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It's that time again, when I post my my movie log in review for the previous year and reflect on another year's worth of movie watching. 2021 continued to be dominated by the pandemic, which affected my movie viewing in several ways. I saw exactly one new release in an actual theater in 2021, and th read more

Here's another one of those moments where my literary, cinematic, and LEGO obsessions collide. In August I watched The Green Knight (2021), a modern revision of the iconic chivalric romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a story I've loved since I first read it as a student and then taught many t read more

Every Christmas brings new holiday movies, especially with streaming services like Netflix cooking up batches of them like trays of cinematic sugar cookies, but the classics are those we return to year after year. They become beloved traditions in many families, and ours is no different. I know ther read more

Recently I've seen both of the newest MCU movies, Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and The Eternals (2021), and that inspired me to reflect on the MCU pictures as a group and my favorites among them. There are already more than 25 movies to choose from, not including the Disney Plus read more

Long before Uma Thurman's relentless Bride swore to kill Bill in the Quentin Tarantino movies, Jan in the Pan killed her own treacherous Bill in the low-budget horror classic, The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962). Despite its B-horror status and sleazy male gaze, The Brain That Wouldn't Die turns out read more

Even people who don't care for classic horror movies have probably heard of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Vincent Price, but behind every horror classic there's also a director asking for heavier fog, more menacing closeups, and louder screams. Alfred Hitchcock, although not primarily a horror dir read more

Halloween is my favorite holiday, even though I'm too old for trick-or-treating and don't have a little one now to take around the neighborhood. It's an especially good time of year to revisit the movie monsters and film phantoms of Golden Age Hollywood, but there's a lot more to enjoy than the obvi read more

It's really difficult for me to pick only five films for Bette Davis. She's one of my favorite stars, and her career spanned decades, with juicy, memorable roles from her early years right up to her death in 1989 at the age of 81. She was nominated for 11 Best Actress Oscars and won twice, first for read more

I wouldn't normally think about making a five favorite films list for a producer, but Val Lewton is special. Born Vladimir Leventon in what is now Ukraine, Lewton headed the horror unit for RKO in the 1940s and made brilliant, moody horror pictures on shoestring budgets. He eschewed gimmicks and gor read more

English actor Leslie Howard is best remembered today for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939), but Howard himself was not a fan of the part or his own casting in it. He said of the role, "I hate the damn part. I'm not nearly beautiful or young enough for Ashley, and it makes me sic read more

We finally got to watch Disney's latest entry in the live action treatments of 101 Dalmatians characters, which this time moves the focus off the dogs entirely and charts the early misadventures of its title anti-heroine, Cruella de Vil. Early reviews of Cruella (2021) were mixed enough that we chos read more

What happens when a modern American girl enters the London debutante season? That's the question posed by The Reluctant Debutante (1958), a romantic comedy from director Vincente Minnelli with more than a few outdated notions hiding under the hem of its ballgown. Set during the final year of the old read more

Thanks to Disney Plus, viewers can finally enjoy all five seasons of The Muppet Show, and at my house we've been delighted to have access to the long-awaited fourth and fifth seasons, which were never available on DVD. The release has created some controversy about Disney's decision to include conte read more

Adapted from the thrilling tales penned by Baroness Orczy in the first years of the twentieth century, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) is an essential part of the swashbuckler genre even though it's not exactly an action picture. Instead, Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon, its stars, are primarily involve read more

The notorious Edinburgh murderers Burke and Hare supplied the insatiable cadaver market with "made to order" corpses in the early 19th century, and they've been nightmare fuel for popular culture ever since, with multiple horror films revisiting their crimes. Among these is The Flesh and the Fiends read more

As we all know, 2020 was a year unlike any other. With the pandemic raging and constant political crises unfolding, we needed movies to comfort us more than ever but couldn't leave the house to enjoy them. My 2020 movie log reflects the fact that I usually had company on the couch and that our colle read more

2020 - a year of masks, not movies.The last movie I saw in a theater was Onward back in March of 2020. It was spring break for my college freshman, who had brought a friend home for the holiday, and that week we were also finally closing on the sale of our old house, six months after moving into our read more

 I'm generally a fan of adaptations of Charles Dickens' holiday standard, even the loose and the weird ones, but the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol from MGM strikes me as a bowdlerized, lightweight entry into the category, pleasant enough but not really willing to get to the heart of the sto read more

I have frequently declared my affection for movies that are more entertaining than they are good, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that I enjoy the bizarre spectacle of Barbarella (1968) even if it makes no effort to make any sense. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by Roger Vadim, this ada read more

After her breakout success in Roman Holiday (1953), Audrey Hepburn cemented her image as a charming romantic heroine with Sabrina (1954), in which she plays a beautiful ingenue who pines for affection from a wealthy, older man. Along with its love story, Sabrina offers a very tame exploration of ups read more