Category Archives: List Junkies

Five Good (and Five Terrible) Movies Heavily Influenced by “Home Alone”

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“Dial Code Santa Claus (aka 3615 code Père Noël),” now available for collectors, is generally accepted as the original “Home Alone.” Also with the reboot now in the works over at Disney+, I thought it’d be fun to harp on Chris Columbus Christmas classic. Originally a huge hit when it arrived in theaters (my brother and I saw it in theaters with my dad three times!), the film inspired a huge slew of rip offs, and copycats from competing studios looking for their own piece of the pie.

I thought it’d be fun to look at four films heavily “inspired” by the classic that were Terrible and five that were actually quite good. There’s a good chance I’m missing a few, so feel free to let me know in the comments what I should have included.

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Top 5 Tex Avery Animated Shorts

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I’ve been a huge fan of Tex Avery since I was a small child. I spent most of my childhood cutting my teeth on animation from masters like Bob McKimson, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and the Fleischer Brothers, and Avery always had his own unusual style. For years he worked at Warner producing the Looney Tunes shorts, and produced some of his best work at MGM Studios. Avery’s work is bizarre, innovative, and so absolutely funny that they still manage to produce laughter just as much as the classic Looney Tunes.

This year, Warner released two whole (long overdue) volumes of uncut, unedited Tex Avery shorts on Blu-Ray for animation fans and collectors alike. In celebration of that release, I thought I’d list five of my all time favorite Tex Avery shorts, most of which were produced with MGM Studios.

Are there any shorts from Tex Avery that you love that I didn’t list? Let us know in the comments!

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Top Five Christian Slater Movies (From a Slater Fanboy)

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When I was a wee movie loving lad, I was big fan of Christian Slater. I thought he was such a cool character and everything he was in I would seek out. Everything from “Hard Rain” and “Broken Arrow,” to “The Wizard” and—yes—even “Mobsters.” Remember “Mobsters”? Imagine “St. Elmo’s Fire” but with violent Italian mobsters. In either case, many of Slater’s films have stayed a favorite of mine, including “Pump Up the Volume.” The film just garnered a deserved release on Blu-Ray and in celebration, I just had to compile my top five Christian Slater movies.

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My Top Five “Tom and Jerry” Shorts Of All Time

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I grew up watching Tom and Jerry and have remained a fan well in to my thirties, despite their troubled history. Despite the great Hanna Barbera MGM shorts that made me laugh, there’s also the god awful Chuck Jones’ shorts, the watered down remakes, and reboots, and of course the endless string of cheaply made straight to DVD animated sequels where the pair duke it out.

With the upcoming big budget movie hitting limited theaters and VOD this week, I thought I’d list my top five all time favorite Tom and Jerry shorts. While I’m skeptical that “Tom and Jerry” will be anything but mediocre, I still hold a place in my heart for the Tom Cat and Rascally Brown Mouse.

What are Some of Your Favorite “Tom and Jerry” shorts?

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Five More Great Minority Movie Heroes, Part IV

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It’s Black History Month and we’re hoping to kick off a month of great articles and reviews celebrating Black culture in film, and pop culture. To help usher in the month, here is yet another installment of the “Minority Movie Heroes” series. As I’ve explained in the past, it’s hard to find actual heroes in film that are people of color whether African American, Latinx, Asian, et al. So, as with all the previous entries I scoured film as much as I could to feature five more minority movie heroes that deserve celebrating.

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Shorts Round Up of the Week: 1/29/21

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It’s been a while since I’ve delivered the Shorts Round Up of the Week as I was previously incapacitated with the flu for most of December. Now that we’re on a new year and a new chapter for the site, I thought it only fitting to unveil the first “Shorts Round Up of the Week” for 2021.

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Rest in Power: Julie Strain (1961-2021); Five Great Movies from the Model and “Queen of the B Movies”

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Sadly, yet another cult icon has left us. Julie Strain, on January 10th, the one and only Heavy Metal model died at the young age of 58 after complications from Dementia. Strain went in to star in a hundred movies, and was well known by pop culture fans. With her tall stature, and incredibly sexy good looks, not to mention her enthusiasm for pop culture, Strain was well known for her charisma, bright smile, and affable sense of humor.

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