I just finished binge-watching the first three episodes of Marble Hall Murders (2026) starring Lesley

This: Now available in cupcakes! Oh, and while we're at it... BROADWAY OCTOPUS WANTS TO SING: [[jazz tentacles]] BOW-TIED OCTOPUS WANTS TO LIMBO: FATALISTIC OCTOPUS WANTS TO CARTWHEEL: "This will end in tears." And, uh, Derpy here just wants a hug: "Derp!"Thanks to Rebecca S., Kristin S., Diane H., April R., & Lesley M. for joining me in a rousing rendition of "Octopodes have EIGHT legs, bakers. EIIIIGHT!" And now... jazz tentacles!*****And from my other blog, Epbot:

I am a huge fan of the Netflix series Peaky Blinders. When it first came out in 2013, I didn't really pay much attention to it. Then, around Season 3 in 2015, I watched it and was hooked. One of the things I learned while watching the series, and finally the movie this year, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was how many bits of history were intertwined with the obvious fictional elements. It is a huge reason I am a fan. There is something about historical fiction that, as someone who studies…

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966)

Apple TV has announced another new Peanuts special, a Christmas special coming our way this Christmas season. I’m going to spare myself some effort and just drop down the relevant portions of their press release, so the editorialization you see is all theirs. Apple TV is making the season merry and bright with holiday programming for the whole family, led by the all-new Peanuts special, “Snoopy Presents: 12 Days of Snoopy,” premiering Friday, November 13. In the latest special under the…

This doc was showing on my local PBS station tonight. About high school Mariachi here in Texas. What a scene!

(1981) Directed by Bruce D. Clark; Written by Marc Siegler and Bruce D. Clark; Starring: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Grace Zabriskie, Zalman King, Robert Englund, and Sid Haig; Available on Blu-ray and DVD Rating: *** “…I came up with the idea of the monster, but each monster would be a different monster for each member of the cast and would be a monster coming out of their unconscious. This is part of certain Freudian theories I had.” – Roger Corman “You’re trying to do a science…

Image source: Wikimedia Commons Years before Lon Chaney and Tod Browning were silent Hollywood’s actor/director ambassadors of the macabre, Browning’s chief thespian collaborator was a Manhattan-born actress once dubbed cinema’s “Queen of Crookdom.” This monarch of crime was Priscilla Dean. For the classic film initiated, Tod Browning needs little introduction. Famous for early sound era chillers like Dracula and Freaks, he was considered the screen’s answer to Edgar Allan Poe with his…

put your fears to rest all is right in the world

Today’s recording starts with the end of Dennis & Gnasher. There’s a promo for the CBBC Beakeriser website. Then it’s What’s New Scooby-Doo? – Gold Paw. There’s a gold plated monster at Fort Knox, and it’s turning people into gold. The gang ae visiting Fort Knox to visit the Secret Six puppies again. Was this an attempt to do a Scrappy Doo that wasn’t annoying? They’re being drilled by Drill Sergeant Payne. Shaggy and Scooby get lost looking for the canteen and find themselves in the gold…

Good production design – I thought about The Black Phone which opens “DENVER 1978” and spends the next 90 minutes painstakingly creating Denver in 1978, while this one feels free to follow its own rules (they drive a 1970s car, use modern music and speech, nobody has cellphones). Scarred twin sisters (from Kindred and I’m a Virgo) meeting their real mom Vivica A. Fox for the first time in memory, she says your dad ruined our lives. They track him via a mute strongman lawyer who pays people to…

Mark Rylance helps promote Intermission Youth, a community theatre project he's long been a fan of, by starring alongside a cast including alumni of Darren Raymond's company in a new version of Molière's Tartuffe. The 17th century satire of hypocrisy and the ease with which the unscrupulous can use religion to con the unwary always feels ripe for reinvention and Tartuffe Open Brackets Remixed Close Brackets relocates the story to a modern-day blended British-Nigerian-Jamaican family, as…

bigfoot is shy

Mic Wright joins Tim Worthington for a chat about Jean Grey's battle to save a timeline where The Young Person's Guide To Becoming A Rock Star hasn't happened yet in X-Men '97.

Various wacky shenanigans delayed the arrival of our copy of Laurel & Hardy: The Silent Years – 1929 from the good people at Eureka! Masters of Cinema, but it’s here now! Fiona and I made a video essay not quite as monumental as the one on the 1928 set, but way more finicky and complicated. […]

I was just posting on Friday about an older Marvel MAX comic I enjoyed, and now we get news about one of the other best ones from that era! Yes, "Alias," which was written by Brian Michael Bendis and had art by Michael Gaydos, it told the story of Jessica Jones, a detective with powers, but who isn't much of a hero or big shot in the Marvel Universe. It was superb and followed by the decent "The Pulse," before she was folded into, "New Avengers," with her eventual husband (they got married in…

A classic string board appears in Rats! (dirs. Maxwell Nalevansky & Carl Fry, 2024). ▲ Rats! (dirs. Maxwell Nalevansky & Carl Fry)

I’ve been a fan of Brendan Fraser since Encino Man (1992) and truly, there really isn’t

Twin Peaks fans have been blessed with quite a few opportunities to catch our favorite show on the big screen lately, but no other screening has been quite like the Twin Peaks: Moving Through Time series by curator Daniel Knox. WHAT IS TWIN PEAKS: MOVING THROUGH TIME AT THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS?... The post Trip Report – Twin Peaks: Moving Through Time at the Music Box Theatre in Sept. 2026 appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.

This is one of those days that demonstrates the accuracy of NBC's claim to be "The Full Color Network." CBS boasts of only two prime time colorcasts (My Three Sons and Gilligan's Island), while ABC's curious choice is O.K. Crackerby, co-creator Cleveland Amory's failed sitcom (17 episodes), starring Burl Ives. Who knows why—it would take someone like Dick Tracy to find out, and hopefully that's a big-enough hint to you regarding something contained in today's listings, which, as you might have…

It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals. In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 800. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is … Continue reading →

I have long considered Lon Chaney Sr to be the ultimate character actor in the history of film. The man was a marvel. Not only could he play anybody, but he completely disappeared inside the characters he portrayed. Every move he makes, even down to the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of gestures, draws you in and keeps your attention. He also conveys more inner turmoil and emotion to audiences with a single look than any line of dialogue could ever hope to convey. He reached…

Disclosure Day 2026, Steven Spielberg My rating: Didn't like it An absolute nothing burger of a film. An ET movie in 2026 ought to try to do something new or different, but this one does nothing. It takes itself so seriously that it just feels silly. It’s even sillier how many shots there are of people reacting to how serious the things happening in the movie are, as if the movie is trying really hard to make you care, too. I didn’t.

One of the great pleasures of autumn in Bristol is the return of Opera Project to Tobacco Factory Theatres. It has quietly become one of the city’s most reliable cultural fixtures, delivering opera of remarkable quality in a space where audiences sit close enough to catch every glance, every gesture and every intake of breath. Opera is often sold on scale. Huge choruses, vast orchestras and gilded auditoriums. Yet there is something equally thrilling about hearing Mozart in a room this…

The very entertaining Warner Bros. film TORRID ZONE (1940) has just been released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection.I first reviewed TORRID ZONE here nearly two decades ago, in 2007. I very much enjoyed it then, but I don't think I'd seen it again in the years since.What a treat to finally revisit the movie on this new Blu-ray, which looks absolutely terrific. Thanks to this release, TORRID ZONE is more enjoyable than ever.Pat O'Brien plays Steve Case, the hard-edged manager of a…

Klaus Kinski as a wide-eyed, energetic spymaster. Sami Frey as the equally dedicated but dead-eyed terrorist bomber. In between both is New York actress Diane Keaton smuggled in by love to act as a spy for Israeli agents and find the elusive bomber. All of this is shaded through the cold, detached world of a John LeCarre novel that exemplifies my type of spy film. There's a ton of exposition..... acts of kidnapping and play-acting that aren't immediately explained,,, and lengthy scenes of…

Movie’s lesson is to bring a cutting tool wherever you go, and that despite The Monkey we should continue making Adam Scott horror movies. McCarthy’s Oddity was a slow burn with a delicious ending, he follows it up with a mostly fun movie with a bum ending, oh well. Adam is an ornery writer staying at a rural hotel to scatter his parents’ ashes and/or finish his dreary conquistador novel and/or commit suicide. When he gets out of the hospital the hotel is closing for the season, the girl who’d…

THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ALONSO DURALDE. YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN SEPTEMBER: LEVITICUS, NOUVELLE VAGUE, GO, AND THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF STAR TREK NEW RELEASE WALL Leviticus (Decal Neon): It’s been a stellar year for indie horror, with films like Obsessions, Backrooms, and It Ends, all of which have racked up healthy box office, audience engagement, and raves from critics. Chief among the horror hits of 2026 is this Australian…