Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar for his portrayal of the real deal Santa Claus that for some reason has escaped an old folks home and decided to wreak his holiday brand of havoc on the capitalist pigs at Macy’s, as well as firing up a little girl’s imagination which has been stymied by her workaholic and very sensible mother. He’s also got no use for drunken Santa imposters, pop psychiatry, and doesn’t mind going to trial to prove he is the one and only Santa! Read More

In this beloved musical effort set against the backdrop of the 1903 World’s Fair, Judy Garland sings her way through a world where the most pressing problem of the day is the fact that the boy-next-door’s tailor is closed meaning that he can’t get his tuxedo in time for the big graduation dance. Read More

RKO was guilty of the performing the cinematic equivalent of a partial birth abortion on Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons. Its 88 minute running time only came about after fifty minutes of it were shaved off by RKO butchers after the film had a disastrous test screening. For some reason they thought they should show this movie to a Saturday night audience after they had already sat through a test screening of the upbeat musical The Fleet’s In! Guess what? People weren’t quite prepared to sit through Welles’ thoughtful meditation on the ending of a way of life and the coming technological boom after watching sailors sing and dance. Read More

Watching films like Lost Horizon with its distinctly “capitalism sucks” message reminds me that those concerned citizens who agonize over all the sex and violence the liberal media are intent on selling our children are completely missing the point. Sex and violence after all, made this country what it is today – great! Read More

Pardon me if I don’t get too excited about another film where a group of restless young people decide that since they have no idea what to do with their lives that ripping off the local crime boss is some sort of career path. The details and locations of these movies may change, but you can pretty much guess how the film progresses right down to the ending where the heist goes horribly awry, resulting in death and destruction. Read More

Yuji is one of those hitmen who exudes that sort of anti-hero attitude that somehow makes guys who murder other guys for a living seem to be someone we would want to look up to. Read More

Takeshi Miike’s Shinjuku Triad Society has a Chinese triad and the Yakuza mix it up over some illegal organ trafficking business resulting in lots of guys getting beaten, shot, stabbed, eye gouged, and drugged. Not satisfied though with merely depicting a typical gang war punctuated with extreme belches of brutal violence, Miike solidifies this as required viewing for all real fans of crime films by throwing in the cop who plays by his own rules! Read More

Three women receive a letter from another broad who says that she left town and took one of their husbands with her as a memento. I was hoping that these three dames would be busting the head of every snitch in Gotham City trying to dig up some info on which man of theirs had taken a powder. I even thought there might be some kind of hair pulling slap fight between these chicks that would end with all of them crashing into a giant fountain in the middle of town. Read More

Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) is the wife of a guy who runs a rubber plantation in Malaysia and if you know anything about life on a rubber plantation in Malaysia like I do, there isn’t much more to do than your husband’s best friend. And even though this all went down in Malaysia, it still turns out that you just can’t go around killing secret boyfriends because they dump you! You can’t really blame Leslie though. How can anyone be expected to know the intricacies of Malaysian rubber plant homicide laws? Read More

Jane Fonda won an Oscar for her work as the only-in-a-Hollywood-movie hooker who’s smart, good looking and deeply troubled by her lifestyle. This is a hooker that’s so Hollywood, she even visits a therapist on a regular basis! Read More