Dr. No (1962)

    Well we did it. We all survived 2020, and now it's 2021. Now things probably won't be getting much better for a while now, but fitting for the fresh start of the new year the scratch off poster I'm using to structure this blog has led me to a survey of sorts of James Bond films; hitting a few of the highlights of bond over the years. Over the next few weeks I'll be covering Dr. No, Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, Licence to Kill, Goldeneye (for some reason labeled "The Golden Eye") and finally The World is Not Enough. It's worth reiterating that this poster only covers the 20th century so there will be nothing past 1999. So this week we'll start with the first Bond film: Dr. No

Cabaret (1972)

     10 months 2 jobs later in a year besotten by a pandemic I return to the old film blog. It's nice to know that no matter how often I abandon it I can always come back to post more musings. I've gone back to the old scratch off poster again fulfilling a promise I made just over a year ago that I'd muse on Cabaret (1972). So I done did a watch of the movie so lets do a talk about it.

IT (2017-2019)

I was originally going to do just a review of IT Chapter 2 which came out just a few days ago, but upon a re-watch of the 2017 film I realized that, more than any other similar part 1/part 2 movie, IT chapters 1&2 are intimately connected and support each other so well each makes the other better.

A Place in the Sun (1951)

First, some housekeeping. I've stepped away from this blog for a while due to getting my wisdom teeth pulled outta my head. It's pretty difficult to maintain motivation when you're in either in pain or on high dose pain killers. Regardless I've pretty much recovered and am getting back into this thing. So the movie reopening this blog is 1951's A Place in the Sun.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

If you've been following this blog you may have noticed I did not publish a full post last Thursday. This was because I spent all my time before work goin off to guest co-host for CommTrack. CommTrack is a podcast intended to be synched with a film to hear the hosts chat while watching the movies. Kinda like a casual RiffTrax. Anyway I Co-hosted the most recent episode: Spirited Away so pop in your DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS, or however you keep your movies and click on over here to give it a listen. Anyway can't dwell on the fun stuff forever cause today's film was the 1930's version of All Quiet on the Western Front

A Symphony of Horror

It's shocking how much things have changed since 100 years ago. Nosferatu is a 1922 horror film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula that was entirely unofficial and unauthorized. Even Asylum's mockbusters (Transmorphers, Atlantic Rim etc...) don't have the guts to use identical plot and characters to their "inspirations". Aside from the usual adaptation changes of shortening and simplifying the original work the only things F.W. Murnau changed from the book original were the names and locales, and even then not very much.

Dune (2020): A Dilemma

Denis Villeneuve's upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert's Sci-fi epic Dune holds a lot of promise with a stellar writer/director who claims such acclaimed credits as Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Sicario (2015), and a shockingly good cast with FAR too many big names to list here. The movie shows so much promise that Warner Bros. has apparently already ordered a spin off television show based on the Bene Gesserit, an order of women who, through careful breeding and mental conditioning, have developed a supernatural mastery of social and political manipulation to guide humanity. Not knocking this idea at all it sounds like a fantastic series concept with potential to replace the GoT shaped void in many people's lives, but shouldn't Warner Bros. wait and see if Dune (2020) is successful first?