Category Archives: Movies

October 17, 2026 · 5:06 am

I admit “1950s film blanc movies I often confuse with other movies” is a niche double feature, but hey

I’d never heard of film blanc as a genre before catching THE NIGHT MY NUMBER CAME UP (1955) on DVD but the term goes back to the 1970s. Film noir emphasizes corruption, cynicism (you can clean up some corruption, but not all of it) and bad things happening for no reason — “fate or god or something like that can put the finger on me or you for no reason at all” in the words of Detour. Film blanc has god or supernatural forces putting their finger on the scale to make things better: It’s a Wonderful Life, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Cabin the Sky, The Bishop’s Wife, etc. Unlike noir, there is a moral order to the blanc universe.

This film shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s the kind of thing Twilight Zone would have tossed off in 30 minutes: Lindsay (Michael Horden) opens the movie by telling an American officer in the Far East where to find a recently vanished plane. How does he know? He won’t say. Then we flash back to Lindsay at a party, telling his friends about a dream in which the plane they’re taking to Tokyo crashes on the coast. They’re not worried: Lindsay’s dream has eight passengers (they have six), there’s no loudmouth businessman, no problem! Except as the movie progresses, things change and it’s looking more and more similar to the dream …

Yet it does work, very well. It’s tense, absorbing drama, helped by having a solid cast including Michael Redgrave and a young Denholm Elliott. I recommend it highly. In case you’re wondering, the movie that I confuse this with is the David Niven drama A Matter of Life and Death. “Is this your idea of leadership? To lead these people to certain death!”

I tend to think AN INSPECTOR CALLS (1954) is connected to Green for Danger, which also stars Alistair Sim as an inspector; it isn’t, nor is it as good. Based on JB Priestley’s stage play, it’s a “message” drama, and as the phrase goes, they should have sent the message Western Union. Spoilers follow.

We open in 1912 as a rich family — industrialist father, socialite mother, drunken son, spoiled daughter — celebrate the daughter’s marriage to a handsome, wealthy man. Suddenly Inspector Poole stalks into the dining room, at which point I knew he was some kind of phony: no British investigator would do that without being announced. Poole reveals a young woman just committed suicide by drinking bleach and he’s wondering, do any of them know her?

Boy, do they. The father fired Eva (Jane Wenham) for requesting his factory pay higher wages; the daughter got her fired from a salesclerk job because she snickered at an awkward moment; the fiancee had a brief romance with her; the wastrel son had a romance that ended with her pregnant; the mother, sitting on a charity committee decided Eve was a trollop and refused to offer her any aid (the committee wanted her to name the father; for obvious reasons she didn’t think “it’s your son!” would fly). OMG, the entire family is guilty!!! The entire class system is guilty!!!!

But wait, there’s another twist! First a call to the morgue establishes no girl has been brought in as Poole claims — he’s a fraud! Having left the inspector in his windowless study the father goes to confront him — he’s gone! Vanished! And suddenly they get a call from the hospital that now a girl had died in the fashion described … which is a pointless added twist as it doesn’t change anything (if they’d had a chance to save her and refused to act …). A flop, though the play was revived quite successfully in the 1990s. “You and I aren’t the same persons who sat down to dinner.”

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October 10, 2026 · 5:15 am

A documentary about evil and a late night show about Satan: movies viewed

THE HUNTING GROUND (2015) is the documentary, focusing on how colleges massively under-report rape and sexual assault so that parents will look on them as a safe space; admit that they have on -ampus rape and all the other schools that keep covering it up will have a winning advantage (you can imagine why I wound up watching this recently). If a student does complain, schools do their best to cover it up and avoid penalizing the man, even though they may be quite willing to expel students for cheating, drunkenness, etc. (Alexandra Brodsky’s Sexual Justice is good on this topic). None of which is a surprise to me but the focus is on individual victims, their stories, the optimism with which they entered freshman year … and their first person stories are unsettling and painful (which is good, I’d prefer never to become jaded). Like books I’ve read on racial injustice that came out during the Obama years, this ends on a note of optimism that change is coming — which makes a bitter pill after 11 years of the Toddler’s misogyny, Brett Kavanaugh, manosphere, etc. “A woman says no and you have sex — are you a rapist just because of that?”

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2023) is a found-footage film set during a 1977 Halloween episode of Jack Delroy’s (David Dastmalchian) late-night talk show Night Owls. Once considered a potential rival for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show (for those too young to remember, Carson was the king of late night for decades), Delroy has been on a career spiral that makes cancellation inevitable. Now, however, he’s brought on an allegedly possessed little girl (Ingrid Torelli), the parapsychologist treating her (Laura Gordon) and a James Randi-style debunker (Ian Bliss). Will this explosive mix propel the ratings back up.

What we see is a supposed mix of the show that aired and backstage footage nobody’s ever seen. This suffers the usual weaknesses of found footage films: people having private conversations right in front of the camera, an ending that’s effective but also confusing. The ultimate fate of the debunker is annoying too. However the movie still works: Night Owls has the look and feel of the knockoff it’s supposed to be Dastmalchian is good in his role, the rest of the cast are solid and the story kept me interested. Worth catching if you want some horror for October. Thanks to Starfire Lounge for making me aware of this one. “We met before, among the big trees.”

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October 3, 2026 · 5:15 am

A girl and her dog, a man and his conspiracy: movies viewed

CHELSEA (2014) is an indie film in which a twentysomething must variously cope with her best friend moving out and getting married, a succession of unsuitable substitute roommates, a reunion with a former buddy, lots of bad dates and an increasingly unsatisfying job, with her dog the only point of constancy. While the back of the DVD copy makes it sound like she’s approaching a turning point in all this, I don’t see it.

Instead it’s a slice-of-life film, a brief period with the protagonist in which we watch her live her life, then we say goodbye with her still living it. No conclusions, no lessons learned, just life. Which can be a tough sell but in this case it worked — though I did spend most of the movie convinced her dog would die or run away which would either be the big turning point or mark her hitting rock bottom (I was wrong). “I want to pull the love down from the universe and shoot it into both your bodies.”

ALTERNATIVE 3 (1977) was a British mockumentary presented as an episode of a non-existent science news show, with David Ambrose — former TV pundit, soon member of Parliament — as the host. It mock-reveals that a string of mysterious disappearance in the scientific community are the tip of a glacier. The unseen 90 percent:s a joint US/Soviet plan to colonize Mars before climate change creates a Malthusian crisis. That acknowledges that the other two alternatives ain’t going to happen, to wit reducing our carbon footprint or finding the determination to go Thanos and mass-murder much of the human race.

This was nicely done, and would double bill well with the conspiracy-minded mockumentary Tribulation 99. Unfortunately it generated fallout that as Ambrose later said, nobody would have anticipated at the time: a novelization of the episode, published in the US, became fodder for real conspiracy theories such as those in the book Behold a Pale Horse (details here). It’s kept spreading from there. That’s no fault of Ambrose’s. You can find this online but be wary of a same-name mockumentary from years later; as it lists itself on Amazon as a 1977 film, I’m guessing it’s a deliberate attempt to rip off people looking for the original (it got $3 out of me). . “At the very highest levels of East-West diplomacy, there is a factor operating of which we know nothing.”

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September 26, 2026 · 5:15 am

Corruption, contagion and a coyote: movies viewed

Steven Soderbergh’s THE INFORMANT (2009) is a based-on-truth film though the opening blithely warns us the director’s not prioritizing accuracy. Matt Damon plays Mark Whitacre, an Archer Daniels Midland executive who cooperated with FBI Agent Shepard (Scott Bakula) to expose the company’s massive price-fixing operations. As he explains it, he started out in the tech end, got bumped up to management and isn’t comfortable with it.

Public-spirited? Maybe. Then again, he tells his wife that this might open up opportunities in the hierarchy if anyone above him gets busted. And then it turns out that while working with the FBI he also launched several million-dollar scams and kickbacks to line his own pocket. And even before that, he made up stuff, like his tragic family history. Soderbergh doesn’t go deep or try to pin down Whitacre’s motives (he does dismiss out of hand the idea his bipolar illness was responsible), treating this more like the kind of “you won’t believe this story” you might tell a friend over coffee. Well-done. “Everyone in the country is a victim of corporate crime by the time they finish breakfast.”

Soderbergh’s next film, CONTAGION (2011), now looks almost creepily prescient post-covid. We have a disease that jumps from bats to pigs to humans, then explodes across the globe, spawning terror, grief, death, and also masking, social distancing, paranoid conspiracy theories and anti-vax hucksters. It’s also, from what I’ve read, accurate in its portrayal of how things work (or worked at the time — god knows what things look like under RFK Jr.), though one doctor said no way does the CDC get real-time information this quickly (and based on reading for Watching Jekyll and Hyde about self-experimentation, one doctor testing a vaccine on herself shouldn’t speed things up that much). Very good and well cast: Laurence Fishbourne as the head of the CDC, Gwyneth Paltrow as an adulterous Patient Zero, Matt Damon as her shellshocked husband, Marion Cotillard and Kate Winslet as doctors and Jude Law as an Alex Jones-style huckster. “Clearly we’re not lucky.”

Warners almost buried COYOTE VS. ACME (2026) in the studio vaults which would have been a great shame — and a great mistake, as it’s proving a solid hit for them. Fed up with decades of Acme products that boomerang on him, Wiley Coyote hires attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue them. Avery is a schmuck who’d happily settle rather than take on the world’s biggest corporation and its ruthless legal team headed by Buddy Crane (John Cena). However as events progress it becomes obvious Acme is engaged in very shady business and Avery slowly realizes he’s not willing to walk away. This was a delightful, fun movie and offered some great Easter eggs (“Let’s go to our news team in Guadalajara, where a mouse just broke the sound barrier!”). Well worth seeing if you find the time. “Pursuant to Sylvester v. Gonzalez, ‘chase by predator’ is an occupation under the law.”

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September 19, 2026 · 5:19 am

Dead Templars, a bouncer and a virgin: mediocre movies and TV

The Spanish film THE BLIND DEAD (1972), AKA Tombs of the Blind Dead, didn’t do much for me but it was popular enough to spawn three sequels. After an argument with her traveling companions, a young woman gets off the train she’s riding and takes shelter for the night in an old castle. This unfortunately stirs up the inhabitants: Templars hung in medieval times for their Satanic practices after which crows pecked out their eyes. The blind Templars rise out of their tombs and go on a killing spree, hunting their prey by sound (so The Quiet Place would be a good double bill). It’s a competently executed film, but it didn’t do much for me. “Black masses are a thing of the past, doctor.”

I watched ROAD HOUSE (1989) because TYG had it streaming last weekend; I’ve never seen it before and can’t say I missed anything. Patrick Swayze plays Dalton, a bouncer — sorry, a “cooler” which is apparently a head bouncer — who takes a job bringing order to Tombstone — er, to a wild, rowdy road house which is also under threat from local extortionist Ben Gazzara (I assume he took the gig for the money but he makes his villain far better than the film deserves). This is predictable — I figured out the fate of Swayze’s mentor (Sam Elliott) as soon as he showed up — but adequate to fill some time with. “It seems everywhere I go, I hear that same joke.”

VIRGIN OF THE SECRET SERVICE (1968) pits dauntless Captain Robert Virgin (Clinton Greyn), his aide Doublett (John Cater) and adventurer/photographer Mrs. Cortez (Veronica Strong) against German schemes to bring down the empire. In the first, the bad guys are working with an Afghan ruler to weaken British control of the area; in the second, they’re sponsoring a Chinese conspiracy. Teaming Cortez and Virgin makes me think they’re shooting for a Steed and Mrs. Peel vibe but despite some tongue-in-cheek moments they don’t come anywhere near close. Nor do lines about “Chinks” and the Yellow Peril go over well. I gave up on this after a couple of episodes. “Did you know French girls sit around in their birthday suits?”

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September 15, 2026 · 5:31 am

Once upon a time, this was indeed the greatest adventure

I’m a fan of the late 1970s Flash Gordon animated TV series but somehow I never got around to the 1982 feature-length version, FLASH GORDON: The Greatest Adventure of All. Before blogging about it, a bit of comic-strip history.

The Flash Gordon comic strip debuted in 1934 and blew the people reading the Sundaycomics pages away. In the opening story arc, Dr. Zarkov kidnaps Flash — a champion polo player — and beautiful Dale Arden to come with him to Mongo, a rogue planet hurtling towards Earth. On Mongo they become the resistance leaders against the tyrannical Ming the Merciless and criss-crossing the man cultures of Mongo: the winged Hawkmen, Prince Barin’s foresters, and multiple others.

It’s basic sword-and-planet stuff, the kind the pulps had been doing for more than 20 years by then. However reading it wasn’t the same as seeing it and in those days you didn’t see it. Nothing like it at the movies, no TV, no comic books. Flash Gordon became a star and Alex Raymond a legend. It would become three hit movie serials, a 1950s TV show, then the 1980 film, then the cartoon. And since then various appearances in comic books, the Defenders of Earth cartoon, comic books and more TV. I watched the first episode of the most recent TV show. Not good.

And then there’s The Greatest Adventure of All, which was much more enjoyable. We open in 1939 Warsaw as Olympic athlete turned US diplomat Flash Gordon struggles to help people during the Nazi invasion of Poland. He can’t but he gets a message from a brilliant Polish scientist to deliver to Dr. Zarkov — “One word … Mongo.” Flash and reporter Dale Arden reach Zarkov but the disruptions unleashed by Mongo’s approach force them to escape Zarkov’s isolated laboratory by rocket ship. Destination: Mongo. Can they stop Ming when he wields the terrifying power of atomic fission to fuel his technology? Can Flash unite Mongo’s warring factions into an organized opposition? Will Ming force Dale into marriage? Will his daughter Aura seduce Flash?

It’s action packed and fun … but it got me thinking whether there’s any point to continued revivals. Flash Gordon back when this came out was still a famous name, at least to nerds like me; now I’m not so sure. Certainly sword-and-planet remains popular but when Star Wars films and TV spinoffs fill more or less the same spot in pop culture, does Flash bring anything to the table?

Even the animated film, though it only came out in ’82, looks a little dated. The voice cast, except for Ted Cassidy as the lion man Thun, is forgettable; these days I’d expect a much stronger acting team. And the women’s roles, while true to the original series, are dreadful (making me appreciate John Carter for doing so well with Dejah Thoris). Dale spends the entire film a captive; Aura gets more agency — bad girls often do — but she still winds up facing a forced marriage to Vultan, the king of the Hawkmen (and forced marriage clearly means marital rape). I think it’s possible to do that and still be true to Raymond — but I’m not sure it would sell even so. Of course, it only takes one clever filmmaker to prove me wrong …

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September 12, 2026 · 5:08 am

Dan Brown, Sandra Bullock and Sweeney Todd: movies and a play

The Da Vinci Code sequel ANGELS AND DEMONS (2009) has David Langdon (Tom Hanks of course) recruited by the Vatican “despite your history of prying into church affairs,” when it appears the Illuminati have planted an anti-matter bomb to wipe out the Vatican during the conclave to pick a new pope (I’m inclined to suggest a double bill of this and Conclave for sheer incongruity). A set up like that should have led to pure, wild entertainment but Dan Brown is too busy teaching us esoteric details about the Vatican, Rome and the Illuminati to go with the flow (some of Michael Crichton’s talkier books have the same problem).

Plus, of course, the details are wrong. The real Illuminati were a branch of the Freemasons founded in 1776 in Bavaria, repressed by the state a few years later; here they’re a much older organization, a brotherhood of scientists driven underground by the Vatican’s persecution. Given the real Illuminati have been massively transformed in pop culture and political paranoia to something far more ominous, ignoring the reality (for that matter it doesn’t have much in common with the paranoid fantasy Illuminati) shouldn’t be a sticking point — but I don’t like the movie so I’m less forgiving than I might be. With Stellan Skarsgaard as a cop and Ewan McGregor as a priest. “Is it possible the Illuminati could have infiltrated the Swiss guard?”

Memory says I did like THE NET (1995) the first time I saw it, due my huge crush on Sandra Bullock; rewatching now, she can’t save such a slow, predictable thriller. Bullock plays Angela, a cybersecurity whiz who lives a high-tech, solitary lifestyle. Doesn’t hang out with her neighbors. Keeps her mother, who’s sliding into dementia, in a home (I’ve seen people deal with family members who have Alzheimer’s and I do not find Angela’s decision unreasonable). Her last serious relationship was with her married therapist, Dr. Alan Chapman (Dennis Miller). When she wants pizza — well, why go to a restaurant when you can order it online!

From Angela’s perspective it’s a good life … that comes crashing down when she unwittingly acquires the McGuffin, a software program that a sinister conspiracy definitely doesn’t want a security expert looking at. On vacation she meets Jack (Jeremy Bentham) who’s really into her … because he’s working for the conspiracy! This will come as a shock to no-one, except Angela. Bentham does a good job as a hit-man who might genuinely like Angela (or he might be lying) though not so much he won’t kill her. When he fails, the conspiracy goes to Plan B, rewriting Angela’s digital records so she’s now in police records as a petty crook and scam artist. An imposter takes Angela’s own identity, sells off her house, drains her bank accounts — and as she lives online, nobody knows it isn’t her.

It’s a shame I had to watch this without TYG, as she’d have some thoughts on the 1990s tech, like the crude avatars of Angela’s online friends in chat rooms. As a thriller, this is formulaic though I do find it interesting as a high-tech version of a concept — having your identity erased — that goes back much further (Twilight Zone: Person or Persons Unknown is one example). “She’s not running — she’s going in there to use a computer!

Finally got around to watching my brother in a production of SWEENEY TODD, the story of a barber transported (shipped overseas as a convict) for crimes he didn’t commit so that a lecherous judge could plays sexual predator to the barber’s wife. Now he’s back, out for revenge, but until he can get it, he winds up working in partnership with a local baker: he kills his customers, she bakes them into pies. My brother plays a rival barber who makes the mistake of blackmailing Mr. Todd.

The cannibalism dominates my memory of the show so I was surprised it doesn’t start until the show is half over. It shows Sondheim’s skill as a playwright that the drama of the first half kept me engaged, instead of waiting for the blood and gore to kick in. I’m inclined to suggest a double bill with Little Shop of Horrors as another story of a struggling business that gets involved in anthropophagy. “There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit/And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit.”

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September 5, 2026 · 5:07 am

One book, one movie: Dr. Lao and his seven faces

Charles Finney’s 1935 THE CIRCUS OF DR. LAO is one weird book. And I love the cover of my edition (wish I knew the artist)

Abalone, Arizona is a small, dull, dusty desert town. First the newspaper has a big ad announcing the coming of the circus, then it shows up. In small towns back then, that’s always exciting, but townies who gather to watch are underwhelmed — three wagons, that’s all? One of them with a horse that has a fake horn on its head, one of the wagon-drivers has horns on his head and plays a syrinx, there’s a dog painted green, a little old Chinese man and a furry Something/Someone in one of the cages — is it a bear? Or maybe a Russian? Lao himself can shift from pidgin English to standard English at will.

Despite the small procession into town, there’s a full circus with sideshow exhibits and a big tent when Lao opens his show that night (memory suggests a circus setting up magically this way is a common trope but I can’t swear to it). We have a sea serpent engaging in intellectual conversation about its life history. Medusa, carefully shielded so she’s only visible in a mirror (as you might guess, someone’s going to look closer …). The satyr sexually liberates a prim young woman. Two drunk college students cause trouble. Apollonius the seer gives a middle-aged woman a bleak prophecy: she won’t find love, nothing will change, nothing will improve, she’ll simply fade away, losing hope, and then she’ll die (it’s a strikingly sad moment). A sorcerer resurrects a dead man, who runs off immediately — he has important business! Almost all of which the locals treat with complete phlegmatism, no more excited than if they’d seen a tattooed man or the like. Faced with wonders they don’t find it that wondrous. Apollonius’ prophecy feels like it could apply to the entire town.

It’s an odd but fascinating story. No real plot, just a series of incidents. No real explanation of anything. The book concludes with a Cast of Characters list including details about people who were little more than walk-ons, or were mentioned but never appeared, plus a list of unanswered questions — was it a Russian or a bear? What business did the dead man have? The end result is not everyone’s cup of tea; I have no memory what I made of it when I read it in college, other than “that’s weird.” In its own way it’s brilliant. That said, we have a couple of racial epithets dropped into casual conversation and the satyr committing sexual assault; if those are unacceptable, well now you know.

I think such a plotless novel is unfilmable so it’s no surprise when they did film it, Charles Beaumont’s script for THE 7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964) gives it a plot to hold everything together (the great George Pal directed it). A skilled fantasy writer and Twilght Zone scriptwriter, Beaumont gives it a Twilight Zone quality — Lao (Tony Randall in yellowface) shows up and transforms everyone’s lives for the better the same way Professor Fate saves Denton in the episode Mr. Denton on Doomsday. Though it also resembles the 1962 film musical The Music Man: like Harold Hill, Dr. Lao is a traveling trickster who revives the lives of everyone in town, including inspiring a prim librarian to find love (this does make Lao the equivalent of a “magical Negro”).

This version of Abalone is a dying town and everyone knows it. Cynical Stark (Arthur O’Connell) has offered to buy everyone out so they can leave and start over; newspaper publisher Ed Cunningham (John Ericson) is pushing his neighbors to say no. He’s also pushing widowed librarian Angela Benedict (Barbara Eden) to say yes to a date, without any luck.

Enter Lao and his circus. His satyr (Randall — the “seven faces” means he plays seven roles) loosens Angela up (not quite as rapey as the book scene), the serpent mocks Stark, Apollonius (Randall again) makes his bleak prophecy. Stark’s thugs harass everyone opposing him; somehow Lao neutralizes them.

The end result, alas, lacks the sophistication of a good Twilight Zone episode; it feels more like kidvid (Lao does spend a lot of time with Angela’s young son, who’s fascinated by him). The performances are competent but not stellar. Randall playing seven roles doesn’t add much, though “actor plays multiple roles” has its own appeal. It has some charm, but I think there’s a better unfaithful adaptation they could have made. “Every time I bet on weakness, corruption, and fallibility, I want to lose — but I always win.”

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August 29, 2026 · 5:15 am

Atlantis rises — and so does Superman! Movies and TV

GOLDEN NINJA (1966) has an astronomer who’s discovered the rogue planet Icarus is hurtling towards Earth join a UN team that’s working to destroy the planet with a super-laser. Too bad the sinister Noza’s out to steal the laser and bring about Earth’s death — who can save us now?

Well, as the title tells us, it’s the Golden Ninja, a laughing gold-lame clad superhero who rises from his tomb in ancient Atlantis to battle Noza. This silly but engaging movie was originally Golden Bat, which makes more sense (he has a bat familiar he uses at key moments) — but then again, I can’t imagine anyone watching this movie was worried about the plausibility of Atlantean ninjas. I am, however, bothered that Noza’s weird outfit makes him resemble a four-eyed pantomime horse. “Humans don’t belong in this universe — this universe exists only for me, Noza!”

In BLACK PANTHER: Wakanda Forever (2022), the MU’s Atlantis is transformed into Talokan, an underwater haven where an indigenous Central American tribe fled (by means of a water-breathing potion) to escape Spanish colonialism. Now, though, American attempts to mine vibranium from the ocean floor threaten their existence so their leader, Namor (Tenoch Huerta) invites Wakandan Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and Shuri (Letitia Wright) into an alliance against the surface world.

Okay, he actually demands one, along with ordering Shuri to capture Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), the teen genius whose invention makes the mining operation possible. Namor blames Wakanda because their refusal to share their vibranium with the world is what drove America to go looking. And if they refuse? “Our warriors are as numerous as the blades of grass in your kingdom.”

This Black Panther sequel had the challenge of the MCU T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) having died after the first film; one of the plot threads is Shuri dealing with her grief, and her ambivalence over stepping into the hereditary role. I don’t think it met the challenge. Part of the problem is that it’s got a lot to do: Shuri’s grief, more geopolitical conflicts, introducing Namor and Talokan, setting up Riri for her Ironheart series on TV, plus Wakanda vs. Talokan action scenes. The result is a 2hr 40 minute movie and while there’s no shortage of plot, there’s not enough drama for me. Fitting Namor into the Killmonger role — the voice of someone who’s suffered from colonialism and wants Wakanda to Do Something — didn’t work, and neither did Namor. For me, the essence of Namor has always been his arrogance and this version didn’t have that; while he’s imperious and makes demands he comes off more as a leader making tough choices. And while I do love them keeping Namor’s ridiculous ankle wings, why would a Mesoamerican merman say Namor’s catchphrase of Imperius Rex? “There is an entire YouTube channel dedicated to sightings of me.”

By contrast, the third season of MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN (S1 review here; S2 review here) succeeds admirably. The plot threads include Jimmy insisting he and Kara date other people (he’s convinced she only likes him because she hasn’t seen what other Earth boys are like); Clark talking marriage and Lois freaking out; their kids arriving from the dystopian future to change it; Luthor unleashing a superhuman of his own (spoiler: doesn’t go well); and Clark losing his powers for much of the season. I particularly love a scene in which the depowered Clark gets between a killer and some kids, takes a bullet stopping him and then beats himself up — those kids almost got killed because he didn’t have his powers! Of course he did save them but he just takes doing the right thing as a given and doesn’t consider it. I look forward to S2.“Your fear is a weakness — mine is a weapon.”

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August 22, 2026 · 5:10 am

Adventures in Italy, Argentina and Eternia: Movies

GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO (2019) is a wildly entertaining film that takes elements of the original novel and the Disney movie and throws in Italian fascism. It’s the brink of WW II and Gepetto is grieving his son’s death in an earlier bombing raid. When he carves a puppet boy out of a tree his son once planted, the Blue Fairy (Tilda Swinton) brings Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) to life which leads to inevitable trouble as he tries to make sense of life, dies and returns, gets drafted into the army (Ron Perlman plays the local fascist leader) and struggles to find his dad with the help of a somewhat self-centered Crickett (Ewan MacGregor). Odd, grotesque — but it works well. With Christopher Waltz as a conniving showman and Cate Blanchett as his monkey sidekick. “Sometimes fathers feel despair like anyone else.”

With WW II cutting Hollywood off from the European market, 20th Century Fox hoped DOWN ARGENTINE WAY (1940) would sell well enough in Latin America to compensate. This stars Don Ameche as the son of an Argentine horse-breeder who strikes up a romance with American horse-loving socialite Betty Grable; alas, it seems Ameche’s father has a bitter feud with Grable’s and declares his is a love that cannot be. This successfully launched Grable as a musical star though I’m damned if I can see why — she’s way too bland an actor for my taste (though tough enough offstage to stare down the studio head when he demanded to sleep with her).

However my primary reason was that the Nicholas Brothers, the amazing black tap dancers, appear here doing a solo number, which was typical for their film careers (easier to cut for Southern markets). I’m a fan of theirs and they are spectacular here, more than worth watching. The supporting cast includes Carmen Miranda as herself and J. Carroll Naish as a gigolo — oh, my mistake, he’s a Tour Guide, got that? “If he ever looks into my eyes again, I’ll show him a storm rising over the pampas.”

I was never a fan of the original He-Man series but I had some free time and Amazon was streaming MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2026) free and Camestros Felapton thought it was worth seeing, so …

A sneak attack by Jared Leto’s Skeletor forces Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) to flee to our world where he loses the Power Sword. As an adult he’s stuck living as an HR worker, searching for the sword and convincing everyone around him he’s a borderline nutjob. Worse, when he finds the sword, the movie’s threat level ratchets upwards ..

This feels like it’s shooting for a Guardians of the Galaxy-type balance between comedy and adventure and it does reasonably well. The cast includes Idris Elba as a drunken, washed-up Man At Arms, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, James Purefoy as Adam’s dad, Kirsten Wiig as the voice of Roboto, Morina Baccarin as the Sorceress and Camilla Mendes as Teela. “No match for the Netflix She-Ra (though “Force Commander Adora” does appear in an endbit), but fun enough. “There is no good left in me for you to find.

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