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A worthy sequel to the excellent original. Thoroughly enjoyable, exciting, was very happy to have more Jon Bernthal playing against Ben Affleck. I'd be good with an ant cubed.

Three stars is probably a bit generous, but 2 1/2 doesn't seem like enough. I had seen this way back when it came out and I thinking it was pretty entertaining, but not great. Some good moments. 25 years later I feel pretty much the same. I like Schwarzenegger, Kevin Pollock is amusing. Gabriel Byrne, not quite deciding on an accent, looks like he's having a good time playing the devil. The effects are still pretty good, although even as much as I enjoy miniature shots they got a little overconfident with a couple of the close-ups of the subway train. Still, it's a pretty impressive sequence and I love that it was done practical. The digital effects in this haven't aged too badly. And the finale in the cathedral definitely uses some miniature shots that look pretty much perfect. Anyway, entertaining enough. Sure it's Sherlock, but it's well produced schlock and Peter Hyams knows his way around making these kinds of things.

I don't know how it's taking me this long to get around to this one, but I was absolutely delighted that it was a weekly movie night selection by the host. What an absolutely great time capsule of New York in the late 70s/1980. The two leads, Tree Alvarado, and especially Robin Johnson, are fantastic. Maybe I'll have to do some research to see why Johnson didn't have a more of a career in film or acting. Maybe she didn't want it, or maybe she was too unique? Like Scarlett Johansson in ghost world, she's actually playing older than she actually was. She plays Nicky Marotta, a girl 16 on the border of 17, but she was actually 15 at the time. So her extremely rough smoky voice is uncanny. And she just radiates charisma and authenticity in a way that few actors that age can manage, especially in those days. There's not a false note about her performance. And I would say the same for Alvarado, only her part is much more conventional. Tim Curry is a bit odd playing radio DJ Johnny LaGuardia, kind of a hilarious choice of name. He's supposed to be the sort of Greek chorus/white knight of the piece, but I will say the scene when he comes to do a sort of wellness check on the girls by showing up at their squat with a bottle of vodka, knowing that Trini's character, Pamela Pearl, is 13 years old, makes him seem a little bit more like a predator than a savior.

And while the music is perfect throughout the film, clearly producer Robert Stigwood decided to put his fustier stamp at the very end by putting a track that completely jars against the rest of the movie. I won't say the movie sticks the landing – – because it doesn't, it just kind of stops as opposed to ends – – but this one is definitely more about the journey than the destination, and it's a journey I am delighted to have taken.

Wow, this was really good. There was definitely a certain kind of creepy that was unique to 70s horror films, and this film is just oozing with creepy. It's HP Lovecraft meets David Lynch meets Carnival of Souls. And even though one has nothing to do with the other, the fact that the hotel room was 237 couldn't help but make me also think of The Shining. This movie had to have influenced Dead and Buried, right? I guess I should look that up. This movie feels like it influenced several other movies. I watch so many horror movies and at best I'm usually entertained and at worst I'm bored or indifferent, but this one was legitimately unsettling and there were scenes that kind of got under my skin. I think some of it came from the blandness of some of the locations. The scene at the Ralphs supermarket was so effective. Same for the movie theater. I also loved the paintings done by the main character's father. Those 1:1 scale escalators painted on the wall? Like something from a dark dark pop art version of Wile E Coyote. It also must be noted that actress Joy Bang was super cute.

And what the hell? The people that who cowrote (Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz) this, and the one that directed (Huyck) it also cowrote American Graffiti? Whaaa?!

One of my all-time favorite movies. I've seen it well over a dozen times, but tonight I got to see it projected on the big screen – – an absolutely terrible print with scratches and so much noise the dialogue got buried here and there – – and it was kind of a thrill to see it at the Egyptian. Writer Larry Karaszewski was the host, and after the screening he did a Q & A with star Elliott Gould. I don't really feel I need to go into any kind of great detail in this diary because I just love love love this movie. It's so dark, so funny, and has what I consider to be the best written and perhaps best performed monologue in the entire history of filmed entertainment. Truly a masterpiece.

One of my all-time favorite novels is Richard Matheson's I am Legend. This is the second of three adaptations of it, none of which were particularly faithful, especially the one that was actually called I am Legend, which is the worst of the three. This one is probably the best of the three, although points have to go to the Vincent Price one even if Matheson hated it so much he took his name off it. It makes me sad that Charlton Heston at the end became completely associated with the NRA. The whole "pry this gun from my cold dead fingers" speech really put the kibosh on his grooviness. So it's easy to forget that for a while there he was very groovy. He marched during the civil rights movement. And he chose the hell out of his movies in the late 60s and early 70s. Absolutely great movies that were very counterculture. And this movie is pretty fucking progressive for a 1971 release. Yeah, it's a little hard to buy Colonel Robert Neville really enjoying the movie Woodstock, but that's also what makes it so cool. The budding romance between he and Rosalind Cash probably cost him a ton of fans at the time, which is obviously absolutely disgusting, but I'm sure for some folks seeing Moses making out with a badass black chick with an afro, simply was too much for their peanut brains. Although she does notch down the badass after they couple and becomes a lot more submissive, which is a little bit disappointing. Still, the movie in its own subtle way has a lot to say about the times in which it was made.

And it's funny, because my opinion of the albino antagonists has vacillated over the years. When I was a kid I thought they were very scary, then when I was in my younger adulthood I thought they were kind of silly looking, and now I find myself leaning more towards the way I felt when I was a kid. They are legitimately creepy looking. I think this movie is pretty great, even if it's not a great adaptation of the book. Who cares, it works on its own merits. And what they achieved in a pre-digital era for completely unpopulated Los Angeles is pretty damned impressive. Sure, in HD, you can see a little bit of traffic in the far far far off distance, but hey, Still pretty damned good.

I've only seen this movie at least a dozen times, but because it came out when I was 10 years old and it made such an impact on me I will love it in spite of, or even because of, its many flaws. This was my first time watching it in HD, on Blu-ray, so some of those flaws really pop. Like, I had never noticed before that you can see Roscoe Lee Brown's mouth inside his Box costume. It's a little distracting to have a robot showing bits of teeth and tongue. No matter, I guess. And while the cityscapes inside the domed city aren't that bad, to be honest, where they overreached was including actual water, which of course is not to scale. It's the water that really reminds you that it's miniatures. And I can't help but feel that if they had just eliminated that element the illusion would have been better. Some of the effects that do hold up are Matthew Yuricich's  beautiful matte paintings, and the participants in the ritual of renewal, "Carrousel," as they rise to meet their lasery last moment, the wires that lifted them are not visible.

The other thing that hasn't aged very well, and probably wasn't very good to begin with, is the usually reliable Jerry Goldsmith's score. Some of it is quite good, but some of it is pretty bad. Corny.

But this movie made a huge impact on me as a kid. Because it came out two years before Star Wars, for me it was the pinnacle of sci-fi cinema. My childhood friend and I played our own variation of tag/manhunt called "Sandman versus Runner," And I thought the Sandman uniforms were about as cool as any I had ever seen, and up to that point that's true. It also was an early entertainment image that made me absolutely certain that dressing in black was really the only sensible thing a man should do. Michael York was my guy! Between this and the Musketeers films, I just thought he was the coolest. I definitely had the prepubescent hots for Jenny Agutter, and why wouldn't I? And I loved Peter Ustinov as the old man.

Anyway, decades after my first viewing at a theater in Queens, I finally read the novel. And it was interesting to contrast and see what they changed. Stuff they had to eliminate because of budgetary reasons – – a giant full scale robot reenactment of the battle of Gettysburg – – or things that just simply would not have been doable without the kind of visual effects technology that didn't exist until years later. They also very wisely changed the renewal date to the age of 30, whereas in the novel it is 21. So basically everyone in the book is already boning while they're middle school age. That wouldn't exactly fly in a movie, even in the freewheeling 70s.

Anyway, all in all it's a pretty delightful movie and caveats aside I think it still holds up as damned entertaining.

I don't have a whole lot to say about this other than it was a good solid commercial entertainment. Marvel knows what they're doing, for the most part. Anthony Mackie is great, totally. Can't go wrong with Carl Lumbly. Liked Shira Haas quite a bit. And Harrison Ford gave this one a bit more effort than he has in a while, so I think he might've even enjoyed himself. Who knows. The first two acts definitely are better than the typical and predictable punch up at the end, but what are you gonna do?

Holy clucking chick. This is gotta be one of the most original movies ever – – in fact, without divulging any spoilers, I have to wonder if Yorgos Lanthimos had seen it before making Poor Things. I kind of feel sorry for people who only know Mads Mikkelsen from his English language/blockbuster career. Even as great – – and I do think it's great – – as Hannibal was, without seeing his Danish language films it's only a fraction of what he is capable of as an actor. And it's so great that he's in things this fucking weird.

Beautiful and heartbreaking, and also angering. Talk about a witch hunt ruining someone's life.

Writer/director Abel Ferrara is one I generally hold in fairly low regard. He's made a couple of things I liked, he's made multiple things I disliked very much, and then there's this curiosity, which was so astonishingly bad I don't even have the energy to hate it. It's just so enervating.

This was a movie night selection, and I certainly do not blame the host for choosing it. Because it really is a curiosity. It's a movie that neither he nor one of the esteemed of the group, a screenwriter of renown who also happens to have an encyclopedic knowledge of film, had ever heard of. But the host had either read or heard an interview with its star, Willem Dafoe, who said it was his favorite movie he'd been in and apparently compared it to the work of Preston Sturges. Now them's are fightin' words. There is not a trace of wit in this entire film, which at times feels like a movie made by Robert Altman if he was a crack addict, with overlapping dialogue all of which is so inane you want the various overlapping threads of words to cancel each other out. This movie is cacophonous and horrible. And baffling. Mainly baffling. And deeply, deeply stupid. 

Willem Dafoe plays a strip t owner, who is deeply in debt to his hairstylist brother, Matthew Modine – – the hair salon king of Staten Island. Roy Dotrice is Dafoe's Irish ant. Dafoe is addicted to playing lottery tickets. And so, he spends thousands of dollars of club money to buy a heap of lottery tickets. And of course the odds of winning a lottery, even if you buy 1000 tickets, are still astronomically against you. So, naturally he wins. But then – – ha ha ha ha ha, this is the funny part, so you better start laughing – – he misplaces the ticket! Oh my goodness, what a dilemma!

There are so many things in this that I guess are supposed to for humor. There is a black chef who makes gourmet pigs in a blanket and doesn't want Asia Argento's dog to eat them. You've got Sylvia Miles – – always a dark presence in any film – – playing a hyper Jewish and extremely shrill real estate agent who wants to kick Dafoe out so that she can rent the space to Bed Bath & Beyond. Now, the space of the nightclub/titty bar is small. Like, claustrophobically small. This whole movie is claustrophobic. So I don't know what kind of Bed Bath & Beyond would want to take a 99-year lease on this space. But that's what she keeps bellowing in her disgusting cigarettey voice: "Bed Bath & Beyond! 99-year lease! Bed Bath & Beyond!" Putting aside the fact that this movie was made in 2006, and by 2020 Bed Bath & Beyond was pretty much out of business, clearly Ferrara thought this was the funniest fucking improv he had ever heard and indulged it so much that during the end credits there is basically the 12-inch remix of he and she screaming it over and over again, like the world's worst rap track. 

With the exception of a couple of scenes, all of the dialogue in this feels like improv of the absolute worst order. And much like Paul Feig, who just lets scenes play way beyond their breaking point, in general, Ferrara just let his actors rip and man, none of them are gifted at making shit up. And if it was actually written? Even worse. I don't even think this movie ever got released in America. The disc the movie night host played he had to order from Australia, which is apparently the only country this has ever been available, at least on physical media. So my question is, WTF, Australia?

OK, so this is an apples to rotten oranges comparison, making it terribly unfair right out of the gate, but having just watched The Who's Tommy, for the first time, I felt it was time to revisit Pink Floyd: The Wall, which I love. Tommy, which was chaotic, tacky and terrible, is everything The Wall is not.

I'm not gonna bag on Tommy again, because there's no point. Ken Russell was a very interesting director who created some masterpieces, but that wasn't one of them. I'm sure diehard Russell and Who fans would tell me that I'm full of shit and an idiot. But Alan Parker was a much more disciplined director, but not one averse to risk and creating incredibly interesting and weird pieces of work alongside much more conventional, but very well-made films. I mean, the guy made Bugsy Malone FFS. 

Obviously, it also helps enormously that I really like Pink Floyd. The music throughout this is fantastic, ably abetted by composer and arranger Michael Kamen, who lushly fleshed out and orchestrated some of the songs and score. It is a visual feast, featuring animations that to this day remain astonishing, conceptualized by the brilliant British artist Gerald Scarfe. And as a depressing meditation on loss, overindulgence, the price of fame, misanthropy, misogyny, violence and hatred and so much more, while it certainly isn't uplifting it is captivating from start to finish. I think it's brilliant.

I know some people end up reading these things, but it's not why I do this. This is my movie diary, and sometimes because I am aware that some people can see this – – I do often consider changing the privacy setting so it's not for public consumption – – I do avoid spoilers and so forth that I wouldn't if it was just for me. Why this prolegomenous start? Because this movie, while venerated by some, is a huge pile of shit. I mean shittier than the scene with the TV spewing out beans and shit all over Ann-Margret (yeah yeah, I know I know, it's supposed to be chocolate, but seriously…).

Awful.

Oy, where to begin? OK, this also falls into a "calibrate your tastes" "caveat. I'm not a Who fan. Did they have some good songs? Undoubtedly. Did I ever feel the need to own any of their albums? No, though I did make the mistake, when in high school, of purchasing their then current album, 1981's Face Dances, and it sucked. But yeah, of course they had some truly great songs. But I always found them kind of off-putting. I think Pete Townsend is self-important, and though he clearly was wrestling with some demons of his own, let's just look the other way regarding his computer drive full of "research material." And Roger Daltrey probably has one of the most punchable faces of all time in this movie. That said, again: the man had pipes. Ken Russell definitely made some great, or at the very least interesting movies. But Tommy, while tacky and assaultive, is mostly wearisome.

And the music is bad. And this isn't just because I'm looking back at something old, because there are tons of movies and tons of albums and tons of music from this era that absolutely not only live up to the test of time, but sur it. Brilliant, brilliant, music from that era. But every song in Tommy is awful. Maybe "Pinball Wizard" gets a , just because it's kind of fun and sort of catchy. But the rest is just crummy. Maybe the studio album sounded better than these lousy protracted versions stretched beyond the breaking point for the sake of the movie. But the keyboard/organ is just so cheesy, and the orchestrations…  just fucking terrible.

It's all just so embarrassing. At least Oliver Reed is his charismatic self, even if greasier than usual. I'm sure he did all his own stunt drinking. I'm glad I finally got to see this relic, but looking back and thinking about all my classmates that went to see it when it opened and thinking it was the coolest thing ever – – well, I guess in 1975 it was pretty radical if your cinema-going experience was mainly Disney and kids' fare, but as a person in my current age all I can say is yeesh.

William Friedkin (1935 ‑ 2023) made some classics… This is not one of them.

I feel like this movie was made with complete sincerity, but it's also terrible. And I'm genuinely surprised. Almost as surprising is my not having seen it up to this point. Back in the day – – especially when this was released – – I would watch any piece of crap that had a sci-fi bent to it. But for whatever reason I always got a vibe that this wouldn't be good. But I didn't realize it would be so inert. Everything in this has such low energy and slack pacing, like they filmed the walk-through and let it be. It's also very unoriginal. It kind of feels like the anemic version of something better that would've been made by Albert Pyun, but also with a little bit of Rinse Dream/Steven Sayadian. Only they would've done a better job. And Vernon Wells, especially toward the end, reminds me of the heavy from Cybernator, which only came out the following year, so it's entirely possible both of these directors independently came up with a bald-headed guy with tubes sticking out of his noggin. 

You can't blame Road Warrior and Blade Runner for all of the terrible knockoffs, but my God. What baffles me is that IRS put this out. The casting is also strange. Dana Wheeler Nicholson is supposed to be this badass bodyguard who gets unwillingly pulled out of retirement – – so that she can pursue her dream of creating haute couture – – but at no point in the entire movie does she show even one bit of being formidable. Jim Metzler, with his horrific romanti-mullet, is doing this terrible haughty pseudo UK accent. You get a wearisome Laurel and Hardyesque pair of cops doing the unfunniest and most belabored schtick.

And OK, they had a very low budget, but it's a road picture where literally every scene of people in a vehicle was shot in a studio with off-camera stagehands rocking the car. There is no sense of movement, whatsoever. You know what never happens when you're driving a convertible with the top down through the desert? Hair moving. Just doesn't happen. Your hair just lays flat at the sides of your head. That's not a nitpick! It's legit to point out. I think the Lovy Brothers who wrote/directed, truly were enthusiasts for the genre and their hearts were in the right place, but they just didn't have a clue.

Great documentary about one of the greatest punk bands of all time, though not the most successful. Although even there, is that what I really meant? Successful in what way? Monetarily? Then no. But artistically? Definitely far more interesting than most of their contemporaries and certainly more daring (and enduring). Now, I do fall into the category of people that think the band became exponentially more interesting after the departure of founder Brian James. I don't mean to throw shade at him, but musically he was kind of stuck in one place, whereas Captain Sensible and the rest seemed much more open to not only possibilities, but breaking out of a box that shouldn't exist. Anyway, really well-made documentary and it was fun spending time with them. And that Dave Vanian – – what a mysterious creature of the night. But I love that about him. And to quote Frank Booth in Blue Velvet when referring to Dean Stockwell's character: suave. A suave motherfucker.

Very enjoyable. Too tired to do a proper writeup, but I liked it.

This movie feels like Lost Highway if David Lynch had made it after having a massive brain trauma. It's trying to be artsy-fartsy and also exciting and scary, but it fails at everything. It's convoluted, badly paced, and really stupid. I'm kind of surprised. But what I'm not surprised by is that it's the only movie John McTiernan ever wrote. I'm not gonna take away credit from him as a director; he made some great stuff. This, however, is merde. And shall we talk about French for a second? Why the hell was Pierce Brosnan cast as a French guy? He sounds more like Borat than someone of Gallic origin. Given when this was made, Christophe Lambert would've been a perfect choice. Although he did dodge a bullet by not being in this. This is one of those movies where you begin to just feel embarrassed for everyone involved. It's that bad. Music is hilarious. Bill Conti was trying to stir up excitement with his "rockin" score, but it's just awful. And then there are terrible hair metal songs interspersed here and there. There are moments that feel very '80s Italian Giallo/Fulci. But not enough to rescue this from the meandering morass. At the risk of hyperbole, I would have to say this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Now that's grading again on the scale of no-budget/amateur/regional versus studio product. This was studio product and it was  rubbish.

Watching this was basically handed to me as an assignment for the movie group I'm in to see if it was worth screening there. But the motivation was not pure: basically it was: "Is this movie worth all of us laughing at?" And the truth is, no. The guy who wrote it gave a bad review to a movie the boyfriend of one of the people in the movie group made. So, this assignment was sort of vengeance-based. I've been given assignments before because I have unnaturally robust stamina for watching "bad movies." I mean, I watched Gramps Goes to College for the group (and decided no one else could survive it). But I can't really get mad at this movie or laugh at it. It's just too earnest. 

All I'll add is it wasn't really for me. I think I'm probably too old for something like this. But I think if you were a young, aspiring screenwriter, you might find it relatable. It punches above its weight class at the end and gets in a bit over its head, but at least it tried.

Sidebar: I think he was trying for a little Amelie flavor during one scene, but Ryan Moore is no Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I have to confess when brain-wiped Emily becomes the perfect little gelato shoppe employee I was grossed out that she was touching the pastries with her bare hands. That does not make you employee of the month, that gets you a visit from the health department. Ew.

Pretty sure I had done a diary entry for this because I saw it around when it came out, but this time around it was another movie night screening of the 4K black and white version, and I have to say I liked it even more. In fact sign significantly more. I found it much more emotionally resonant in black and white, not to mention it really sold the period authenticity. Anyway, it's great.

And merely one sequel into the franchise let's sit back and watch the quality plummet. I had not exactly high hopes, but moderate hopes when I saw that Jack Sholder, the guy who gave us The Hidden, was the writer/director of this, but man. Oof. At a certain point I joked that he must've written this in real time, spending 90 minutes on the script, because there are leaps of internal logic so big you could park a semi in. If I hadn't been watching this with my friend I might've been pausing to take notes, mercifully my brain has already begun hitting the delete button, but seriously this was a really sloppy mess.

It's not helped by some weird casting, including that of a super beefy hunky boi-type dude playing a priest. I would've believed this guy with a surfboard tucked under his muscle arm, but not so much as a man of God. Also, our main character is so underwritten. Why is she involved in a high risk heist at a gallery/museum in the cold open of the movie? We are never given a reason why she was participating in such a crime. Nor whether she had any background in this kind of thing. What's her motivation? She lives in a very over art-directed apartment, with pseudo-Joel Peter Witkin/Jan Saudek photos on the walls. Is she an artist herself? Did this gallery screw her over? Why does this commercial gallery also have ancient Assyrian statues in it next to schlocky paintings that look like they belong in the poster rack at Hot Topic? Anyway, between much slacker pacing, much less gore, and a generally uninspired script that may or may not have had pretensions of being more than it was, this sequel left me wishing for 90 minutes of my life back.

So, naturally I'm going to watch the two further sequels, because I am the Glutton for Punishment Master.

I don't feel like I need to write this up, because I've seen it so many times. But this was my first time watching the beautiful Criterion Collection transfer on Blu-ray and it looked so great. Really nice to see all that detail and color fidelity. A masterpiece presented the way it deserves to be.

OK, now we're talking. After a delightful cold open featuring tons of crazy practical effects and gore we are thrown headfirst into this wacky tale. And I really enjoyed it. You've got a plucky Linda Hamilton-esque lead in Tammy Lauren. You've got Andrew Divoff growling and chewing scenery like a champion as the titular Wishmaster/djinn. And you've got a smorgasbord of cameos from genre stalwarts from start to finish (Ted Raimi, Tony Todd, Reggie Bannister, Robert England, Kane Hodder and probably a few I'm forgetting). And throughout are goopy, juicy, imaginative practical effects – – and a few fairly dodgy mid '90s digital effects that are at least entertaining, if a bit klutzy. Writer Peter Atkins, who had a guiding hand in many of the Hellraiser sequels, brings a lot of that kind of vibe and lore to Wishmaster, but with a bit more of a wink. And I kind of wonder if Wes Craven, who "presents" this movie, might've asked for a few Freddy Krueger-like zingers to fly out of the mouth of our mean-spirited genie. Anyway, fun.

Moderately entertaining in a generic sort of way, but what wasn't generic was the sound mix, because whoever did it clearly like to add squishy blood spurt sound effects over all the gunfire -- pow pow pow pow, gwish gwish gwish. This is definitely Netflix movie-style product, and even though writer/director Gareth Edwards probably made it with sincerity, it's so overly familiar. I can also see why certain people have been drawing comparisons between this and video games, as this movie takes place in generic terrible American city, but was shot in Wales, so there are digital extensions and entire digital cityscapes all over this thing. And while they are well done, the unnatural movement of the camera could only be achieved through CGI filmmaking. So, it adds another layer of artificiality. But what I'll commend are the blood hits. I find it hard to believe they bothered using squibs – – nobody does, anymore – – and these were the first digital blood spatters that actually looked good and visceral. I mean, the violence is very well done, which makes sense considering Edwards also did The Raid movies. I just wish this had had a little bit more meat on its bones, even if it meant sacrificing some meat on screen. It's more of an amuse-bouche than a main course. And Timothy Olyphant was wasted. He just kind of looked like he kept wondering why he had accepted this paycheck gig. And while I like Tom Hardy very much, even he couldn't elevate this beyond being a just barely serviceable B movie

I enjoyed the movie, which was very well-made and very well acted – – high production value, great music, some genuinely inventive scenes – – but I have to throw in a caveat that unfortunately diminished the enjoyment: the 4D Movie Experience. I didn't know this was going to be at the theater, but when I saw the weird seats my buddy said, "Ugh, I hope it's not 4D." It was.I had never heard of this and it can solidly go fuck itself. Whatever idiot came up with this gimmick should be punched in the dick until he can't walk – – and certainly can't breed. Awful marketing idea to try to put asses in seats in failing movie theaters. This is a sidebar rant, but fuck it, this is my diary. It's clear that the theater-going audience is shrinking like mad. And studios are flailing to come up with something to drag people back into the communal experience. But a gimmick like this is just so fucking pathetic and it reeks of desperation. It's like the guy sitting at the bar who just wants to get laid and everybody in the room can smell his desperation. Gross. That's what 4D is: the sweaty lonely incel at the bar.

So anyway, the movie: it's great that it's a period piece, set in the early 1930s, in the deep south. The characters were all well delineated, and that Michael B. Jordan is a charisma machine. You know a special effect is brilliant when you don't even think about it. Those are the best kind, and Jordan playing twins is so seamless and the performance so natural not for a second are you thinking wow, that's an amazing special effect! So, bravo. But it's interesting, because with the exception of the setting, this is a fairly by the numbers vampire story. And when the third act kicks in it feels much more standard than the rest of the movie. In fact, it felt a lot like a John Carpenter movie, only with higher production value and better cinematography. And that's not throwing shade at Carpenter, but it definitely felt like a combo of Assault on Precinct 13 and his much lesser effort, Vampires. The two musical numbers were stellar, however, and that needs to be emphasized.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing this again in the comfort of my own home on my own big TV without seats blowing fucking air into my eyeballs, flashing lights, and mechanisms in the seat that were punching my taint. Thanks, but no thanks.

I love this. Dreamlike, nightmarish, triggering. Definitely gave me PTSD of my 18 years living in a co-op – – ittedly in Manhattan, but between this, Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, Polanski has certainly given us plenty of nightmare apartment living. Playing the lead role of Trelkovsky, the titular tenant who moves into the apartment whose previous occupant pitched herself out the window to commit suicide, Polanski is all in. A great cast full of great faces, it also reminded me of Orson Welles's The Trial – – one of my top five favorite movies of all time. Anyway, it's pretty fucking terrific.

Wow, this one was rough. This was one of those movies where a few minutes into it I could see it was a really nice transfer and it made me think Vinegar Syndrome might need to embrace the corporate slogan "Great transfer, terrible movie." Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of what they put out, and I've bought a lot of what they put out, but this one completely baffles me. Other than as a curiosity that literally fails at every single thing it attempts, seriously, who is this one for? I can't imagine it sold more than tens of copies. It's not punk. There's no vacation. There is no gore. There is no nudity. There is no action. There is no suspense. The characters all suck. It is probably the most listless movie I've seen in ages. I mean, everything seems like they filmed the walk-through and were sleepwalking through that. The only thing that wasn't completely incompetent, other than the workmanlike but professional cinematography, was the score, and even there it hit me that it's just a complete ripoff of the soundtrack from To Live and Die in L.A.

The punks in this make the ones on Quincy, and even in the ABC Afterschool Special The Day My Kid Went Punk look like the fucking Cro-Mags by comparison. They didn't even bother to hit Manic Panic for some dayglo Temporary Spray-On Color or even some Dippity Do. They went for anemic Siouxsie and the Banshees à la Valley Girl. And why is there a French one named Robespierre, dressed like a swashbuckler? I think they thought it was clever, but this movie is the opposite of clever in every regard. It's not even good bad, it's just shit. And director Stanley Lewis is maybe be the most talentless of all time.

I guess it was about time I finally got around to seeing this, so no better way to see it than the shiny new 4K transfer projected by a brand new state of the art digital projector onto a big screen. Looked amazing. Man, that technicolor! It's really fun, although if I could be allowed a minor quibble: it's a little too long. I just don't think it needed to be 2 hours 16 minutes. And maybe – – yeah, I know, I'm giving notes, posthumously, to the master, Mr. Hitchcock – – a little tighter might've been a little bit more exciting? What can I say, I'm a modern audience member. I'm not a young guy, but after you've seen suspense films and action films and so on made in the last 25 years, you go back 60+ years and the pacing is a little slack by contemporary standards. I'm just saying. But I did really enjoy it. You just have to get into that mindset that everything feels artificial in these older movies. The acting is incredibly mannered, it's just a more synthetic experience. But a very well-made synthetic experience. Oh God, if anyone reads this besides me they're gonna hate me. I don't care. These diary entries are for me.

Man, this was pretty good up until the very end. Definitely did not "stick the landing," and that was disappointing, but the journey was definitely worth taking. I liked regional filmmaker SF Brownrigg's Don't Look in the Basement, and this one is compellingly made, mostly very well acted – – the only weak link being the guy who plays Dr. Caprese, the boyfriend. It's really well shot, atmospheric, the lead actress is quite good. And it's creepy. Legitimately creepy (casting wise, they won the creepy lottery with actor Larry O'Dwyer, who is a very compelling presence; kind of a combination of Udo Kier and Wallace Shawn). I just wish it hadn't kind of lost its mojo at the very end.

As a sidenote, the distribution company that picked up this 1974 movie for re-release in 1979 and re-titled it Don't Open the Door definitely didn't do it any favors. The original title makes sense; Don't Open the Door  does not.

You have to give B-movie stalwart Greydon Clark tons of credit for swinging for the fences and trying pretty much everything. Sometimes with more success than other times, but the man just kept making movies. This is one of his earliest, and I'm going to have to do a little research in this one by hitting his memoir – – one of the strangest and most unique items I have in my library, as it is hand bound by Greydon himself with brass brads, like a movie script – – because it definitely feels like one movie, and then another, and then yet another, and then culminating back in the original. The movie called open features a white soldier – – none other than Clark himself – – and his black army buddy in a field in Vietnam having a philosophical discussion about race. As Clark's African-American buddy is about to make a salient point a Viet Cong bullet ends his life.

We then have the credit sequence which is accompanied by a song with a title I dare not even type into this diary. Clark is back in the States and is heading to Watts to give a half-written letter by his felled buddy to the man's father. The elder Washington assumes that when the white man shows up he must be looking for his other son, Tom Washington Junior, who prefers his self-dubbed appellation, Makimba. Clark hands the senior Washington the letter and the man is touched. And that's when Tom – – I mean Makimba – – arrives on the scene wearing a Canadian tuxedo, bare chested through the unbuttoned jacket. And Makimba ain't having it. He is not happy about Clark being there, he doesn't believe Clark was his slain brother's friend – – "he didn't have any white friends" – – and he sure as hell wants nothing to do with this Caucasian interloper. So much so that when Clark leaves, Makimba and his buddies all follow him to the street fair up the road, gang up on him, and begin to tune him up with blows to the belly, a technique which they have learned from the local cops as ones that won't leave incriminating marks. Enter super-duper hard-core racist white cops Aldo Ray and  other dude who's necktie is so fucking weird it's all I can think about when the camera is pointed at him. Seriously, it's like a blue landing strip mixed with a bib. I have never seen any tie like it. Anyway, these two racist pieces of shit want to arrest the whole pack of them, but Clark tells them it's just a misunderstanding between he and his buddies. The racist cops aren't buying it, but they let it drop – – for now. 

Makimba latches onto the idee fixe that somehow Clark has an in with these cops and vows vengeance, even though all Clark had was good intentions.

Research break.

And we're back. And I'm going to read a paragraph that explains a lot of why this movie felt the way it felt, as written by Clark in his memoir, On the Cheap: "was there something I could do to save my picture? It was the summer of 1972 and Blaxploitation films were big box office. What if… I changed MOTHERS, FATHERS AND LOVERS into a Blaxploitation picture? I decided to create a completely different film half from MOTHERS, FATHERS AND LOVERS and half a new Blaxploitation story it was an idea that saved my movie and ultimately saved my entire career."

OK, then, that explains everything. Because there is a slightly schizophrenic feel to some of this movie. You've got intense, very racially provocative moments, followed by fairly banal – – by today's standards – – relationship stuff. 

This movie also is a strange mixture of tropes. Low budget tropes, that is. For instance, to use the phrase from Red Letter Media, they shoot the rodeo. Meaning using an event already happening to add production value for no extra cost, in this case the Watts Summer Festival, a yearly carnival with rides and attractions in a park. That's the scene where Clark's character gets chased and tuned up. So, according to Clark, in his decision to salvage his previous picture (MOTHERS, FATHERS AND LOVERS), a The Graduate-inspired comedy about the mores of the time, namely the taboo of living together without being married, and not being able to find an audience for it, he decided to retrofit the whole thing into something much more violent and with a social message of a different kind.

Other things that were noticeable that are now being confirmed: even though the movie was released in 1973 plenty of the scenes, especially the ones with Clark and his real life wife Jackie, look firmly situated in the 60s. Which they were. Because they were remnants from the social comedy shot in 1969. There's one scene that takes place in a record store that just screams 1960s. The whole movie is kind of a fantastic time capsule. And I can't necessarily say it's good, because it isn't, really. But it has a certain something. And it's definitely entertaining. It's also kind of weird that you've got a movie that's 79 minutes and still manages to have padding in it. It's also got weird comedy characters like the out of nowhere Neighbor who comes to complain about the out-of-control pool party that has more casual nudity than I was certainly expecting. Anyway, I liked it. Weirdly.

You have to give it to Greydon Clark. He tried a lot of different genres, some more successfully than others. And having just completed this, which was a bit of an endurance test, I can say that boner comedies aren't really his métier. This is one of those "comedies" where everyone is doing "comedy acting." And nothing kills comedy more than people trying super hard to be funny. I mean, they're sort of a grotesque charm to this, but it is buried under layers of grossness. This was one of those "comedy" films that gave me a lot more anxiety because I was watching it with a look of incredulity on my face. But I will say I loved the songs. Not because they're good – – they are not. They are terrible. But they did make me laugh more than anything Happening in the movie. Video to the Max! Extra demerits to the terrible actress doing the world's worst valley girl voice.

Watched on Wednesday March 19, 2025.

This is one of those movies that I was always aware of but never got around to seeing until just now. And the fact that it was directed by Freddy himself, Robert Englund, was intriguing. And that it stars Stephen Geoffreys, hot off fright night and pre-gay porn. It starts off promisingly enough, well shot and nicely lit. But very quickly it becomes clear that either there is a longer cut out there that possibly makes sense, or it's just one of the most shambolic screenplays ever made. I have to believe there is a version of this that makes more sense, because scenes happen and then end so quickly and so abruptly. Characters get introduced that are clearly supposed to have some importance to the narrative, but don't. For instance, at the end of the second act we for two seconds are introduced to the pretty female principle of the school. And then suddenly she and the investigator who is looking into the mysterious phenomenon of fish training from the sky – – don't ask – – are in a relationship. Also, later when she goes into the house where Geoffreys is possessed by 976 demon power, you can't help but assume that there was a scene earlier where he either gets bullied for revealing he has a crush on her, or that she pulls him aside, as the bully victim, to encourage him and tell him he's so smart and so forth.

There's none of that.

No backstory, no relationship building, no nothing. Every character, even the leads, are barely sketched in. And the tone of the first act feels like a middling John Waters movie. And Sandy Dennis, an actress I have always loathed, is the Temu Piper Laurie from Carrie. Just awful. And I guess it's supposed to be funny that in every single scene she has a different wig. Terrible terrible terrible. And the male lead, Spike (Patrick O'Bryan), just disappears from the movie for about 20 minutes. It's like you almost forget he was in it. It's just an absolute mess. So many of the scenes in this I kept thinking OK, so clearly this this and this was cut. I don't know if Robert Englund absented himself from the editing process, or the editor had ADHD and just kept saying "boring," cutting out chunks of exposition, but by the end any goodwill fostered in the beginning is completely evaporated. 

All that said, I am gonna need to search for the direct video sequel. I am a sick person.

Seen it a zillion times, but adding it just so I can keep track of what I watched this year. All I'll say is even in these trying miserable times it's still a balm for the soul. A truly perfect film.

Sure it was dopey, but I enjoyed it. But that's about as much as I can muster to say about it.

This is one that I probably never would've gotten around to, but it was tonight's movie night group selection and I'm glad I finally got to see it. I mean, it's not like it reinvent the wheel or anything, but as a portrait of bunch of scummy teenage boys it's pretty good. Good acting, well directed. I wasn't wild aboutBill Conti's score, however. I thought it was a little old-fashioned and stodgy and didn't quite match the feel of what was happening on screen. It looked like a movie, but sounded like a TV Movie. Anyway, the man did some great soundtracks but this wasn't one of them. It's kind of an interesting experience because you can't really root for anybody. They're all a bunch of little scumbags and hooligans and for the most part pretty unsympathetic. But that's kind of good. Realistic. Anyway, it was good to finally get around to seeing this.

Beautifully made documentary about art spiegelman. Right up there with Crumb.

I don't think I was supposed to laugh at the very end, but after 90+ minutes of such stupidity I couldn't help it. I figured I would watch something dumb to take my mind off the world burning, and it wasn't quite dumb enough to be sufficiently distracting (then again, with what's going on in the world that would be a Herculean task), but it was at least moderately entertaining.

Another enjoyably ridiculous entry in this series, presumably, but not definitely the last. Tom Hardy sure seems to enjoy making these (he even writes them, in this case with director Kelly Marcel). And he definitely makes for more compelling viewing with his ever increasingly eccentric performance. It's funny how the five lead actors in this are Brits playing Americans. You've got Hardy, Rhys Ifans, Juno Temple, Stephen Graham, Chiwetel Ejiofor. And I'm not checking the credits for ing, but that's a lot. Also, I don't think Juno Temple blinked once. Noteworthy is that the director, Marcel, is a woman. Not too many women get to direct crazy violent tentpole superhero alien invasion movies. So that's pretty cool.

And because I'm in a generous mood I'm not gonna shave a star or two off the rating for some of the terrible music choices, not least of which was having the film wrap with a fucking Maroon 5 song. Jesus Christ.

What an interesting movie. And what an unexpected combination of emotions. Taking a great premise, which is basically what if Encyclopedia Brown grew up, only the world around him changed and maybe he was never that great a kid detective in the first place. Or maybe the world was just way more complicated than a kid could perceive. Even a smart one.

Jesus Christ, what an uncomfortable movie. The word "cringe" applies to comedy that just makes you feel a little oogie, but this drama made me so anxious and uncomfortable I felt like I wanted push myself through the couch cushion to recoil from what was happening on screen. It's kind of a horror movie . Patton Oswalt is excellent as the titular dad, and writer/director/costar James Morosini is excellent as the son who deserves a better dad. I know this was good, and really well done, but wow, a visceral and unnerving experience.

OK, back to the "I need to explain why this has four stars" type of diary entries: it's not about quality, it's about enjoyment. In of quality this is like a minus-2 star movie, but in of enjoyment, four stars! It's brought to you by David Winters, who 1 million years ago was a dancer and appeared in West Side Story, and then later went on to make schlock masterpieces like the incomparable Space Mutiny! This is made in the same era as that; in fact it was released one year prior. And come on, it stars very drunk Oliver Reed and probably a little bit less drunk Cameron Mitchell, who actually had to get off his ass and run around a little bit in this one. Oliver Reed is attempting some kind of accent… I think American? Hard to say. But whatever it is, it's great. There are so many laugh out loud moments in this movie that it's a delight. It stars scrawny Afrikaans martial arts "actor" James Ryan, who also appeared in Space Mutiny. In fact this is something of a Space Mutiny dress rehearsal, as several of the cast in this appear in that. Anyway, the plot is almost borderline incomprehensible, but palpably stupid. It's got people doing American accents that rival those of the Monty Python troupe when they would whip out their Americanese.   

Note to myself to remind me at some later point: this was one of 12 movies during the "5 Minute Movie Game" at movie night (where the first five minutes of a dozen movies are played and then we vote on which one we will watch completely). The one that actually won the most votes was some Ruggero Deodato piece of dog shit called Ballad of Blood. I was so disgusted that won I was actually threatening to leave, because seriously: fuck that guy. Anyway, the host also wanted this to win, as did one of the other of the group – – actually the one who tabulated all the votes. I'm glad I was vociferously against the Deodato flick, because a second vote was taken and this won. So everyone was a winner, because this made everyone laugh their asses off. The other one I think would've just put people in a bad mood. Especially me.

Interesting, peculiar little time capsule. Would make a decent double bill with the British flick Peeping Tom. It's strange, because it's categorized as a grindhouse movie, but it's really more art house. And I feel like it needs a longer diary entry to do it justice, but I'm a little tired. I will say this: it really sticks the landing.

A lesser but still enjoyable Scott Adkins actioner. The casting of Mario Van Peebles as the head of a Mexican cartel is a little weird, but that doesn't mean he didn't do a good job as the villain with a little bit more under his 10 gallon hat. Dopey, familiar, but the kind of mindless fun I was in the mood for.

What a silly movie. Even though it's 1989, it is so '80s. That's not a compliment. It's like if you took The Most Dangerous Game, but took any competitive ability to survive out of the equation. The titular villain is a very rich investment banker who "hunts" helpless prostitutes – – he calls himself the hunter and the vanity plate on his cheesy little red sports car is HUNTER 1. Robert Forster, looking as weary as he always did, plays the detective who's going to get the bad guy. And the older sister (Shanna Reed) who dances badly in the classic MST3K episode, Master Ninja, plays a news correspondent who does fluff pieces for the local channel, who decides she wants to be an activist news person along the lines of Howard Beal in Network. She's mad as hell and she's not gonna let this rich prick murder any more hookers. Thus putting herself directly in the crosshairs of his very dopey lasersight-aided crossbow. The rich prick banker is also an aficionado of ancient South American lore, thinking these hunting rituals will grant him immortality or some such nonsense. He slathers his torso in bodybuilder grease, giving him extra shiny nipples and pecs, and also applies warpaint. And speaking of Grease, playing a pimp named cowboy is Jeff Conaway. Not good. And every time the banker kills someone he recites mystical words that sound like he's saying "Ish kabibble." Dum.

Obnoxious, wearisome, and very ugly to look at. It's a movie that is straining in every frame to show you how "cool" it is. The whole thing feels like it was made by a 16-year-old with ADHD. Which it wasn't. It was made by veteran filmmaker Tony Scott who, while not an artist, made some pretty decent movies. This isn't one of them. The script is also fucking asinine. And it all felt very derivative. It's like Tony Scott watched Natural Born Killers and then said to himself he would just do that, only with a really hideous yellow green color palette. I pretty much hated it.

Writer/director Jason Lei Howden has made a pretty nifty entry into the genre of movies like Gamer and Crank, both of which (or in the case of Crank, both of those) were clearly influences. But I'm not saying that in any kind of disparaging way. This movie is fun and very well-made, and has plenty of style all its own. It's definitely a gamer nerd fantasy, with little bits of quasi-feminist virtue signaling stirred into the dialogue. But that's okay, Samara Weaving has all the best lines. It helps that Daniel Radcliffe is always super likable – – sort of the British Paul Rudd. And Samara Weaving is fantastic. Versatile character actor Ned Dennehy is also clearly having a blast playing the villain, Riktor. The movie Boy Kills World, a more recent effort, also falls into this category.

This is an excellent movie, but I found it difficult to get through. It's uncomfortable and it gave me anxiety. Now granted, this is January 2025 and the world is a suppurating pit of anticipation of horrors to come. So, I suspect watching something that delves into the residue of the Holocaust when a fucking Nazi just got elected affected my viewing experience. Who the fuck knows how I'd feel having watched this if the election had gone differently? 

The performances are excellent, particularly that of the two leads, Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg (who also did a masterful job writing and directing). I suppose there were also other factors that made my experience feel weird. Kieran Culkin's character reminded me uncomfortably of someone I had to disentangle from in my life. and the dynamic between he and Eisenberg felt very much like the dynamic between me and that former friend. Anyway, don't get me wrong this is an excellent movie. But I can't say it was enjoyable.

Perfect perfection. One of my absolute all-time favorite movies. I don't even know how many times I've watched it. Just logging it for the diary.

This was a good, solid, well-made B movie. The funny thing is, I really didn't know what to expect. I thought it was going to be a much more direct-to-VHS schlock type thing, but it turned out to be an actually real movie. It has a good cast, including Rod Steiger giving a decent performance, which wasn't always the case at this stage in his career. And the creature effects are really good. This was definitely a pleasant surprise. What it really felt like was an upmarket version of a Charles Band production. It also kind of surprises me that the director, Stephen Carpenter, didn't really direct a whole lot else, because he clearly knew what he was doing. He was even the cinematographer and it's a good looking flick. Well, he clearly made his bones as a writer, having created the successful TV series Grimm. But anyway, this was a good watch.