A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer’s client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. One of the few true horror films on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list is this Alfred Hitchcock classic. Released in theaters in 1960, I remember reading somewhere that, once the film began, you wouldn’t be … Continue reading 14. Psycho (1960)
My significant other was in charge of getting these tickets for us on opening night. He chose an 11:45 PM showing. For a nearly 3 hour film. On a day that I worked. My faith that I would stay awake for the entire film was low. But, I was wrong. I was dead wrong. I was awake and enthralled for the full two hours and … Continue reading The Batman (2022): A Neo-Noir Beauty
I feel like I have been waiting 100 years for this film to come out. I remember seeing a trailer for Antlers in early 2020 and being so excited about the film because I find Wendigo’s to be particularly horrifying. Then, as we all know by now, the Covid-19 Pandemic hit (and still continues to hit will we ever be out of this hell dear god) … Continue reading Antlers (2021)
Something important to know about me: the Scream series is one of my all-time favorites. The first film is unmatched, in my opinion. The second and third films are a bit dated, but still good. The fourth one still had to same feeling as the films before it. So, that’s where my expectations were. And the 2022 Scream did not disappoint. An absolute love letter to the … Continue reading Scream (2022): For Wes
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter. I find it very fitting that, as I sit down to write this post, it looks as if it may rain outside. I have only ever watched Mike Nichols’ The Graduate twice in my life: once as I was ending high school, going into college and the other in my junior year of … Continue reading 17. The Graduate (1967)
After being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines. You know what’s funny? Every single synopsis that I’ve read for Buster Keaton’s 1926 film The General has put emphasis on the civil war aspect of the film. And, … Continue reading 18. The General (1926)
Some filmmaker, at some point in time, will make a great film about the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, because this one was a miss. That’s not to say that it’s bad, because it isn’t. It’s just not great. And the reasons for that seem to be endless. The biggest thing Being the Ricardo’s has going against it is its casting. From the moment … Continue reading Being the Ricardos (2021)
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter was a film that hit me unexpectedly. I went in knowing very little about it. All I knew is that the film was adapted and directed by Gyllenhaal, and starred Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson and Jessie Buckley, and was categorized by Netflix as “cerebral, understated, intimate”. And that’s it. That’s all I had to go off of. I had no … Continue reading The Lost Daughter (2021)
You know, I don’t know that I would classify Adam McKay’s new film Don’t Look Up a comedy, only because it emphasized that already hopeless feeling that I have for the state that our world is in today. Did I find it funny, though? Oh, of course I did. If I can’t laugh at the state we are in, then I’ll just end up crying … Continue reading Don’t Look Up (2021): So Close to Home That it’s Almost Hard to Watch
An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed. I thought it was very poetic that my watch day for It’s a Wonderful Life just happened to land on Christmas eve, the night that my father and I would always have a viewing of this film. For those that … Continue reading 20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946 )
