Hollywoodland takes a fictionalized look at the events surrounding the death of George Reeves, best known for his iconic portrayal of the Man of Steel on The Adventures of Superman.
It accomplishes this by introducing a fictional detective, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), hired by Reeves’ mother to look into the actor’s death. As he investigates, […]
High Anxiety is probably Mel Brooks’ most underrated film. While his true classics (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein) are justly lauded and his missteps (Life Stinks) properly ignored. But I have always felt that High Anxiety is this little gem of a film that doesn’t get a fair shake.
It is a parody of Alfred […]
The Great Mouse Detective is a highlight of the “dark days” of Disney Animation - those years between the death of Walt Disney and the renaissance brought about by the production of The Little Mermaid.
It is an adaptation of the Paul Galdone novel Basil of Baker Street and tells the story of Basil, a mouse […]
Andrew “Dice” Clay doesn’t get the respect he desrves. He gets the scorn he deserves, but not the respect. Sure, he chose to play to the cruder aspects of comedy, but you can’t do that as successfully as he did without some ability. Before hitting it big as the “Diceman”, he had […]
The Hound of the Baskervilles is perhaps the oddest Sherlock Holmes film that is actually based on a work by Arthur Conan Doyle. It starts with the fact that Holmes is played by Peter Cook and Dr. Watson by Dudley Moore. Now, they were both fine actors when they tried and could have […]
I, like many I’m sure, was introduced to The Wild World of Batwoman through its appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000. But despite the uncut version appearing on the MST3K DVD, I had never bothered to watch it all the way through. Does it stand up un-MSTied? Sort of.
First, it’s important to […]
The films that Ed Wood is best known for are undoubtedly those on which he collaborated with his freind Bela Lugosi: Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and, most famously, Plan 9 from Outer Space. In 1994, director Tim Burton filmed a fictionalized version of the making of these films in Ed Wood.
Glen […]
The Cheap Detective followed hard on the heels of writer Neil Simon’s previous mystery parody, 1976’s Murder by Death. While Murder by Death had an impressive cast (David Niven, Alec Guiness, Maggie Smith, Peter Sellers, etc.) playing parodies of a wide variety of mystery characters, I think it was clear that the standout was […]
Viewed December 4, 2006
Think Bela Lugosi lowered himself by appearing in Ed Wood movies? Maybe so, but if The Gorilla is any indication, he was already willing to hire himself out to anybody back in 1939. To understand the circumstances, you should know that the stars of The Gorilla, the Ritz Brothers, were […]
Viewed November 30, 2006
Like many, the first notice I gave Gumnaam was when I saw it’s opening dance number included in the film Ghost World. But far from the wacky 60’s romp that the number seems to indicate, Gumnaam turns out to be a somewhat altered re-telling of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (uncredited, […]
Viewed October 1, 2006
Ever since I started this project I planned to watch a lot of horror movies during October. So, naturally, when the month rolled around, I promptly forgot and watched Sherlock Holmes in New York. Not that I mind, because I quite liked it. It’s just I had meant to […]
Viewed September 9, 2006
So, one day after the Star Trek anniversary, I wound up watching a film on TCM that starred the ultimate Trek villain, Ricardo Montalban. Mystery Street is a typical B-movie, but a really good one. Solid performances and a better-than-average script make this little-known film worth the while of any […]
Viewed September 4, 2006
Cards on the Table is a recent TV Movie featuring David Suchet as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Now, I’ve read plenty of Christie (and seen a lot of Suchet’s Poirot on his show and other TV movies), but I’m not familiar with Cards on the Table. A bit of digging […]