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Incomplete masterpiece.  Perhaps the most frighteningly “real” of any Holocaust film.  The overseer’s narration is both theatrical and sickeningly plausible.

Quasimodo is a real actor trap.  Tough to resist overdoing the pathos and playing to the audience’s sympathy.  I’m not sure any of the three great actors who played the role  — Mr. Chaney, Mr. Laughton, Mr. Quinn — avoided that trap entirely.

My voice is ragged from reading all the intertitles aloud.

The kids were surprisingly into this.  The boy gives it a thousand stars.  The girl gives it 12 stars (because 12 is her favorite number).

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

Black-and-white ‘Scope, baby!  That’s the shit!

The bad guy INTENTIONALLY puts a fly in the disintegrator-reintegrator with our hero doctor.  That’s a very cruel thing to do.

The boy prefers it to the original film because the sequel is in black-and-white.  Parenting win.

I love Mr. Kotcheff's films though this is not his strongest. The story lacks an extra dimension and some of the casting is mysterious. (The great Jack Warden does not belong in this movie.) Still, Mr. Peck, even with his unconvincing Scottish accent, is a reliably charismatic center, and the "Old West" has real grit and texture. Not a bad spin for Western fans.

I wonder if Donald Pleasence or Michael York ever saw this movie.

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

We’ve never seen anything like it.  Extraordinary.

The spacemen on this rescue mission sure packed a lot of heat, including a bazooka.  It looks like they were planning to rob a bank on Mars.

The boy is always delighted when he gets a lot of creature access.  He gives it a thousand stars.

Watched on Friday May 2, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 30, 2025.

Watched on Monday April 28, 2025.

First feature?  For Director Zhang AND Gong Li?  Get the fuck out of here.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.

Compelling, thought-provoking, and bold.  Takes on subjects that mainstream films just don’t go near.  Everyone will have their own response to the last fifteen minutes, but it has stayed with me for thirty years.  Mimi Rogers is fantastic in this movie.

Watched on Sunday April 13, 2025.

Dr. Frankenstein could get this project over the finish line if his lab just had the smallest bit of security.  Let the man do his work, for God’s sake, he’s onto something.

The boy gives it a hundred thousand stars.

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 11, 2025.

Needs a 4K restoration, stat.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

We knew this was a hole in our viewing history but Jesus Christ this is our favorite movie of the year.  Riveting and hilarious.  Stating the obvious:  an essential link from Mr. Forman’s Czech New Wave films to his more commercially successful American fare.

The Carlotta disc (from — you need a region-free player) is great.  And fun fact, Mr. Forman was a physical media collector, and the reason we know this is because his former AV man is our current AV man!

Watched on Monday April 7, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 5, 2025.

I think this version gets a bum rap, though the decision to enroll the phantom in the completion of his opera is a misstep.  Still, the acting by all the leads is pretty good here, and the “origin” story of the phantom is appropriately painful.

The boy gives it a thousand stars.

Fassbinder always inspires.  Never shy about putting paint on the canvas.  Ballhaus was such a badass.  Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira were made for this shit.

The older I get, the more I love Mr. Sayles, and I already loved Mr. Sayles.  Surely the most underrated director since…I don’t know, Michael Curtiz?  There’s always a lot of Human Life, on a human scale, and it just gets me.  And beautiful work, again, from Fun City Editions.

Watched on Wednesday April 2, 2025.

Tale as old as time…

Watched on Monday March 31, 2025.

The boy likes his Hydes more physically monstrous than this.

Watched on Saturday March 29, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 28, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 27, 2025.

Tight.  72-minute B-movie heist procedural, no baggage, no frills.

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

We’d never seen it before!  So good!

Watched on Sunday March 23, 2025.

The boy gives it a hundred stars, “maybe more.”  The girl made it nearly to the end and then called it quits.  Barrymore is the whole show.

Special note to parents:  Don’t show your kids silent movies when you’re dozing because you have to stay awake to read all the intertitles.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.