A young man with what seems to be multiple personalities shows up unexpectedly in a psychiatrist’s office triggering an obsession in her that leads her into a world of madness in this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation.
Western Wednesdays: The Apache Kid’s Escape (1930)
SYNOPSIS:
The Apache Kid [Jack Perrin] is being pursued by the law when he catches up with his old partner, Buck Harris [Bud Osborne], and tells him that he wants to give up his life of crime. He receives a letter from his sister, Jean, asking him to return home to help care for their ailing mother. The Kid and Buck engage in a fistfight and the Kid takes off. The Sheriff catches up with Harris, who agrees to assist the sheriff track down Apache. The kid rides at breakneck speed, right off a cliff in to a massive body of water.
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Dogs Are Man’s Only Best Friend in the “John Wick” Universe
“You Hit My Puppy.” – Mr. Nobody
When we first meet John Wick, he’s already hanging on a thread. He’d all but expended his humanity on his past life. He’d spent his entire life as a ruthless hit man known as the dehumanizing name of “El Baba Yaga.” All sense of what makes him a person had been lost thanks to the mythologizing of his time as a career hit man. When he meets his wife Helen, he sadly loses her to terminal cancer, which ultimately causes him to reflect on not only giving up but relinquishing whatever trace of heart and soul that he had left. When Helen leaves him a young Beagle named Daisy, much to his surprise and chagrin, she’s not only giving him a purpose but a part of his humanity. If she can’t be there to take care of him and love John, at least he can have Daisy to care for and become friends with.
Every Bugs Bunny Ever: A Corny Concerto (1943)
2023 marks the 85th Anniversary of Bug Bunny’s first animated appearance in 1938’s “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” Debuting originally as Happy Rabbit, Bugs eventually became one of the most iconic animated characters of all time. In honor of the landmark anniversary, we’re discussing every animated appearance by Bugs Bunny. We’re big fans of Bugsy and we hope that you are, too.
Follow us on this massive journey where we discover and re-discover Every Bugs Bunny Ever.
A Corny Concerto (1943)
Directed by Bob Clampett
Written by Frank Tashlin
Music by Various
Animation by Bob McKimson
Warner has never been subtle about their discontent for Disney Studios. In fact, they made it their quest for a long time to mock and poke fun at a lot of what Disney did with their films, including their handling of music and fairy tales. “A Corny Concerto” isn’t just a spoof of their masterpiece “Fantasia,” but it’s an outright ribbing of their considerably high brow animated melding of classical music and the animation medium. I for one love “Fantasia,” but I don’t think Disney is ever above being poked at for the purposes of comedy. Every studio tends to do it at one point in time, but Warner has always done it the best. And dare I say that the Looney Tunes has always implemented classical music better than Disney ever has or ever will.
BAD MOVIE MONDAY: Verotika (2019)
I’ve written at length about what makes a good bad movie, but what makes a BAD bad movie? This is what I’d like to talk about in today’s review because I think I found the perfect example. Here is a movie that is so bad, so incompetent, so mind-numbingly lazy, that I can’t just overlook its flaws and give it the benefit of the doubt like I normally would. This is a movie that is insultingly and aggressively terrible. Yes folks, I’m talking about VEROTIKA.
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“Robot Monster” and Seventy Years of the Ro-Man
Will be screening on June 24th at 3p.m. at Manhattan’s Dolby Screening Room, 1360 Avenue of the Americas. Tickets can be purchased online.
“The boy is impertinent!”
Ro-man is not quite an ape. And he’s not quite a man. He’s kind of a sentient alien who is smart enough to destroy civilization but not smart enough to be able to breathe Earth’s atmosphere sans his diving helmet. He’s a complicated Ro-man and no one understands him but his woman. Phil Tucker’s “Robot Monster” is a post apocalyptic survival film that conveniently evades all glimpses at the actual invasion and aforementioned apocalypse. The evil Ro-Man have invaded and destroyed Earth because—well—humans are bad. And to add insult to injury they monitor the remaining survivors in hopes of capturing and or destroying them.
They can never seem to make up their minds on that mission statement.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
I’d like to believe that 2018’s “Bumblee” kind of rubbed off on the studios and it caused them to go in to another direction with their “Transformers” movie series. The “direction” being making their “Transformers” series watchable, entertaining, and coherent. Where as the previous films were all overlong, droning, loud, and obnoxious, “Rise of the Beasts” actually manages to be a very good time. And I say that as someone that’s been completely dismissing anything and everything about “Transformers” since the movies wound up being so god awful. “Bumblebee” being the exception, of course.