We're back at The Stag for another game of Million Dollar Secret! Three season-two episodes dropped on Netflix Wednesday, and I have thoughts and jokes.

Trader Vic’s Emeryville hosted a special showing of a deleted scene from the acclaimed The Donn of Tiki documentary, highlighting archival footage of Trader Vic plus commentary about Vic from luminaries and experts. The showing followed a screening of The Donn of Tiki film nearby, plus the Mai Tai Lounge being open on a Tuesday … Continue reading "Trader Vic Footage from “Donn of Tiki” Documentary"

For this episode, we need to talk about ethnocentrism, misogyny, treaties, and more, with a few tangents.

That’s the upshot of what Rothman, CEO of Sony’s Motion Picture Group, said at CinemaCon, held in Las Vegas, in the United States, this week, says Brent Lang, writing for Variety: At CinemaCon, the annual exhibition industry conference unfolding this week in Las Vegas, Rothman bluntly told the cinema operators in the audience at Caesars […]

The Fritzes award honors the best interfaces in a full-length motion picture in the past year. Interfaces play a special role in our movie-going experience, and are a craft all their own that does not otherwise receive focused recognition. In this post, I award the best comedy-horror interface of 2025, then realize it is a special … Continue reading →

As in prior seasons, another variant—this time a full-room orderly documentation of an investigation—appears in Fargo s03e10 (FX, 2017).

It's 1983, and Doctor Who is celebrating twenty years on air. But you really, really wouldn't know it.

It's stunning, beautiful, addictive, a reverse harem CDrama which attempts to comment on patriarchy and the powder dynamics of ancient China, but let's not think too deeply about this, shall we? It's a drama about pretty people and tea.

Ages ago, a reader suggested we review Saratoga Trunk (1945), and I remember looking a

Is it possible that Street Fighter as a film somehow embraced the cheese so well that we’ve ended up with a completely ridiculous, silly, and dare I say it — fun looking movie? I am WAY more into this than the first teaser. Sadly, we won’t know until October 16th, when it releases, which is […]

East London’s homegrown, contemporary circus company returned to the capital last week to share their brand new show. Premiering at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, A Glimmer Daze Gambit marks the Revel Pucks’ very first, large-scale touring season which will see them embarking on a 200 day journey across the UK. As we’ve come to expect from this exciting young circus company, it’s a joyful and breath-taking production, filled with everything you could ask for from a circus – including plenty…

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

In Eagles of the Republic, an Egyptian movie star finds himself caught in the dangerous machinations of Egypt's authoritarian government.    In a commanding performance, Fares Fares, a Lebanese-Swedish actor, plays George Fahmy, an actor who so dominates the Egyptian film scene he has been dubbed "Pharaoh of the Screen." Toping six feet, George also commands most of the social situations in which he finds himself. He knows how to use his magnetism.  That may sound like familiar terrain, bu...

The first recording today starts with the end of American Hotrod. Then it’s Mythbusters – Bulletproof Water. The first myth is that if you get deep enough in water, even if people are shooting at you the bullets lose all their speed. Their first test rig sees Jamie shooting straight down into a plexiglass column, with ballistics […]

If you’ve been following the career of Bob Odenkirk, you already know that the star of Better Call Saul has become an unlikely kick-ass action hero. Normal, which follows 2021’s Nobody and its 2025 sequel, continues Odenkirk’s foray into big-screen mayhem with a story about the sheriff of a small Minnesota town called Normal.  You needn't know much about irony to guess that the town of Normal won’t be anything like its name suggests.   Clocking in at a brief (by current standards) hour and 3...

I’ve been greatly enjoying the boxed set of six seasons of Peaky Blinders that I received as a gift recently. I may do a sort of review when I get to the end, but until then I thought I’d throw in a few tangential things. This post is an example. Here’s another one. This clip […]

I interviewed Million Dollar Secret's showrunner and executive producer about season two, and they answered all my questions about the game, its challenges, keeping things fair, and much more.

Heart Wall at the Bush Theatre starts as the audience arrives with a karaoke. Pub manager Valentine (Aaron Anthony) encourages people to come onto the stage to sing. The auditorium is lively, some singing along to the popular anthems, waving arms, and I’m sure tapping toes. As the popular pop songs fade, we meet Franky […]

As the 12th Buster Keaton blogathon comes to a close (although I’m still reading through your excellent posts, as I’m sure many people are!), allow me and “summer of 1926 Buster Keaton looking completely and totally in his element” say: … Continue reading →

You may remember the irrepressible dance film of Stromae’s “Mauvaise Journée” by Zas Dance Platform, featured on Kuriositas last August.  Well, they have delivered another blinder.  This time, it’s an interpretation of Nemesis by Benjamin Clementine.  Directed by Zaslavskyi Yevhenii and Bazela Oleksii (who also dances), the 2014 track, from Clementine’s debut album At Least for Now, is a great choice and complements the ZAS dancers’ elegant urgency perfectly. Nemesis is one of Benjamin Cle...

Ian McKellen probably could read your tax return and make it sound as if Shakespeare had written it. The 86-year-old British actor has a voice that can mellow like aged wine or cut as sharply as a newly stropped razor.   In an age of mumbled, half-whispered dialogue, McKellen delivers the written word with a theatrical precision that's perfectly suited to director Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers, a movie in which McKellen plays Julian Sklar, an aging but once prominent painter.   Time...

Before I found Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet was the film that pulled me into David Lynch’s world. From the moment the red roses and picket fences dissolved into squirming bugs beneath the dirt, I was hooked. These themes would be honed by Lynch and company a few years later in Twin Peaks, but Lynch’s original... The post Makeup Artist Jeff Goodwin Shares ‘Blue Velvet’ Memories Ahead of Book Release appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.

Telemann. The DVD of Piotr Kamler’s animations released by aaa a few years ago contained almost all of the director’s works, comprising a handful of short films together with the 50-minute Chronopolis. The most recent film in the collection was Une mission éphémère, made in 1993, but this wasn’t the last of Kamler’s films. He … Continue reading "Three short films by Piotr Kamler"

A planning board gets some string connection in Plush (dir. Catherine Hardwicke, 2013).