My Darling Clementine (1946)

Crossing another title off the list of movies covered in Danny Peary’s Cult Movies 2 that I had not seen: My Darling Clementine (1946). An iconic western directed by John Ford about Wyatt Earp (here, played by a young Henry Fonda, laconic and measured in his performance) and Doc Holiday (Victor Mature, stolid yet tortured), […]

Spring Night, Summer Night (1967)

Restored by Nicolas Winding Refn’s brand, byNWR.com, and available on that website as well as Mubi, Spring Night, Summer Night (1967) is a rediscovered film, the only feature length directorial work by Joseph L. Anderson, a film professor from the University Of Ohio. Aiming for neo-realism while focused on country people in Ohio, the black-and-white […]

What happened was… (1994)

The moment when someone makes a joke in conversation to another person, catching them off guard, not getting a laugh in return, then immediately says to explain, “I was joking.” It’s a cringeworthy moment, two people not having a connection or not being able to read each other. This moment happens continually during The Awkward […]

Dead Pigeon On Beethoven Street (1972)

I always loved the use of Can’s ‘Vitamin C’ in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, but you know who used it first in a private eye flick way back in the 1970s? Samuel Fuller did, shooting an episode of a German crime TV anthology in West Germany (called Tartot) and spinning that into his own […]

The Nest (2020)

The Nest (2020) is not a horror movie but it feels like one. It’s like The Shining but if The Overlook Hotel was haunted by the spirit of Reaganomics. Set during the 1980s, the film charts an American family placed under pressure by the father’s plan for a new wealthy life in his homeland, the […]