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Judex (1916, Louis Feuillade), Episode 3: The Fantastic Hounds
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 15, 2018
The Fantastic Hounds seems like a silly name for the chapter, but it turns out Judex’s dog pack is rather fantastic. They aren’t just able to sniff out kidnapped Yvette Andréyor, they’re able to rescue her. Sure, a ten or twenty dog pack is intimidating, but they execute their mission perfectly. read more
Judex (1916, Louis Feuillade), Episode 2: The Atonement
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 14, 2018
The Atonement might be a peculiar chapter for Judex; since it’s only the second one, however, maybe it’s going to be the norm. It starts with Judex gently intimidating his captive–Louis Leubas. At first, it seems like Leubas is going to be doing some atoning. It’s also where Feuillade has some read more
Judex (1916, Louis Feuillade), Episode 1: The Mysterious Shadow
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 13, 2018
The first chapter (proper) immediately follows the prologue, with Yvette Andréyor taking over the lead (possibly for the rest of Judex). Unlike her father, she’s swayed by the mysterious Judex’s demand–half her father’s fortune was to go to charity or he’d be killed. Andréyor, shedding herself read more
Judex (1916, Louis Feuillade), Prologue
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 12, 2018
The prologue to Judex mostly concerns banker Louis Leubas. He’s rich, he’s French, he’s corrupt. He wants to carry on with a younger woman–Musidora–but he’s got a widowed daughter (Yvette Andréyor) and a grandson living with him. So he decides to marry off Andréyor to a presumably suitable read more
Soylent Green (1973, Richard Fleischer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 11, 2018
If you leave the twist–which isn’t even a twist, just a justification for conspiracy–ending off Soylent Green, it’s a detective story. The case–the murder of a wealthy businessman–isn’t as important as how that case affects lead Charlton Heston. He starts carrying on with the victim’s read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 10, 2018
For the first few chapters, Bela Lugosi can carry The Phantom Creeps. He’s hamming it up as a mad scientist surrounded by actors who can’t even ham. Creeps has some truly terrible performances, particularly from its other leads, Robert Kent and Dorothy Arnold. He’s the military intelligence officer read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 12: To Destroy the World
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 9, 2018
Sadly, there’s not much world destroying in To Destroy the World. Not even when Bela Lugosi, finally reunited with his meteorite and able to escape, decides instead he’s going to steal a biplane and bomb things. Starting with the federal building. Only he drops a bomb on a zeppelin, which does inde read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 11: The Blast
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 8, 2018
The Blast features some of Phantom Creeps’s most prevalent tropes. Good guys following bad guys because they happened to drive and pass one another. Jack C. Smith’s henchman (to Bela Lugosi’s mad scientist) getting shot and dazed. Smith’s been shot at least three times (and dazed) in the serial. read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 10: Phantom Footprints
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 7, 2018
The title, Phantom Footprints, could almost refer to when a spy–seeing invisible Bela Lugosi’s shadow–thinks there might be something there. But then another spy just tells the first spy to shut up about it. It happens twice, first with Anthony Averill saying it’s stupid, then (after Averill read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 9: Speeding Doom
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 6, 2018
Speeding Doom once again has the good guys, bad guys, and Bela Lugosi trying to get Lugosi’s box. In the box is a powerful meteorite, which allows for all of Lugosi’s inventions. But the good guys and bad guys don’t know about it yet. They still aren’t sure Lugosi’s alive. Until the bad guys read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 8: Trapped in the Flames
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 5, 2018
Trapped in the Flames is yet another exciting installment of The Phantom Creeps. Yet again, the Feds (led by Robert Kent) pursue the foreign agents (Anthony Averill’s the chief henchman, Edward Van Sloan’s the boss) trying to find Bela Lugosi’s missing box. No one but Lugosi (presumed dead by read more
The Florida Project (2017, Sean Baker)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 4, 2018
The Florida Project turns out to be a lot about perspective. Director Baker establishes three different perspectives–six-year-old Brooklynn Prince, her mom (Bria Vinaite), and the manager of the motel where they live (William Dafoe). The film takes place over a summer, as Prince makes new friends read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 7: The Menacing Mist
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 3, 2018
The Menacing Mist is endless. It starts with Bela Lugosi trying to kill Robert Kent with his remote control robot, but then he has to deal with some insurrection from lackey Jack C. Smith. Kent’s just doing action, so at least he’s not doing bad acting. Smith, on the other hand, is doing some bad read more
The Gay Falcon (1941, Irving Reis)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 2, 2018
The Gay Falcon answers a question I never thought to ask. Can George Sanders flop a part? The answer is yes. There are extenuating circumstances to be sure, but Sanders flops the lead in Falcon. He’s a skirt-chasing, playboy criminologist, which ought to be a natural fit for Sanders. Instead he com read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 6: The Iron Monster
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on May 1, 2018
Phantom Creeps hits the halfway point with some intrigue involving one of the cast possibly being a double agent (fingers crossed as it’d give the plot something engaging) and Bela Lugosi getting a new weapon, a kind of ray gun. The ray gun doesn’t get much usage after the demonstration because read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 5: Thundering Rails
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 30, 2018
Thundering Rails is mostly vehicular action. It starts with Robert Kent and Dorothy Arnold trying to land a damaged plane while dropping hand grenades on the foreign spies (being careful not to hurt good guys Regis Toomey and Edwin Stanley). Then there’s a bunch of car chases. The cliffhanger–which read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 4: Invisible Terror
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 29, 2018
I suppose Invisible Terror, which doesn’t feature much invisible terror, is an improvement over the previous chapter. Terror does have Edward Van Sloan in a full flight suit waving a gun around threateningly. Not many opportunities to see such a thing. The story continues to be Feds versus gangster read more
Hoosiers (1986, David Anspaugh)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 28, 2018
Hoosiers rouses. It rouses through a perfectly measured combination of narrative, editing, composition and photography, and music. In that order, least to greatest. There’s no way to discount Jerry Goldsmith’s score and the importance of his music during the basketball game montages. They’d be read more
Through a Glass Darkly (1961, Ingmar Bergman)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 27, 2018
At eighty-nine minutes, Through a Glass Darkly never has a chance to get tedious, which is part of the problem. Writer-director Bergman has just introduced the characters, just established the ground situation, when he tries a graceful segue into the characters and their relationships being familia read more
The Phantom Creeps (1939, Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind), Chapter 3: Crashing Towers
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Apr 26, 2018
If Crashing Towers is any indication, the only thing keep The Phantom Creeps creeping along is top-billed Bela Lugosi. He’s not in the chapter much–more often than not he’s invisible–and, wow, are things rough without him. In addition to the predictable bad acting from Robert Kent and Dorothy read more