My 1/2-Ass Movie Blog

 Kris Kristofferson, Ali McGraw, Ernest Borgnine, Madge Sinclair, Franklin Ajaye. Dir. Sam Peckinpah, United Artists, 1978 Among the myriad charges subsequent generations have laid at the feet of Baby Boomers, one I've seldom, if ever, seen is what they did to racial diversity and progress in movies. From 1970 to 1976, blaxploitation pictures pretty much saved Hollywood studios still trying to rebrand and retool after television helped bring an end to the Old Hollywood's studio system. By '76, however, Jaws had established the era of the modern blockbuster, while Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Robert Altman, and Peter Bogdonovich pioneered the auteurist New Hollywood of more personal movies, made on the cheap and often covering the same genres as the great B-pictures of Golden Age H'wood, but breathing new life into them with grittier violence, nudity, adult language, and more nuanced characters and stories. The black-themed movies faded from m...

 Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance. Dir. Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros., 2018 A couple years ago, when bots started authoring news stories, I harrumphed quite a bit that "no bot can do what I do," and as I come across clickbait stories which I suspect must be bot-written I feel somewhat reassured but, at heart, my reaction is probably about the same as Paul Bunyan's bluster upon seeing the first chainsaw. I imagine any honest writer must feel a little like the cashier whose register stands beside the self-checkout at Wallyworld, eye to eye with her own obsolescence every day. This is pretty much how it feels to be a middle aged white dude, an analog champion in a digital world. New tech, new values, new standards, new ideas and here I stand, still convinced music videos and Swatches qualify as cutting edge. Shit, I still like compact discs. Whether or not there's value in being a dinosaur in a mammalian paradigm is anot...

 Lana Turner, Barry Sullivan, Glynis Johns, Sean Connery. Dir. Lewis Allen, Paramount, 1958 Another Time, Another Place, Sean Connery's screen debut, figures in pop culture for more than just the first James Bond's starting point. In 1974, Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry titled his second solo record the same. I could accept that as coincidental, but Glynis Johns also starred in a British drama titled Flesh&Blood. Which, of course, is the name of Roxy Music's 1980 LP. Two coincidences seems a bit of a stretch. Naming his albums for UK films he may well have known as a boy - Flesh&Blood came out in 1951, Another Time... in '58 - fits with Ferry's sense of style, but the real question is, did Ferry have a thing for Glynis Johns? I'm sure some deep-diving online research could yield a definitive answer, but I find the suggestion tantalising and evocative enough as it is, and I want to talk about the very pleasant surprise I had in Another Time, Another Pla...

 Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow. Dir. David Fincher, New Line, 1995. I'm not a fan of serial killers. They don't interest me, never mind fascinate or enthrall. Given my own history of mental illness, some kinds of abnormal or afflicted psychology interest me, but serial killers and mass murders don't number among them. When I was younger, Satanism did fascinate me. Supernatural evil, as opposed to the more mundane, human kind, had a strong hold on me, which persisted off and on until my 40s. Satanic evil functioned as a philosophical license. I could think violent, toxic, cruel things and tell myself it was all part of advancing Satan's influence.  I actually prayed to Satan every morning and night, offering up my soul in exchange for dominion. Dominion is a fancy euphemism for sexual mastery of women. The world knows no shortage of women turned on my being dominated, and offers no shortage of ways of meeting them. For me, "satanism" ...

 Robin Williams, Forrest Whitaker, Bruno Kirby, Tung Thanh Tran, JT Walsh. Dir. Barry Levinson, Touchstone, 1987 I used to spend time on a music message board, but usually in the threads devoted to movies and books. I found it impossible to have serious conversations with music fans who divided the world into "rockists" and "poptomists." I'm not good with those binary absolutes. It looks like such weakminded horseshit. Not that it went much better in the nonmusic threads. I remember a discussion about some movie, I forget which, but I remarked that though the movie wasn't a dramatic masterpiece it covered a fascinating swath of recent history and its perspective on that time kept me engaged. "That's very nice," the guy replied, "but no one watches movies for that." Because I'm slow, it took me awhile to realize that the only people he spoke for was himself. He meant, "I don't see movies for that, so I refuse to beli...

 Michael Douglas, Val Kilmer, Emily Mortimer, Tom Wilkinson. Dir. Stephen Hopkins, Paramount, 1996 It's a Saturday night. No money, not enough to go out and do something. Friends all have plans. Or maybe it's Sunday afternoon, overcast, chilly, what Douglas Adams called "the long dark teatime of the soul." Or it's 1 a.m. and work ended at midnight but sleep won't be happening soon. What now? Now it's time to flip on the tube, settle back on the sofa, and find something to pass the time. A movie. A masterpiece would be nice, of course, but Saturday nights and anytime after midnight and Sundays when football's on just aren't the times Superstation or your local indie channel program masterpieces. They run Casablanca or The Godfather when they can draw a big audience. On that Saturday in June when 34 broke, lonely people are channel surfing until sleep rescues them, Superstation runs a good-enough movie. A timekiller. Something to hold the atten...

 It occurred to me I ought to start posting the movies I've gone out and bought and will be writing up to make things more clear for the hypothetical audience outside of Fb that I don't yet have. I will, though. Minor internet semi-celebrity waits just over the next hill. Crazed fans, book and movie deals, obscene offers from troubled women, merchandising - the world of awesomeness only just eludes my grasp.  Goodwill finished its renovations and the media shelves are back with a vengeance. One stop shopping, the best kind there is. Today, I found: James Bond - DR. NO THUNDERBALL ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN THE SPY WHO LOVED ME THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS LICENCE TO KILL SKYFALL MISCELLANEOUS - DONNIE DARKO THE GHOST & THE DARKNESS GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM SEVEN (sealed) THE PRICE-LEE HORROR COLLECTION - HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL LAST MAN ON EARTH THE BAT HORROR EXPRESS COUNT DRACULA & HIS VAMPIRE BRIDE CIRCUS OF FEAR BROK...