Universal Classic MonstersIcons of Horror CollectionVolume 2 Welcome, dear readers, to a very special and very spooky edition of TV Party Tonight! Sometimes, the stars just align into a collective beautiful moment, and this time, it did just that with our special coverage of the Universal Classics Monsters collection 4K box set. I’m not exactly a movie guy, but I’ve been trying to become one. And one way to do that is to indiscriminately watch anything on the Criterion...
The Lost Boys This is one of those movies that brings a smile to my face. Not just because it’s a recent discovery that has delighted me, but because it was somewhat of a slow burn. The Lost Boys is popular in the punk/goth crowd, so it’s always been on my radar, and it just so happens that the 35th anniversary edition was the right time for me. On a first watch, I though it was decent, but it...
Elvis Give it up for Elvis, the original pop star. He’s popular on a global scale and was one of the fines performers the world has ever seen. Especially compared with pop stars these days, Elvis at least kept it real. What you saw was what you got. He didn’t pretend he wrote any of those songs he performed, because maybe, he was more interested in what you did with that song in front of an audience. Was he...
The Batman Batman is treading some dangerous waters. I’m saying this because the franchise is coming close to being a punch line. How many times has it been “rebooted”? The better question is probably, “why does it keep getting rebooted?” It’s hard to say, but it probably has something to do with audiences only getting excited about superhero movies, and only wanting to see things they’re familiar with. I’m old enough where the original quartet of Tim Burton/Joel Schumaker...
Singin’ in the Rain70th Anniversary Edition Boy this is a tough one, mostly because I’m not much of a musical guy. I’m a film aficionado for sure, and my Criterion movie collection can attest to that. But musicals? That’s a toughy, because musicals are objectively contrived, embarrassing, and just plain bad. It’s pretty much a fact. Anytime someone breaks into song, it sends chills up my spine. Add choreographed tap dancing and you’ve got a death sentence. Sure, there...
Edge of Tomorrow It might be time for us to rehabilitate Tom Cruise. He’s long reigned supreme as America’s favorite weirdo actor celebrity, and it’s his own fault. Who could forget that appearance on Oprah years ago when we all realized just how strange of a bubble the man lives in. That just opened up a pandora’s box of oddness that directly relates to the shady organizations the man associates himself with. We’re a small-time website here, so we’re...
Dune Can you believe they made a Dune movie AGAIN? And that it turned out THIS good? Jodowosky’s Dune opened my world to the mythos surrounding the book and to Jodorowksy himself. My cultural world was changed after watching that documentary, so of course, after seeing David Lynch’s movie, the idea of a new Dune movie is a loaded proposition to me. What was a good sign was that Denis Villeneuve would be directing. The man has proven himself...
A Clockwork Orange At first, I thought this was going to be a tough review to write. When I first started getting into Kubrick’s movies, I remember really liking A Clockwork Orange but some scenes at the beginning sort of tainted my opinion of the movie. Yep, I’m talking about that scene you’re thinking about, and I really couldn’t think about A Clockwork Orange for years without thinking specifically of that scene. Going through the AFI Top 100 list, I...
The Shawshank Redemption Hello there, dear reader and welcome to another edition of TV Party Tonight! We have several Warner Brothers movies in the chamber and I want to start with the movie I’m most excited to talk about which is the Shawshank Redemption. Why? Because. I’m about to go to bat for this movie and bat HARD. The reason why I think I need to do this is because this movie gets a bad rap, and it kind...
Inglourious Basterds Rewatching it many years later, I’m surprised by how much my opinion of this movie has changed. I used to think it was another masterpiece, but now I’m not so sure. Tarantino had been working on this script for over a decade before he decided to finish it, and he made Kill Bill in the meantime. And the script is quite solid, but what irks me is the casting, or maybe how these actors play the characters....