us to observations or reactions as if we might not have them ourselves, and make the lack of other interesting information more obvious.
Backyard pedantic. Though this has interesting material, it becomes plodding well before its nearly three-hour run time. The ruminations on the experience of the video store via movie references circle around the same sort of existential social impressions, stating lots of obvious things in a manner like a college paper or the way museum captions usher us to observations or reactions as if we might not have them ourselves, and make the lack of other interesting information more obvious.
Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters (2024)
Interesting mix of insiders and famous viewers such as John Carpenter, Tim Burton, Joe Dante, and both archival and new material, with quite a bit of detail about the financial side of the business to go along with the cultural output, and nice attention to contributors like composer James Bernard. Those who didn't grow up with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on late night movie fills for local TV stations in the U.S., let alone seeing these at theaters in the 50s and 60s, can get a crash course in this part of movie history, where the Brits turned the tables on the Yank movie invasion.
7/7/26
Interesting mix of insiders and famous viewers such as John Carpenter, Tim Burton, Joe Dante, and both archival and new material, with quite a bit of detail about the financial side of the business to go along with the cultural output, and nice attention to contributors like composer James Bernard. Those who didn't grow up with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on late night movie fills for local TV stations in the U.S., let alone seeing these at theaters in the 50s and 60s, can get a crash course in this part of movie history, where the Brits turned the tables on the Yank movie invasion.
Supergirl (2026)
It's a fine line between snappy and sloppy. All the elements are here, piled in, run off, but without any particular flow or pace, and it's especially noticeable in the beginning when you're trying to get oriented. Plus, there's the diminishing returns. We've seen this act so many times now -- the mixed bag of Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, a back i.e. origin story (I thought we'd actually gotten away from that), toss in some Mad Max Fury Road -- that if it's not decent it gets tiresome easily. And though this is from the comics, too, and probably literally from the comic they based this on, there's all that usual Superman contrivance. When you basically make Superman, whatever super-person version, the catch-all of wish fulfillment, you have to concoct ways to reduce the absurd lack of limit, pull things out of -- er, the air. A green sun? What, a Kryptonite sun? Or it's like Green Lantern now, with color involved in the powers?
7/1/26
It's a fine line between snappy and sloppy. All the elements are here, piled in, run off, but without any particular flow or pace, and it's especially noticeable in the beginning when you're trying to get oriented. Plus, there's the diminishing returns. We've seen this act so many times now -- the mixed bag of Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars, a back i.e. origin story (I thought we'd actually gotten away from that), toss in some Mad Max Fury Road -- that if it's not decent it gets tiresome easily. And though this is from the comics, too, and probably literally from the comic they based this on, there's all that usual Superman contrivance. When you basically make Superman, whatever super-person version, the catch-all of wish fulfillment, you have to concoct ways to reduce the absurd lack of limit, pull things out of -- er, the air. A green sun? What, a Kryptonite sun? Or it's like Green Lantern now, with color involved in the powers?
Comedy(d)rama
Little Brother (2026)
Stock comedy with delivery sometimes so rote it's like they're reading the treatment. John Cena has to bear the brunt of this because he's the ostensible straight man, but it's director Matt Spicer who makes it worse for Cena, requiring dragged out modular reaction shots. Eric Andre doesn't go over big as the source of chaos/laughs mainly because of the material. He's dropped into a vehicle that uses his persona readymade and the attempts at building a character are forced clownishness, when not pure leaps of zany.
Game Night (2018)
All in the delivery. The premise is obvious, seems commonplace even if it's not re-used, and the structure doesn't add anything particularly novel. But there's still plenty of wit in the dialogue and in the handling of it by cast and directors, so it's firing off and rolling along all the way. The dash of it all keeps it from self-conscious cutesiness or cloying caricatures.
Power Ballad (2026)
Mercifully shifts from two beaten paths, the wedding singer comedy and the big public come-clean. It's more serious in the feel-good way, but also does a nice job playing that more lightly for the ending. There's one great scene where Paul Rudd's character seeks help from a band mate he'd slagged off, that takes a path less sculpted and thus gives a more candid chain of reactions. The rest of the movie never quite reaches that level, and the payoff moment for the meeting with the star doesn't match it, and shows most a vacillation of modes, madcap, caper and earnest.
Little Brother (2026)
Stock comedy with delivery sometimes so rote it's like they're reading the treatment. John Cena has to bear the brunt of this because he's the ostensible straight man, but it's director Matt Spicer who makes it worse for Cena, requiring dragged out modular reaction shots. Eric Andre doesn't go over big as the source of chaos/laughs mainly because of the material. He's dropped into a vehicle that uses his persona readymade and the attempts at building a character are forced clownishness, when not pure leaps of zany.
Game Night (2018)
All in the delivery. The premise is obvious, seems commonplace even if it's not re-used, and the structure doesn't add anything particularly novel. But there's still plenty of wit in the dialogue and in the handling of it by cast and directors, so it's firing off and rolling along all the way. The dash of it all keeps it from self-conscious cutesiness or cloying caricatures.
Power Ballad (2026)
Mercifully shifts from two beaten paths, the wedding singer comedy and the big public come-clean. It's more serious in the feel-good way, but also does a nice job playing that more lightly for the ending. There's one great scene where Paul Rudd's character seeks help from a band mate he'd slagged off, that takes a path less sculpted and thus gives a more candid chain of reactions. The rest of the movie never quite reaches that level, and the payoff moment for the meeting with the star doesn't match it, and shows most a vacillation of modes, madcap, caper and earnest.
Lorne (2026)
Director Morgan Neville and co-writers Alan Lowe and Jake Hostetter use the limitations of the subject -- the well-established and professed refusal of Lorne Michaels to be a main subject, about Saturday Night Live or even his own story -- and the medium to make a sly portrait and tribute to the man who perhaps more than anyone is worthy of the term "showrunner."
Director Morgan Neville and co-writers Alan Lowe and Jake Hostetter use the limitations of the subject -- the well-established and professed refusal of Lorne Michaels to be a main subject, about Saturday Night Live or even his own story -- and the medium to make a sly portrait and tribute to the man who perhaps more than anyone is worthy of the term "showrunner."
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Entries by Greg Macon for the Facebook group Movie Brains, related to film comments on this website, Fixion. Text for movie comments this page © 2026 Greg Macon. Banner image and quote from Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.
Contact: mail@fixionsytes.net
On the Brains
- The Thing
- Slither
- Comfort and Joy
- Local Hero
- The Incomer
- Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
- The Ploughman's Lunch
- Norm: The Tale of Norm MacDonald
- Buddy
- You Won't Be Alone
Key
♠ Favorite
💀 Shocktober Frightday and Slaughterday Not Exactly Kosher Halloween Rotation
🎃 Halloweeny
We prefer relentless irony and think it makes us clever, political prescription and think it makes us moral, formulaic fandom and think it makes us faithful. We no longer lose it at the movies, or anywhere else for that matter. In our tastes and our responses, we are flaccid, sexless — cultural virgins.
-- Stephen Daisley, The Pearls of Pauline
Sound is almost like a drug. It's so pure that when it goes in your ears, it instantly does something to you. The thing that I'm after is when the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. It's so beautifully abstract. The great thing is that it can't be picked to death, because it's so fantastically complicated. It's a beautiful realm to experiment in. There's a magical thing that happens that elevates it to another place. And it can't happen until everything is there. It can jump in those last moments, and it has to do with sound and picture working together in a certain way. It's such an art abstract thing.
-- David Lynch, quoted in Weirdsville USA: The Obsessive Universe of David Lynch.
The distinctions between who I really am and who I've pretended to be as an actor have proven to be a source of great disappointment to some audiences. It has not caused me much personal distress beyond the periodic necessity to deter stalkers.
-- Tim Curry from his book Vagabond.