The short answer is of course “No,” physical media will never go away entirely. However, as with most things, the truth is more nuanced and it’s definitely naive to ignore the way things have been trending over the past decade. You can’t stop progress. New technology always has and always will change the landscape of …
SMILE recently passed the $200 million milestone worldwide to become the highest-grossing horror film of 2022 so far. Beyond its solid opening weekend, SMILE‘s week two drop was only 22%, the best second-week retention for a horror film since Jordan Peele’s Get Out way back in 2017. SMILE‘s surprising box office run sets it up …
Rondo Hatton (1894-1946) — an actor whose facial and bodily features were distorted by a condition called acromegaly — was tastelessly touted in the 1940s as the only movie monster who didn’t need makeup. He typically played characters with names like The Creeper, Moloch the Brute, and Mario the Monster Man. Three decades later, Los …
There was no logical reason that I feared iron lungs as a child. The medical devices were not in wide use during my lifetime; I certainly never knew anyone who used one. Still, I was both repelled and fascinated by the very idea of a machine that did your breathing for you and kept you …
When you’re a kid, movies can get to you in a way that they just can’t when you’re grown up. By the time you’re in elementary school, you know a lot about what’s supposedly “real” and what’s supposedly “unreal,” but the line between those worlds is blurrier. Generally, your imagination is a lot more active …
Well, it’s been a couple of months since I did an Amazon Prime Roulette article. The first entry in this series, a review of the Swedish film Draug (2018), was not exactly a smashing success, largely because I had no idea what was going on in that one. But today, I’m giving myself a chance …
There was a time when the sun did not set on the VHS empire. Even in a smallish town like the one where I grew up in the 1980s — Flushing, MI, population hovering around 8,000 — there were a few stores that rented VHS tapes. My folks let me get Jason and the Argonauts …
“Make it new” was the dictum of poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972). And it’s a nice thought, really, but let’s face facts. Making something altogether new is a lot of work. And, besides, why bother making it new when there’s plenty of good old stuff you can recycle? Even Ezra may have borrowed his own slogan …
So… Pretty crappy week, huh? We’re all social-distancing now. Can’t go anywhere. Can’t do anything. Everything’s canceled or closed down. No concerts. No parties. No shows. You can’t even high-five strangers on the street anymore. These are lonely, anxious times. We miss getting together with friends and relatives the way we used to. But maybe …
Edward D. Wood, Jr., the hard-drinking, cross-dressing auteur behind the notorious low-budget films Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Glen or Glenda (1953), died at the age of 54 in December 1978, after which his productivity declined significantly. It was his first significant work stoppage since the late 1940s. …
