Tag Archive: movies

Revisiting the X-Men flick: 7-film marathon time!

I grew up a comic book geek (among other things). Growing up a geek has shaped and molded me in ways I’m still discovering today, some of them good, some of them not so much. As an adult, I remain unashamed of my geekdom, and that is likely to be the case until I die of old age at 53. All of this means I’m about to take something silly way too seriously. And I am. You’d better bet your damn life on it. This is a long-winded, pointless, unnecessary way to say that over the next seven days I’m going to watch and review/comment on/post about the X movies. For the uninitiated, that translates to “movies in which Hugh Jackman disrobes and shows off…
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Saving Private Ryan on the 70th Anniversary of D-Day

Watched Saving Private Ryan in honor of the 70th anniversary of D-Day yesterday. I still remember when I first saw this in the theater. I live in a retirement area with a huge senior population.When we went to see this the theater was full, and it was a sea of white heads in every aisle. My wife and I were some of the only young people there. It was harrowing. That opening sequence, no one had ever done anything like it before. For 20 minutes you’re assaulted with graphic violence and noise and fury that relentlessly pounded your senses. By the end of the sequence, you were out of breath and tired of being battered and just wishing for a break from the sensory overload. The result was that for the rest of the movie,…
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A midnight visit from the Vampyr

Surprise! It’s midnight on Halloween. You thought my week o’ public domain horror films was over with Night of the Living Dead. You were wrong. Director Carl Dreyer directed one of the great films of all time, The Passion of Joan of Arc, which I once called “a blessing to the world of cinema.” Four years later he would direct Vampyr, a ghostly, ostentatious, bold, experimental film. It’s dark and slow and brooding and moody and forgoes an engrossing story in exchange for an engrossing atmosphere. Twilight this ain’t. Happy midnight. Enjoy the film. (I’ve changed the embedded video to links so this page loads faster): Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Read more about…
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Night of the Living Dead!

For Halloween, I thought I’d go with the big daddy. One of the kings of them all. Grandfather of one of the most popular subgenres of horror today. I’m talking, of course, about George Romero’s classic, Night of the Living Dead. Now THIS is a legendary film. When it comes to modern zombies, it’s the one that started it all. And it’s still fantastic. It also happens to be in the public domain (see below), so for this Halloween take a gander back at a flick you probably haven’t seen in a while: Some things to note: * When I spoke to Russell Streiner (Billy) several years ago for a feature on the 2005 Fangoria convention, he told me the movie doesn’t hold up just…
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The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962)

We’ll cap off this Halloween season foray into public domain horror films tomorrow with the biggest classic of the classics, but for now let’s just have fun with the schlocky B-movie fun of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, a 1962 flick about a doctor who keeps his girlfriend’s decapitated head alive and goes in search of a body to attach it to. Two of the characters in this movie are billed as “Blonde Stripper” and “Brunet Stripper,” so you know this is good cinema. Oh yeah. It’s in the public domain, so check it out: The movie is freely and legally available for download here, though I can’t vouch for the quality.