Stopmotion (2024)

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In Theaters Today before it makes its way to VOD on March 15th and then the Shudder Streaming Service on May 31st.

There’s a scene in Robert Morgan’s “Stopmotion” where protagonist Ella is discussing with her mother, another animator, how she’s handling her puppets. Her mother corrects her in a menacing tone that she is the actual puppet. When it comes to art, the artist tends to submit themselves to a certain kind of madness that becomes a part of the process of creation and death. Robert Morgan’s horror thriller is a brilliant look in to the creative process and the often maddening process that can come with being an artist. In particular, Morgan focuses on the grueling task of stop motion animation and writes a film that’s both a love letter and dire warning to any artist that gives themselves over to the art form.

It’s bound to inspire much analysis from its audience.

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Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981)

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Now Available at Melusine.

I was first introduced to Annie Sprinkle during the heyday of HBO when she appeared on the documentary series “Real Sex.” She was promoting one of her sex positive film festivals, as well as taking photos with willing fans donning a bare chest and angel wings. Some how that image never left my brain over twenty years later, and that’s simply Annie’s style. Annie is a self-aware and slickly tongue in cheek porn icon who spent much of the seventies starring in a ton of porn films and never had a limit to what she was into.

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Western Wednesdays: The Hard Hombre (1931)

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SYNOPSIS:
William “Peaceful” Patton [Hoot Gibson] attempts to end a range war between two opposing ranch owners but is frightened off the job by violence that ensues between the two. He returns home to his pacifist mother [Jessie Arnold]. As the two travel to church, the sheriff [Christian Frank] informs Patton of a ranch foreman’s job available in the next county. Patton accepts and rides off.
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Trunk: Locked In (2024)

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The tough thing about making a thriller centered entirely around a confined setting is that you have to kind of build something new with every plot beat or else it wears thin easily. While “Trunk: Locked In” could be confused with the previous year trunk-centric thriller “The Call,” Marc Schießer’s “Trunk” is much more about the victim within the trunk of a car. The majority of the movie’s script spends time only only trying to figure out the hows but the whys and inevitability of what might happen in this circumstance all the while she’s stuck in a trunk forced to deal with a faceless entity that has in their clutches.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Buccaneer Bunny (1948)

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Buccaneer Bunny (1948)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Michael Maltese
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Manuel Perez 

Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of–Ma’s old fa-shioned ci-der! Ma’s old fa-shioned ci-der!

I have great sentimental value for “Buccaneer Bunny” as it’s one of the array of Bugs Bunny shorts that were often played during the Bugs and Daffy Show every Saturday morning when I was a kid. “Buccaneer Bunny” is edgy enough to still be hilarious but never crosses any lines. And we also get Yosemite Sam once again! That’s always a plus. Watching this short takes me back to when I was a child winding down from Saturday morning cartoons and greeting the early afternoon with the hour block on ABC Network. “Buccaneer Bunny” is still utterly hilarious and stands as one of the shorts from Bugs that hasn’t aged a bit.

Even with its stripped-down premise, the short is a masterclass in the excellent dynamic that Bugs and Yosemite Sam have together.

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What If…? “X-Men: The Movie” Debuted in 1987?

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Last week, Marvel unleashed the trailer for “X-Men ’97,” the sequel to the series from FOX Kids from the nineties that continues the saga of the 1990’s iteration of the X-Men.

It was a time when they were massively popular, one of the big moneymakers for Marvel, and were given a variety of excellent characters. The X-Men property has been around for decades, and around the nineties, Marvel began developing the ideal “X-Men” movie. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that we finally got the “X-Men” movie.

But I think “X-Men” would have also made a great eighties action film, so I went back and cast an “X-Men” movie if it were developed, and cast in 1987! What if…?

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Bad Movie Monday: Zardoz (1974)

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John Boorman’s oft-maligned film Zardoz celebrated it’s 50th anniversary on February 6th. Which made me curious to reread what I’d said about it in my review for Cinema-Crazed. I have this terrible memory you see, and I just couldn’t quite remember anything specific that I wrote, but I was absolutely 100% sure I must have written something interesting. So, I began to do a search on the site and, after finding nothing, I double and then triple and then quadruple checked. Nothing. It was then that I realized to my utter dismay and embarrassment that Mr. Dumbass (That’s me!) had never written a review. I had thought about it, bounced ideas in my head, had long debates with myself, but I never actually, you know… WROTE THE GOD DAMN THING. Today, that’s going to change.

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