I am not certain where Gary Oldman culled inspiration to play Winston Churchill in this new cinematic equivalent of a comic book history lesson. With a blubbery voice and a penchant for cutesy physical movements, Oldman does a smashing impersonation of Benny Hill’s Mr. Scuttle, but the resemblance to Britain’s wartime leader isn’t quite there. An excess of make-up and generous body padding only succeeds in turning Oldman into living Madame Tussaud wax statue.
In the digital age, there’s so much entertainment, it’s impossible to be bored, anymore. There’s so much stimulation and so much television that it’s also impossible to watch everything. I have a long list of shows I intend to see soon (Glow, The Handmaid’s Tale, Punisher), but out of the TV I did manage to watch in between many, many, many movies, these are five of the series I especially enjoyed.
What were your favorite Shows and Series of 2017? Let me know in the comments!
Fans of edgy/campy 1950s flicks will remember Yvette Vickers as the blonde bombshell star of such classics as “Short Cut to Hell” (1957), “Reform School Girl” (1957), “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” (1958) and “Attack of the Giant Leeches” (1959). But she was much more than a blonde bombshell of the B-Movie screen. In this episode of “The Online Movie Show,” film historian John O’Dowd discusses his new audiobook “My Friend, Yvette Vickers: In Her Own Words,” which details this bright, funny and complex star’s remarkable life and her still-shocking death.
The episode can be heard here.
“The Online Movie Show” is produced at the Platinum Wolfe Studios.
Director Tom De Simone’s “Hell Night” usually gets lumped in together with a lot of the other eighties slashers, but in reality his genre offering is so much more unique than a simple hack and slash. “Hell Night” is a great Halloween horror romp that feels like something pulled out of a haunted house Gothic novel. It’s the perfect fixture for the holiday delivering a relentlessly bleak tone that makes it quite an unnerving experience all the way through. Linda Blair can do these kinds of horror movies in her sleep and she plays final girl Marti quite well, doing her best to battle a deformed monster in its territory.
I was first introduced to “The Simpsons” on December 17th, 1989 at the age of six, when I spent all day with my dad and brother visiting my grandparents for the Christmas season. After arriving in the evening to my aunt’s house, my dad ensured we’d be there a while and I sat down with my big cousin to watch “The Simpsons” special “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.” Little did I know this simple yellow skinned family of underdogs and losers would become one of the biggest comedic and creative influences of my life. It’s a show that’s stuck with me well in to my thirties, and it all started “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.”
This is the story of Paula Parker, a petulant prepubescent princess whose depravities produced a plethora of death and deception. For shame, parents of Paula Parker, you dare not look after your teen daughter in the age of the fifties where crime was rampant. For the first time on Blu-Ray, it’s also a worthwhile title for collectors thanks to AGFA, “The Violent Years” is one of the many infamous baby boomer products of fear and hysteria that warned of a world filled with darkness, crime, debauchery, and premarital sex. Make no mistake, your teen would smoke the marijuana, and tongue kiss way before they matured in to upstanding citizens.
BOOTLEG FILES 617: “Julie’s Christmas Special” (1973 television production starring Julie Andrews).
LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube and Vimeo.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It’s possible.
In 1972, Julie Andrews sought to re-energize her career by focusing on television. This migration from big screen to small screen followed a string of big-budget flop films that damaged her viability as a movie star. But she still had name value, and the less expensive and more intimate parameters of a television variety seemed perfect for her distinctive talents. “The Julie Andrews Hour” was produced in England by ATV and distributed internationally by Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment, with ABC picking up the U.S. rights.