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The Bootleg Files: The Dumb Waiter

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BOOTLEG FILES 826: “The Dumb Waiter” (1987 film directed by Robert Altman and starring John Travolta and Tom Conti).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On VHS home video.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: There seems to be a rights issue that has yet to be cleared.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at the moment.

By the mid-1980s, filmmaker Robert Altman’s career was going through a rough patch. During the 1970s, he was praised by critics as being one of the era’s most original and provocative creative artists, but that adulation did not win him favor with studio executives with whom he had difficult relationships. After a series of box office flops and the indignity of having one film – the 1979 all-star “HealtH” – shelved by 20th Century Fox, Altman found himself focusing on small, lower budget works that were released by smaller art house distributors. He also pursued projects for television, which was highly unusual for a director of Altman’s prestige.
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Mukbang (2022)

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One of the big sensations of the youtube age are Mukbangs: where people or a person sits on in front of a camera to eat food for the audience. Sometimes they’re usually discussing an issue or completing a challenge, but most times the attraction is watching someone eating food. “Mukbang,” from ACM Official, is a great twist on this formula that takes this trend and turns it in to a bonafide tale of horror.

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Money Shot: The Pornhub Story (2023)

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With the advent of modern technology and the internet becoming accessible through any handheld device allowing the ease of pornography distribution, the emergence of a titan of porn distribution was inevitable. It arrived in the form of Pornhub, a multi-faceted database of every type of fantasy, fetish, and kink you can imagine–for better and for worse. The pornography industry has been one that’s become a topic of conversation since the early 1900’s. Does it influence sexual deviancy or deter it? Does it victimize its performers despite their vocal consent?

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Western Wednesdays: Hell’s Hinges (1916)

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SYNOPSIS:
Young and weak-hearted Reverend Henley [Jack Standing] is sent from the big city church to preach in the town of Placer Centre, a city known locally as “Hell’s Hinges” for the cutthroat and violent behavior of its gun-toting townsfolk. However, two rogue citizens, Silk Miller [Alfred Hollingsworth] and “Blaze” Tracey [William S. Hart], do not care for Henley’s appearance in town and plot to do away with the reverend and his sister Faith [Clara Williams].
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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942)

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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.

The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Michael Maltese
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Richard Bickenbach

I have a big sentimental value attachment to “The Wabbit Who Came to Supper.” When I was a kid we didn’t have cable television, but VHS tapes were readily available and often cheap. Back then stores would sell cartoon compilation tapes filled with hours of animated shorts for dirt cheap (often times they were a dollar, two dollars tops). So my mom and dad would buy at least four of them and give them to me and my brother and sister, and we’d watch them for hours. I spent so many days watching random shorts from MGM and Warner.

Basically, it consisted of whatever was public domain at the time, as the “unofficial” compilation tapes were filled with public domain animated shorts. That’s basically how I familiarized myself with Popeye, and Felix the Cat, and how I fell in love with the Fleischer Brothers Superman series.

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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: COMMUNION (1989)

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Today’s review is for one of my favorite movies of all time. (I know, I know… I’ve said this before, but in my defense I’m old and I love a LOT of movies.) COMMUNION stars Christopher Walken as Whitley Strieber, Lindsay Crouse as Anne Strieber, Frances Sternhagen as Dr. Janet Duffy, Andreas Katsulas as Alex, and Joel Carlson as Andrew Strieber. It was directed by Phillipe Mora based on Whitley Strieber’s best-selling nonfiction book of the same name. Now, perhaps I’m completely in the wrong here, but I am legitimately baffled as to why this movie isn’t more popular. It is FAR superior and FAR scarier than the similar FIRE IN THE SKY, which is usually what people bring up when they’re talking about terrifying alien abduction films. Now, I know what you’re thinking. If I like it so much then why am I reviewing it on BAD MOVIE MONDAY? Well, because for some insane reason it’s considered a bad movie. Most critics at the time dismissed it and audiences have been ignoring it for over thirty years. So I suppose this review is my attempt to remedy that.
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The Great Trash Movies

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Call them “escapism,” call them “guilty pleasures,” call them “anti-classics” – they are the Great Trash movies that don’t make the Sight & Sound list but nonetheless win the hearts of moviegoers. In this episode of “The Online Movie Show,” ArmchairCinema.com’s Jerry Dean Roberts shares his insight on the greatest of the Great Trash flicks.

The episode can be heard here.