Socially Distant, self isolated and sheltered in place.
I shouldn’t have to tell you that we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic. The death toll in the United States is over 121k as of this writing. … Continue Reading An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (2018) June 19th, 2020
Strange Confession is an odd addition to the Inner Sanctum Mystery series. It’s missing the melodramatic intrigue and whodunit plot typical of the previous films. No, Strange Confession‘s story is … Continue Reading Strange Confession (1945) May 9th, 2020
A couple of years ago my wife and I began watching the Universal Monsters series because we realized we’d never seen any of them. Not wanting to miss out on … Continue Reading The Mummy’s Curse (1944) April 27th, 2020
70 years before The Avengers regularly broke box-office records for The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Universal Studios had its own cultural juggernaut with the Universal Monsters. Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff … Continue Reading House of Frankenstein (1944) April 26th, 2020
In my last review I brazenly compared The Uninvited to Scooby-Doo, which in retrospect now feels like a challenge too tempting for the cinema gods to ignore. As luck would … Continue Reading One Body Too Many (1944) April 25th, 2020
Coming off the heels of Shadow of a Doubt, Alfred Hitchcock outdoes himself with Lifeboat, the quintessential bottle episode. That’s a TV term and I don’t know of a film … Continue Reading Lifeboat (1944) April 19th, 2020
Originally a radio show, the Inner Sanctum Mysteries jumped to the film medium like a Tales from the Crypt precursor with 6 films starring Lon Chaney Jr. We chose to … Continue Reading Calling Dr. Death (1943) April 19th, 2020
In Shadow of a Doubt Hitchcock takes a more subtle approach to his oft used ‘man on the run’ theme, telling the story of a fugitive hiding in plain sight. … Continue Reading Shadow of a Doubt (1943) April 18th, 2020
As I write this we’re in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic. Despite calling this blog ‘The Quarantined Critic’ it’s a subject I’ve neglected because it doesn’t often come up … Continue Reading Things to Come (1936) April 15th, 2020
The film I’m discussing today contains content you’ll probably find distasteful. If you’re familiar with Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Henceforth refereed to simply as Saló) then consider … Continue Reading Saló, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1976) April 11th, 2020
Hitchcock is so weird. His body of work is impressive. His influence undeniable but boy is it difficult to discuss his early work without becoming repetitive. Sabotage feels familiar and … Continue Reading Sabotage (1936) April 5th, 2020
The Criterion Collection began publishing Blu-Ray discs between 2008 and 2009. Some of those earliest discs owe their sky-high secondary market price to Criterion’s commitment to film restoration and including … Continue Reading The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) April 4th, 2020
I don’t know what to say about Bottle Rocket. I want to avoid talking about how it’s Wes Anderson’s 24 year old feature film debut. I’d prefer to dodge discussing … Continue Reading Bottle Rocket (1996) April 3rd, 2020
If… is the first film in a trilogy starring Malcom McDowell as Mick Travis. All three films are available on the Criterion Channel until the end of April when they, … Continue Reading If…. (1968) April 1st, 2020
In our house the last couple days of the month means scavenging the Criterion Channel’s scraps. Don’t get me wrong, it’s much more like the moonlit spaghetti dinner in Lady … Continue Reading Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) March 30th, 2020
We strayed from The List today. See, Criterion.com had a 50% off 24 hour flash sale a couple of weeks ago, or months ago, who can tell when sheltering in … Continue Reading Anatomy of a Murder (1959) March 28th, 2020
