Deja Vu All Over Again…

This article (a rare non-review) was originally published on 12ftdwende.com on 23 April 2010. I saw a movie this past week (actually three but only one is relevant to this particular op-ed). It was a madcap comedy about the many things that go wrong at a funeral. It is called Death at a Funeral and … Continue reading

City Lights (1931)

City Lights (1931) – The most recent Academy Award winner for Best Picture was The Artist, a [mostly] silent film about a silent film actor whose career hits the skids with the invention of talkies. It’s a great and moving picture but in real life one of the biggest silent film stars in the world … Continue reading

Shallow Grave (1994)

Shallow Grave (1994) – Danny Boyle has made his mark on modern cinema. He’s directed horror (28 Days Later…), science fiction (Sunshine), romantic comedy (A Life Less Ordinary), true-life drama (127 Hours), and a family film (Millions). He’s won the Academy Award for Best Director for the Best Picture-winning Slumdog Millionaire. He’s made an impact … Continue reading

Gods and Monsters (1998)

Gods and Monsters (1998) – If you have been paying attention to this humble little movie blog the past month or two you will have certainly by now noticed that I have a certain fondness for the old Universal Horror films, chief among them Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. To me (and to many others, … Continue reading

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974) – Did anyone think I was going to make my way through all those classic Universal Frankenstein movies and not end up watching this one? Since I’ve been writing reviews I’ve tried to really find a way to characterize what I would consider funny. Too often my reviews of comedies come down … Continue reading

House of Frankenstein (1944) & House of Dracula (1945)

So Universal had gone through all the classic monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Wolf Man. Then they decided to mash the franchises together with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Then they figured “if two, why not three?” That’s where these movies come in. These are commonly referred to as … Continue reading

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) – In the 1940s, a company called Timely Comics (now known as Marvel Comics) had two big characters: the Human Torch and Namor the Sub-Mariner. They decided that the only natural thing to do was put them together and make them fight. The whole Marvel Universe was born in … Continue reading

Son of Frankenstein (1939) & The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

I’ve been marathoning my way through the Universal Monster films of the 1920s-50s. By and large I’ve found them to be as excellent as I remember from my youth (in the early 90s, I was not yet born when they were made… hell, my dad wasn’t born when most of them were made). However as … Continue reading

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – The horror genre is one that is often met with dismissiveness if not outright derision. There’s a spectrum, to be sure, and on the lower end of it you have exploitation films that promise and deliver no more than jumps, blood, maybe a little gratuitous nudity. On the upper end … Continue reading

Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein (1931) – So I have saved the best for not-quite-last (since some of the other movies I intend to watch are sequels to this one). Frankenstein is my favorite of the old Universal Monster movies. It’s also the most popular with five sequels and a crossover with Abbott and Costello. Boris Karloff and Jack … Continue reading