The Rogues' Tavern (1936)

The Rogues’ Tavern (1936)

Police detective Jimmy Kelly (Wally Ford) and ex-department store detective Marjorie Burns (Barbara Pepper) are in a hurry to get married so hop across the border to the Red Rock Tavern, which is instead an inn—I suppose when the producers couldn’t find a tavern set for cheap they decided it was too much effort to

Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934)

Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934)

Old dear lord… OK, here goes: In some fantasy Deep South straight out of the wet dream of a KKK Grand Dragon, Voodoo practitioner and stereotype Mammy (Georgette Harvey) has returned to the broken down hovel she’d abandoned when her husband Old Sam was killed by Colonel Gordon (Francis Joyner). She brings along her half-White

The Batman (2022)

The Batman (2022)

In a world of stunted emotions, a strung-out, emo Batman (Robert Pattinson) is called in by Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) to help solve the gruesome murder of the mayor by a new costumed vigilantly, The Riddler (Paul Dano). The Riddler is a BDSM gimp merged with an insel, who somehow is very effective at

The Climax (1944)

The Climax (1944)

Obsessed theater doctor Friedrich Hohner (Boris Karloff) murders Marcellina, his opera star girl friend when she rejects him for being too controlling. Ten years later a new singer, Angela Klatt (Susanna Foster) is the new big thing, with a voice that sounds exactly like the dead star’s. This is too much for Hohner, who hypnotizes

Scaramouche (1952)

Scaramouche (1952)

Scaramouche is a gasp from a dying genre.  The simplistic moral structure that was so uplifting in the films of the 30s and 40s was beginning to look silly in the post war world.  Add in that most everything that could be done with the genre in that form had been done, and it’s not

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Distraught physician Peter Tompson (Brook Williams) writes his mentor, Sir James Forbes (André Morell) a rambling letter about deaths with no natural explanation in a rural village. Forbes’s daughter (Diane Clare), interested in seeing her friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) who happens to be Tompson’s wife, convinces her father to take train and coach to visit

Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit (2008)

Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit (2008)

As world leaders meet to discuss—and fail to do anything about—environmental destruction, a spaceship crashes, releasing the giant Guilala on the people of Japan. Realizing this will be great PR, the leaders stick around and come up with one ridiculous (and culturally revealing) scheme after another to defeat the monster. Meanwhile, a cute tabloid reporter

Morgan (2016)

Morgan (2016)

There’s been an “accident” at a secret, isolated lab. They’ve been developing a new form of artificial human, one with emotions. Its name is Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), and this five-year-old that looks eighteen just stabbed one of its keepers (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the eye. The corporate office has sent Lee (Kate Mara), a risk

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Eight year’s after Batman took the blame for Harvey Dent’s crimes, Gotham City appears better on the surface, but, if anything, is worse for the 99%. In it, idealistic police officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) tries to make a difference while jewel thief Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) just tries to get by in a world

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) [MCU Ranking]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) [MCU Ranking]

Captain America teams up with Black Widow to uncover a conspiracy at the highest levels of government while also meeting an old friend who’s become a killing machine. Where Captain America: The First Avenger felt like a 1950s war movie, The Winter Solder feels like a 1970s spy thriller, just with a lot more exploding

Three Chinese Tomb Raiding Adventure Films

Three Chinese Tomb Raiding Adventure Films

An old sub-genre is getting a kick in China now—tomb raiding adventures stories. The newest incarnations are not examples of China just now discovering Indiana Jones, as some have suggested, but are part of a movement set off by an ebook: Ghost Blows Out the Light (2006). The series set records in China and physical

The Aztec Mummy (1957)

The Aztec Mummy (1957)

Dr. Eduardo Almada (Ramón Gay) did not take the criticism of his theory of past life regression well. So with the help of his mentor (Jorge Mondragón) and his cowardly comic relief (Crox Alvarado), he hypnotizes his fiancée—who also happens to be his mentor’s daughter—Flor (Rosita Arenas). Luck would have it she used to be