Category Archives: You Have to See This!

You Have to See This! The Wraith (1986)

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Streaming On: Pluto TV, Tubi, Roku Channel, Vudu, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies & TV, Apple TV, YouTube TV

“A wraith, man! A ghost! A evil spirit – and it ain’t cool!”

“The Wraith” is one of those B movies from the eighties that is so inexplicable and so bizarre, but so damn satisfying. When I was a kid I spent a lot of my time watching antenna TV (Grade A TV Junkie right here!) and whatever movie was on that peaked my interest, even a little, I would be there front and center. “The Wraith” is one of the movies that caught my attention right away (showing prominently on WPIX Channel 11). It wasn’t only for the revenge tale involving an undead anti-hero, but also for the titular Wraith, who just looks so bad ass

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You Have to See This! The Florida Project (2017)

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We often tend to classify fantasy movies as movies with monsters, or elves, or space battles. Sometimes fantasy movies can be as simple as a narrative about the world that children can invent in their minds. In the darkest times and most cynical of realities, a child can find beauty and awe in their environment, and Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” is every bit a fantasy as it is a rich art house drama. It’s hard to imagine anything as measuring up to Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” from 2017.

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You Have to See This! Midsommar (2019)

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I’m not too sure why I didn’t review “Midsommar” back in 2019. Maybe I was just too busy, but suffice to say it made my top ten of 2019, easily. Ari Aster is a man who has managed to really delve deep in to some truly bizarre horror, and “Midsommar” is a pitch perfect example. Aster’s film is always placed in the same vein as “The Wicker Man,” but while it certainly can be appreciated with the aforementioned, “Midsommar” is its own twisted animal.

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You Have to See This! Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)

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By 1996, “Mystery Science Theater 3000” was known as a cult comedy series that had gained enough mainstream traction to earn a feature film. By 1996 the once unusual comedy had become very much a hit for fans of cult cinema and science fiction. The series as a whole, when first stepping in to it, is weird. I fondly remember first watching the series and literally thinking “What the hell is this?” But when you get in to the nuts and bolts of the concept, it’s not only genius but hilarious. Suffice to say, I was hooked, without apology. Essentially you’re watching a man watching bad movies with two robots.

That’s the gist of the whole shebang.

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You Have to See This! Juice (1992)

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After years of working with Spike Lee, Director Ernest R. Dickerson was ripe to deliver some of his own films with taut social commentary. Out of his entire career, “Juice” is easily one of his best, if not his absolute best. While it’s not quite as darkly satirical as Spike Lee’s films tend to be, “Juice” is very much ahead of its time. It’s very much about economic impact on minority teens, and the idea of toxic masculinity. “Juice” is mainly seen as a crime drama, it’s also about boys growing up in to men and trying to figure out exactly where they fit in.

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You Have to See This! Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

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My love affair with writing began with competitive spelling in grade school and evolved right in to middle school where I built my obsession with telling stories. I was always fond of the Scripps spelling bee and I always sought to maybe make it there someday. But you know… puberty happened. In either case, it‘s refreshing to see films in contemporary and modern that portray spelling bees as pure sport. There are more and more movies spotlighting the mental demand of spelling from 2002’s “Spellbound” to “Bee Season,” to “Spelling the Dream.”

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You Have to See This! A Clockwork Orange (1971)

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With “A Clockwork Orange,” Stanley Kubrick set forth a high bar and standard upon which all future gang warfare films would be based on. It’s a surprising fact considering “A Clockwork Orange” is not entirely about gang warfare at all. It’s a science fiction, dystopic, thriller about a predator of humanity who gets a taste of his own medicine a hundred fold once he is rehabilitated into a docile animal of society. Or so that’s what we’re led to believe up until the very ambiguous climax where Alex reverts to his classic recurring orgy fantasy.

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