Throughout my life, I've ran across three movies that I just could not understand the appeal of: The Big Lebowski The Lord of the Rings Franchise Blade Runner Now, normally it wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't like a movie, but all three of these films seemed like something I should like. I always felt like I was just missing something. So, over the past few decades, I've revisited these films over and over again... waiting for something to click. The Big Lebowski clicked first. It took three…

Based on a true story, shot on location in Michigan, and the source of all the lawyer quotes (the judge is played by the real “at long last have you no sense of decency” guy, and Jimmy Stewart tells him “I’m just a simple country lawyer”). Also a fleet, twisty, morally ambiguous story of an underdog law team winning a defense case that they maybe should’ve lost. Jimmy and his clients: Jimmy takes the case of killer Ben Gazzara, who murdered the rapist of his wife Lee Remick. Now the prosecution…

Annoyingly square 1950s movie with a worm of weirdness in the middle. Mostly it’s clumsily-made propaganda, but the dialogue pops at times, and EGOT Helen Hayes is very good, bringing real personality to a bland mother role. Movie feels like a play, with long takes (ruined with weird edits via optical zoom), the family naturalistically stuttering over their lines. You wouldn’t think it’s the work of a 30-year veteran director, but at least it’s lovably eccentric – you also wouldn’t guess this…

There’s a detail about this film that you may have heard about, whether you’ve seen it or not. I’ll get to that, I promise. Marlon Brando is “Paul”, a middle-aged American expat in Paris, who is grieving the sudden suicide of his wife. Maria Schneider is “Jeanne”, a 20-something Parisian who’s living with her mother but is in talks with her boyfriend about moving in together. Paul and Jeanne both hear about the same apartment for rent and run into each other while looking it over; but sparks…

This is another piece written for the Locarno Film Festival’s “Great Expectations” retrospective on postwar British cinema. Anthony Kimmins began in the early 1930s – unusually – as both a writer and director. Few of his early works are available, but 1934’s Once in a New Moon, has an unusual concept – a chunk of […]

Mickey Mouse sells a bundle

I watched the first (of probably a couple) full trailer for, "Avengers Doomsday." Besides a bit of a teaser here and there, little has been shown/revealed. In the trailer, released yesterday, we hear what sounds like Robert Downey Junior with an accent speaking as Doctor Doom about a major threat. Then, we get a bunch of scenes of much of the MCU gathering together whilst a voice-over from Thor (Chris Hemsworth) discusses how the current threat facing everyone scares him more than anything he'd…

Sam Neill, known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park movies and appearing in movies from The Hunt for Red October (1990) to Event Horizon (1997), died on July 13, 2026, at the age of 78. Sam Neill was born Nigel John Dermot Neill on September 14, 1947, in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. His father was a New Zealander stationed with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. His mother was English. The family moved to New Zealand in 1955, where they operated a wine and spirits business. He…

I remember seeing The Hardacres (2024-) on our Upcoming Frock Flicks list, but it never

CapnRex101 / Brickset: The LEGO Group, in collaboration with Disney Entertainment, today unveils the LEGO Ideas The X-Files (21369) set, a 1,478-piece model that invites adult fans to celebrate the iconic ’90s sci-fi drama. To mark the reveal, Emmy Award-winning actor, Gillian Anderson, stars in a cinematic mini-film tribute to the beloved series. With a nod to FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, Anderson is drawn into an investigation that gradually leads her to uncover the LEGO set itself, piece…

Look who just popped up at AMARC at Davis–Monthan in Tucson: “Nutz”, an aggressor-livery F-18E series aircraft, late of the “Fighting Omars” of VFC-12 out of NAS Oceania. Yup, the series is getting that old. Boeing F/A-18E-54-MC Lot 23 Super Hornet (MSN 1530/E026) BuNo 165783 was part of the Low-Rate Initial Production 3 (LRIP 3) Rhinos, funded under the U.S. Navy’s fiscal year 1998 defense budget, and produced circa 2000-01. So she is 25-26 years young and is probably high hours, being…

In Withnail and I, one of the most quoted scenes in British cinema has Withnail drink lighter fluid, straight from the can, out of sheer desperation for a drink. It plays as pitch-black comedy. It also really happened. The man who actually drank the lighter fluid was Vivian MacKerrell, a jobbing actor who shared a squalid flat in Camden with the young Bruce Robinson in the late 1960s, and who inadvertently became the basis for one of the most beloved characters in British film history without...

Pardon if today seems a little more scattered than usual; I left the apartment without my little five-inch square notebook and so wasn't making notes through most of the day, and that's not great when the first couple films of the day are Japanese shorts and new releases; Japanese studios just do not update English-friendly movie databases and there's a lag on the crowd-sourcing as well. I

I love that this is a new premise and that is not horror based on, or remade from an older movie. I think the director had the chance to be very creative, and really took that by the way the camera sequences occur throughout the movie. I feel like the movie’s pacing was a bit slow at times, but that is just a personal opinion. I would watch it again, but maybe in a few months.

This is short but very sweet. A young mouse, out on an expedition, falls down a well. Now, that might not end well (ah!), but at the bottom, in despair, he meets a new friend who might be the key to his survival. Yet, this involves sacrifice. I won’t tell you anymore because spoilers, but give it a watch, particularly if you are feeling a little down in the dumps today. The screenshot above might give you a small clue, but I have no doubt that Bottom of the Well will cheer you up! This animated…

Casimir Werk, grandson of the millionaire soap maker and vintner for whom Werk Road is named, saw a UFO one balmy Sunday evening in 1905. The unidentified flying object was soon revealed as an identified flying object but yielded an even bigger mystery.According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [28 August 1905] Werk watched an unidentified object he believed might be an airship explode while it flew westward on the previous evening:“Mr. Werk was standing in front of his parents’ home on La Feuille…

Arabesque (1966)

Saw a clip on Facebook (yet again) from a new film called "Wonderful Nightmare," specifically the Filipino adaptation of the original South Korean one. Love the recontextualization!!

Last night I was very stoked to have attended Young the Giant live at the Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley. I want to thank public transit and especially BART for getting me there yesterday! The concert was such a blast! I've always wanted to see Young the Giant. I remember listening to them back in the early 2010's at my parent's house after learning about them on a blog. Blogs are cool and so is their music. I really enjoyed the energy all around me. People were dancing, holding hands, hugging…

The historic North Bend Theatre in North Bend, Washington is hosting “We Live Inside a Dream” from August 13-16, 2026, celebrating the 34th Anniversary of the North American premiere of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. This prequel to the groundbreaking television series was first shown in the small town movie theatre on August... The post ‘We Live Inside A Dream” at the North Bend Theatre, August 13-16, 2026 appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.

All aboard for my Below Deck Med season 11 episode 7 recap! It gave us an allergic reaction, an unhinged preference sheet (which I transcribed!), and a suitor trying to charm the bachelorette with his nonsense AI pitch and rant about traditional women.

Possibly the first Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie I’ve ever watched on its own – though I followed up by immediately rewatching the episode. Somewhere along the way I heard that the movie is actually excellent, and that’s not true; it’s Italian Batman Mabuse 007, but the color really pops on the new blu-ray and I got to listen to Ennio’s “Deep Down” for four hours. Eva: Eva (artist’s rendition): Diabolik was in Barbarella the same year, and those would make a great double-feature: jokey…

Last time we checked in on the Doctor Who Magazine comics continuity, we took in the first half or so of the Eighth Doctor’s tenure in the comics. This was an era of long, ambitious story arcs which saw the comics giving the concurrently-running BBC Books novel line a run for its money; we left off with The Autonomy Bug, a three-parter whose last episode ran in issue 299 of the magazine. As I mentioned last time, that marked the end of an era in its own right for two reasons. Firstly, issue 300…

The first recording today is a repeat of Pokemon Battle Dimension – Playing the Levelling Field. Media Centre Description: Ash continues his quest to become the greatest Pokemon trainer ever. He travels through the Sinnoh region, where he is challenged in a number of thrilling battles. [S] Recorded from CITV on Sunday 11th April 2010 11:28 The recording ends with the start of Prove It! The next recording is a repeat of The Simpsons – Bart Gets an F. Media Centre Description: A psychologist…

(2026/07/20 20:15) If commercial success mattered, one would think Fast & Furious 10 is better than the whole filmography of Kubrick, Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini, and Tarkovsky combined, so fuck Stan Lee, the British Invasion was the best thing to happen to superhero comics.

The story so far: after Doctor Who‘s 2005 return was a storming success, BBC Radio 7 (and its successor station BBC 4 Extra) decided they want to get in on that sweet TARDIS action, and struck a deal with Big Finish to produce a season of stories featuring Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, as honed during the Wilderness Years audio, paired with a brand new companion in the form of Sheridan Smith’s Lucie Miller. The first season of these was also a success, leading to Big Finish pivoting the Eighth…

There's not much to add here that I didn't discuss on Saturday. You see above the notice about the Watergate hearings; there were none scheduled for this Friday, and none were held, leaving the night open for the College All-Star Game at 8:30 p.m. What interests me is this movie at midnight on KMSP: War Hunt. "In Korea, Pvt. Raymond Endore wins the high regard of his captain for his one-man night patrols—killing silently with a stiletto—but the new man in the squad thinks Endore's killer…

An installment of “Menopause Cop” features a “wish I could murder board” versus a paltry “murder board from the case” in Urzila s01e03 (ABC iView, 2026). ▲ Urzila s01e03 (ABC iView, 2026) ▲ Urzila s01e03 (ABC iView, 2026) ▲ Urzila s01e03 (ABC iView, 2026) ▲ Urzila s01e03 (ABC iView, 2026) ▲ Urzila s01e03 (ABC iView, 2026)

Here’s me hoping for the first good Marvel movie in years, because this trailer got me excited! Now let’s just hope Gambit will leave that ridiculous accent in the Bayou.

Marvel Entertainment / YouTube: Doomsday arrives December 18th. Released today to coincide with the availability of tickets in “Infinity Vision”1, we have ourselves our first, official proper trailer for Avengers: Doomsday. That sure is RDJ putting on his best vaguely European accent as Doom, who does indeed look great on camera, but there’s something really missing here. We’re checking off the B-Team box, and unlike in the original Avengers or Infinity War or Endgame, there’s a decided lack of…