Andyland, USA

I was cleaning in the kitchen the other day,  listening to one of those “90s Throwback Playlists” on the internet. As I was scrubbing up the coffee mugs, “Barbie Girl” came on. “Ohhhhh yeahhhhhhh” I said to myself in a high pitched tone of Middle School days. The song ended, I set all my dishes on the drying rack, and I went on with my day. I went by the grocery to pick up some coffee--the most important ground food in the world. As I walked into the store, I could hear, just faintly in the background “Come on, Barbie! Let’s Go Party!”  “Huh, well isn’t that something!” I thought to myself. There wasn’t any clear reason for the song to come on, the music changed abruptly to top 40 Country right afterwards--I lost count of how many times I heard the words “Truck” and “Lake.” “That’s a rather odd fluke” I thought, as I loaded the twelve cases of coffee I purchased into the car. After taking the coffee home, I went out into the world again, this time to meet with frien...

I am so excited this week that I get to talk to you about something I’ve been wanting to discuss in these pages for quite a long time. I’ve got a look at more goodies from Warner Archive this week, including their new blu-ray of 1982’s comedy “Victor/Victoria.” First off, I want to talk about the thing that is simply one of the most bizarre items to have ever come out of a major motion picture studio. So strange, you may not even believe me when I tell you about it.  What is this strange thing I want to tell you about? Some odd little horror movie or low-budget sci-fi flick someone conned Columbia pictures into making? Nope. I’m talking about something that was actually quite popular for a year or two. Between 1929 and 1931 MGM made a series of nine short films known as The Dogville Comedies. Directed by Zion Myers and Jules White—who would both go on to work for years with The Three Stooges—The Dogville Comedies are short parody films of popular movies of the day. Only th...