Ex Machina

Here’s a story idea: A young, naïve scientist is summoned to a mountaintop castle where a mad scientist is laboring to create life. He has done it, but his creation is not happy, wants to get out and see the larger world …

No, that sounds a little too familiar. How about this one: A beautiful maiden is held captive in his castle by a beast. A young man falls in love with her and ... Read more »

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

… is Jean Arthur, who is one of my Top Five female movie stars of the Golden Age. She could do screwball comedy better than anyone, in my opinion, and she had some great competition. This isn’t one of her best, but it’ll do. It’s a sort of The Thin Man lite, with William Powell as her doctor ex-husband who she is still in love with. It’s very much a Nick and ... Read more »

Executive Action

There are those who say that America blew up the USS Maine in Havana Harbor to get us into a war. The Lusitania was sunk for a similar reason. Ditto the attack on Pearl Harbor, which FDR knew all about in advance. And of course, the Pueblo incident never happened. I just chanced on a website claiming that very ... Read more »

eXistenZ

I met David Cronenberg in Toronto when he was filming Dead Ringers and he and the Millennium sound people were using the same mixing studio. He seemed like a nice guy. You’d never suspect he made those gooey, ghastly movies where heads exploded and flesh was creepily malleable. Since Alien there is a ... Read more »

Exodus: Gods and Kings

There is a law of diminished expectations. The reviews of this Ridley Scott film were pretty awful, but since it was a big SFX movie with no costumed idiot “superhero,” I just had to give it a try. And I had a good time.

The main reason to see it is to compare and contrast with the greatest special effect of all time, that is, the parting of the Red Sea in ... Read more »

The Exorcist

Here we have the granddaddy of the modern horror movie. Stories that people were fainting and vomiting during the more disturbing demonic possession scenes in the movie are largely untrue (the director, William Friedkin, claimed that most people fled the theater during the rather clinical scenes of a spinal tap being performed), but it sure as shit shocked the world.

To enjoy it, ... Read more »

The Exorcist

Here we have the granddaddy of the modern horror movie. Stories that people were fainting and vomiting during the more disturbing demonic possession scenes in the movie are largely untrue (the director, William Friedkin, claimed that most people fled the theater during the rather clinical scenes of a spinal tap being performed), but it sure as shit shocked the world.

To enjoy it, ... Read more »

Experiment in Terror

I’ve been reflecting sadly that it is probably very difficult to get a film like this made today. Lee Remick is a bank teller. She comes home one night and is grabbed from behind by a man who says she is going to help him rob the bank, or he will kill her and/or her little sister. This is all very noir, very close in, and very sinister. Don’t contact the police; I’ll know. She calls the ... Read more »

Expo: The Magic of the White City: The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893

I wanted to see this because I’d just read a book about the construction of the White City, and about the serial killer, Herman Mudgett, who stalked it and murdered at least 20 young women in a hotel he built specially for the purpose. I hadn’t realized just what a big deal it was. Everything about it was mind-boggling, and it would amaze people even today. I went to the 1954-65 New York ... Read more »

Extras

That daft Limey git (and I say that with the greatest affection), Ricky Gervais, has done it again. I’m really not too interested in the goings-on in an office. It’s an environment I’ve managed to avoid all my life, and I’m thankful for it. I don’t get the jokes in Dilbert, that’s how far removed I am from places like that. But in “The Office,” Gervais managed to ... Read more »