Andyland, USA

Today, the box office is driven by superhero movies, but before 1978 there was no such thing as a “serious” superhero movie. The biggest thing to happen to the genre was the 1966 Adam West “Batman” TV series--which I love with the passion of a thousand suns--but no real attempts at doing anything beyond “kiddie fare” with the genre existed prior to the landmark “Superman” movie of ‘78. A few years back, I talked about the 1994 Alec Baldwin starring film adaptation of “The Shadow,” a pulp hero and precursor to Batman. Much of modern superhero fare has it roots in the hero pulp fiction that peaked in the 1920s and ‘30s.  Along with The Shadow, one of the most popular heroes to come from the world of pulp is Doc Savage, created by the same publishing house as The Shadow, Street & Smith, and driven largely by writer Lester Dent. No less an authority than Stan Lee has called Doc Savage the forerunner to modern superheroes. In the 1960s the Doc Savage stories were repub...

A friend of mine is dating this guy who is a bit, well, super earthy. He’s an alright person, generally speaking, but the patchouli can be detected before he enters the room. He also claims that he can interpret dreams. When the group gets together for a gathering, like a game night, he’ll ask us all if we had any memorable dreams lately. “The memorable ones are the ones you’ve gotta look out for” he says.  At a recent game night, while I was pondering my hand for my turn at Scrabble, Dreamweaver asked me about my recent dreams. I hadn’t had any out of the unusual dreams lately, just that recurring one where I keep getting a dollar on The Price is Right wheel--Dreamweaver doesn’t own a TV, so I never tell him about this one. I decided to see just how far Dreamweaver could go with this skill set and started making up dreams on the spot.  “Oh, well the other night I dreamt that I was swimming in a pool full of gelatine while being given swimming advice from the pet Go...

Got a couple of blu-rays from Warner Archive to talk about this week. Due to life things, I only recently had a chance to watch them. One is a title most appropriate for this time of year, and one I had seen before. The other title is a film I knew only by reputation, but was most pleased to welcome to my zeitgeist. Let’s dive in with that October appropriate one—MGM’s 1945 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Whenever MGM would adapt a literary classic they always made an effort to make it one of their prestige films of the year—keep in mind MGM was the studio that was THE prestige studio of Classic Hollywood to begin with. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is one of those films,  even in the marketing for the film, you can sense MGM not being sure how to sell it. They didn’t know if it should be marketed as a horror film, a dramatic thriller, or a romance. The horror elements are a bit downplayed in the marketing—horror was a well MGM rarely dipped their to...

If there is one bit of esoteric classic movie stuff that simply fascinates me, it’s the trilogy of films directed by veteran actor William Conrad—and all released in 1965. They’re the three of only four feature films directed by Conrad, who spent all of his other directorial adventures on the small screen. The late William Conrad was a famed actor, playing Matt Dillon on the original radio version of “Gunsmoke,” and coming to full pop culture fame on TV in “Cannon” & “Jake and The Fat Man.” For this writer, Conrad will always be immortal for being the narrator on “Rocky & Bullwinkle.”  The three films in question all were released by Warner Brothers—where Conrad had a production office it seems—and are: “Brainstorm,” “Two On A Guillotine,” and the film I’m going to talk about today, “My Blood Runs Cold.” One of the reasons I’m fascinated by these three films is my built in soft spot for 1960s, black and white horror fare with crazy, bombastic promotion. I adore t...

7:00 PM: Meeting called to order, pledge of allegiance held.  7:05 PM: The source of the squeaking sound was determined to be the science class pet ferret loose in the ceiling—Mr. Fiveash called to deal with situation.  7:08 PM: Overwhelming majority votes to defund high school chorus trip to New York City.  7:09 PM: Overwhelming majority votes to fund water polo team trip to Disneyland.  7:15 PM: Meeting opened up to questions from parents.  7:17 PM: Concerned parent asks PTA “Why are we teaching science to our children? Don’t you understand you are placing them in league with the devil?”  7:18 PM: Citizen who supports the question asked by the parent speaks out of turn, demands to know the size of the PTA Chairperson’s hands.  7:19 PM: Awkward silence falls upon the room.  7:25 PM: Bored with the meeting, one PTA board member asks if it would be possible to postpone the rest of that day’s business, and play w...

I have some beginnings and endings to talk about this week. One of the last of the great MGM musicals, and the beginning of a love affair. New blu-ray releases of more classics from the golden era from Warner Archive. Fred Astaire & Cyd Charisse in “Silk Stockings” (not to be confused with the 1990s cable series), and Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not.”  “Silk Stockings” is a 1957 MGM musical, one of the last of the studio’s famed musicals, and itself taken from a Broadway show based on the 1939 MGM film “Ninotchka.” With a score by Cole Porter, “Silk Stockings” was made at a time when the movie musical was becoming out of fashion with moviegoers. An event that would start an identity crises for MGM, who made their bread and butter on musicals.  This makes the second pairing of Charisse and Astaire on screen, having first appeared together in 1955’s “The Bandwagon”--one of my favorite MGM musicals. I should also point out th...

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...