Andyland, USA

You can hear about a movie dozens of times before you ever get around to seeing it. This is especially true of films that are tiny cult movies, and hard to track down. My high school weekends were spent watching, sometimes over and over again, that granddaddy of all cult movies, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” But there's a film that pre-dates Rocky by a year that deserves to have just as much attention as it has, a film that I had often read about in tiny snippets online, but never had the chance to see. That film is 1974's “Phantom of the Paradise.” "Phantom of the Paradise" is one of those unique films that Hollywood studios used to be wiling to spend money on. It was, in many ways, destined to become a cult classic. Now is a perfect time for the film to be discovered by new fans. I first saw “Phantom” earlier this year, when my curiosity required the rental of the film from iTunes--something I do only when I can't resist seeing a particularly ha...

There was a time, not so long ago, when superhero movies were not the bread and butter of the Box Office. All that change in 1989, when Tim Burton's Batman opened up and blew the roof off. I was a kid who was obsessed with Batman. I had Batman shoes, Batman socks, Batman pajamas, Batman bed sheets, Batman shirts, even a custom made Batman chair. With the chance for a new line of monster money makers, Hollywood started to look at what could be, essentially, be the next Batman . Disney tried their hand at it with 1990's Dick Tracy, and 1991's The Rocketeer. The former was a box office smash, and the latter wasn't. But an issue with the rights to the Dick Tracy character prevented a film franchise from going forward. Both though, were films I very much loved growing up. With the second Batman film, 1992's Batman Returns opening to big returns, it was still unclear what, if at all, would be the next hero to take the box office throne. During all of th...