In the latter half of the 1980s, just about every kid in my middle school had a Nintendo Entertainment System, or at least it felt so at the time. I may have been one of the few whose console didn’t come pre-packaged with a copy of Super Mario Bros. (Mine was bundled with Konami’s Rush’n… Read More 8-Bit Replay | Super Mario Bros. (1985) for NES
The action-adventure fantasy Megaforce is a legendarily terrible movie that any fan of 1980s cheese ought to find very easy to fall in love with. The film is a very specific product of the early ’80s, a moment when the manufactured patriotism and military-industrial expansion of the Reagan era collided with a pop culture explosion… Read More I Love You, But You’re Hopeless | Megaforce (1982) Blu-ray
The qualities that caused Dragonslayer to fail at the box office in 1981 are very likely the same reasons the film has endured for so long as a cult item with many passionate fans. Released at a time when what passed for movies in the fantasy-adventure genre were typically jokey and juvenile in nature (see… Read More We Shall Live and the Beast Shall Die | Dragonslayer (1981) 4K Ultra HD
The prospect of Kiefer Sutherland returning to TV in a new conspiracy/spy thriller series will unavoidably draw comparisons to his long run on Fox’s 24. Fortunately, the creators of Rabbit Hole (or Rabbit/Hole, as the credits spell it) have put some real work into setting this show apart with a different milieu, a very different… Read More Corporate Espionage Is a Dirty Way to Get Rich | Rabbit Hole (2023) Paramount+ Series Premiere
Officially, the new Netflix thriller series The Night Agent is based on a 2019 novel by Matthew Quirk. If the TV adaptation follows it at all closely, the story seems to have been based in turn on the author watching a lot of Fox’s 24. At the very least, the Netflix show’s producers sure did.… Read More Maybe Someone Changed the Rules in Spyland | The Night Agent Season 1 (2023) on Netflix
First published in 1963, John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was designed as a corrective against the far-fetched espionage fantasy of Ian Fleming’s popular James Bond series. A movie adaption followed two years later, released right at the height of Bond-mania. While perhaps not cultural milestones on quite the same… Read More You Can’t Be Less Wicked Than Your Enemy | The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) Criterion Collection Blu-ray
Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce star in the espionage thriller A Spy Among Friends. With its Cold War setting, incredibly complex plotting, and very slow-burn atmosphere, the series is decidedly more John le Carré in tone and style than James Bond – even if Ian Fleming happens to show up as a character in the… Read More I Rather Thought It Would Be You | A Spy Among Friends (2022) Series Premiere on Epix/MGM+
Mel Brooks’ 1981 comedy History of the World Part I was never actually intended to have a Part II, but here we are four decades later and Hulu decided to make one anyway. Being so late in coming is part of the joke, I suppose. If anything, the time gap may actually benefit the show,… Read More A Festival of Zeroes | History of the World Part II (2023) Hulu Limited Series
The title itself is probably the funniest thing in Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part I. After his razor-sharp parodies of Westerns (Blazing Saddles) and classic horror movies (Young Frankenstein), Brooks was practically the king of cinematic comedy. When his next two efforts (Silent Movie and High Anxiety) fizzled a little with audiences, the… Read More It’s Good to Be the King | History of the World Part I (1981)
Predicting the annual Oscar race is more about psychology than artistic merit. The Best Picture winner is rarely the actual best film released in a given year. Guessing which people and movies will take home trophies is a matter of understanding how and why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences members will vote… Read More 2023 Oscar Winners and Associated Nonsense
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