Kids know there are monsters in the world. They see it constantly on TV that there are dark forces at work out there. And now, with the rash of school shootings, it’s upsetting to imagine children spending their entire youth…
Read more
I saw an angel once. It was in the 1970’s- my first summer in Provincetown, on Cape Cod. I consumed several bad clams, got hepatitis and turned the color of a stick of Land O’Lakes butter. One morning, half-crazed with…
Read more
If ever there was a director who deserves critical reevaluation it’s the Czech-born Hugo Haas who wrote, produced, directed and starred in over a dozen movies in the 1950s. Very few are available on home video. In Leonard Maltin’s Movie…
Read more
When times get hard some people reach for the bottle for comfort. Others shop extravagantly to dull their depression. But for me, I always reach for a movie to find solace. There are certain key films that can always cheer…
Read more
My favorite movies are the kind that leave you shaking in disbelief afterwards saying: “What the fuck was that?” I think they’re worthy of their own film festival. If you looked up “deranged” in the dictionary you might find any…
Read more
There were certainly movies about criminal couples on the run before Bonnie And Clyde captivated audiences in 1968, but that controversial surprise hit became such a cultural phenomenon that it spawned countless imitators. Down the line many similarly themed movies…
Read more
When I was young I used to lie in bed dreaming up titles of stories and movies I wanted to write. The titles always came first, before the plots. I would mull over such scintillating titles as Torture Me, Gently…
Read more
There is no God. If there was, Kim’s Video would still be open. But I want to believe there is a heaven. Not the kind you see in picture books with angels and harps and pearly gates, but a B-movie…
Read more
In the pantheon of showbiz families, from the Barrymores to the Baldwins, the most fascinating has to be the Ormonds. This strange bunch directed Lash La Rue westerns, took the Three Stooges on tour and made country-western hokum and sleaze…
Read more
Many singers have transitioned nicely into movies. Look at Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Doris Day, Bing Crosby, Whitney Houston, David Bowie, Bette Midler, Jennifer Hudson. But personally, I’m fascinated with the cinematic hiccups- and not the obvious disasters like Mariah…
Read more