Blackpool is Calling
1995 was an exceptionally strong year for film releases, not just in the U.S. but around the world. To give you some idea of the diversity and range, consider the following movies, some of them Oscar...
View ArticleDance of the Possessed
Remember the 1984 comedy All of Me, directed by Carl Reiner? In that film, Lily Tomlin plays a dying heiress who plans to have her soul transferred into the body of a younger woman but something goes...
View ArticleGoing Bananas!
In the early 1970s midnight movies became a craze after the Elgin Theatre in New York discovered a surprise hit with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970). Soon other theatres across the country...
View ArticleA Slippery Slope to Terror
There are no actual ghosts in Must Alpinist (English title: Ghost Mountaineer, 2015) but all of the main protagonists – a six member team of college students – face imminent danger and possible death...
View ArticleSeeing is Believing
In 1917 sixteen year old Elsie Wright and her nine year old relative Frances Griffith were playing in the Wright family garden in Cottingley, England. Elsie borrowed her father’s camera to take some...
View ArticlePack Mentality
What happens when you get a bunch of men together, some of them armed with flasks of brandy or whiskey, give them guns and set them loose in the forest? It sounds like a lethal combination but it...
View ArticleHucksters, Phonies and Rubberneckers
Nothing Sacred (1937) is a key film in that short-lived genre known as ‘the screwball comedy,” a unique Hollywood creation that flourished between 1933 and 1940. Distinguished by its eccentric...
View ArticleThe Rip Van Winkle Syndrome
Yutaka Yoshii (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a twenty-four-year-old man who suddenly wakes up from a coma after ten years and has to readjust to a new world. This is the basic set-up of Ningen Gokaku...
View ArticleM.R. James Times Two
Montague Rhodes James, better known as M.R. James (1862-1936), was a celebrated author and medievalist scholar from the U.K. who is best known today for his many ghost stories. Horror film buffs in the...
View ArticleLife in Transition
Smoke fills the screen and drifts toward the sky. We see black earth that is steaming and could be cooling lava. Then we notice small holes punched into the dark topography where smoke is being...
View ArticleMovie Title Hall of Fame: The Sublime, the Weird and the Ridiculous
There are certain movie titles that make you pause and consider the mystery, allure or absurdity of their meaning. They can promise so much and deliver so little like Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966)...
View ArticleMay the Kirlian Force Be With You!
You may have heard of the term Kirlian. It is usually associated with photography and refers to a process where an image is created by applying a high-frequency electric field to a living object. The...
View ArticleThe Perfect AI Companion
Artificial intelligence (AI) appears to be influencing almost every aspect of human life these days and that includes everything from robopets (as a replacement for the real thing) to the online dating...
View ArticleWhat’s Your Favorite Invasive Species?
One of the biggest threats to natural habitats and healthy ecosystems around the world is the introduction of non-native invasive species into their realm. It could be a form of plant life like Purple...
View ArticleGas, Food, Lodging…and Murder
Daniel and Paul are professional locksmiths and good friends who work for the same company. When they mastermind the robbery of a client by breaking into a safe Daniel had previously repaired, the...
View ArticleAnthony Mann’s Overlooked Western
1950 marked an important turning point in the evolution of the Hollywood Western and Broken Arrow, directed by Delmer Daves, was largely responsible for that. A sympathetic treatment of the plight of...
View ArticleThe Tree Stump Baby
“Be careful what you wish for” is one of those popular expressions that offers cautionary advice for those who want something too desperately. And it has been illustrated repeatedly in literature and...
View ArticleAn Immigrant’s Journey
In recent years the immigrant problem in Germany has become more severe than previous times with Ukraine refugees joining the constant stream of immigrants from Turkey, Romania and other countries....
View ArticleViolenza al Sole aka Blow Hot, Blow Cold
During the peak years of the Italian film industry in the 1960s and 70s, there were numerous films released which never received a theatrical release in the U.S. and are completely unknown to American...
View ArticleThe Godfather of New York Street Art
When did grafitti drawings and spray paint signage graduate from being considered vandalism to a recognized art movement? Pop culture historians pinpoint the late 1960s as the time that subway art and...
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