Author: Mat Brewster

Welcome to the Midnight Cafe group of sites.

Watch Jeff Tweedy Perform “Out in the Dark” In South Burlington, VT (10/13/25)

I very quickly realized I don’t have the…I don’t even know what to call it…the capabilities to do what I thought I might do with setlists and following a tour. I’d have to reprogram my brain to actually follow a tour, talk about setlists and then regularly go back and search to see if there are reviews, or videos, of recordings.

That sort of thing just doesn’t interest me. I like to think it interests me, I’d like to be that kind of guy, I guess. But I’m just not. I’ve got other things to do. I mean, more power to you if that’s your thing…

Anyway, Jeff Tweedy is still on tour and he looks great and sounds wonderful and you can see that in this clip.

Weapons is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

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I used to go to the movie theater every weekend. Marriage, kids, work, and other obligations slowly chiseled into my ability to make it to the movies over the years. Then Covid happened, and I stopped going completely. I’ve slowly been increasing my theatrical visits, but I still don’t go nearly as much as I used to.

I was fortunate enough to get to see Weapons in the theater, and I loved it. In the middle of the night, at exactly the same time, seventeen kids from the same third grade class get out of bed, leave their homes, and disappear. That’s the mystery. The film does some fascinating things trying to explore what happened to the kids and why. It will follow several different characters whose lives ultimately intersect and then take a wild right turn into…well, I won’t spoil that.

Again, I loved it and I’m excited to own it on home video.

Also out this week that looks interesting.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps: I am so done with the MCU at this point. I’ll probably get around to this film one of these days, but I’m in no hurry.

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning: This supposed final installment of this action franchise got lousy reviews. I meant to catch it in the theater, but something kept me from it. I look forward to catching it at home.

Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection: I love boxed sets like this that give you a bunch of slightly lesser known movies in a decent package for a reasonable price. This one includes:
Doctor X / The Return of Doctor X / Mark of the Vampire / The Mask of Fu Manchu / Mad Love / The Devil-Doll.

Eyes Without a Face 4K UHD: Criterion upgrades their Blu-ray of this classic French horror film about a scientist who attempts to rebuild his daughter’s disfigured face with horrifying results.

Last Known Address: Terrific French procedural. You can read my review here.

Death Packs a Suitcase: Jess Franco makes a giallo about a killer who packs his victim’s suitcases before slashing them.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Series: This is a show I always enjoy when I watch it, but I never remember to put it on.

Body Puzzle: Pretty good horror flick from Lamberto Bava about a serial killer who steals various body parts from his victims. You can read my review here.

The Curse of Frankenstein 4K UHD: Hammer Horror’s take on the Frankenstein story is terrific.

The Hard Way (1943) Blu-ray Review

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You should never say no to Ida Lupino. I first discovered her playing a blind woman in On Dangerous Ground. It was a small role, but memorable. Soon after I learned what an incredible woman she was. She entered Hollywood at an early age, but was constantly getting in trouble for refusing roles she felt was beneath her.

As her star rose she formed her own production company and started directing her own films. She was only the second woman entered into the Director’s Guild of Hollywood. Like I say, I always watch her in anything I can get my hands on.

She stars with Joan Leslie in The Hard Way, a film that reminded me a lot of All About Eve. She plays a woman who pushes her sister into the life of an actress. Initially this is to get her out of the poor town poverty they grew up in, but that morphs into untethered ambition that destroys everything in its path.

I didn’t love the film, but I do think it is worth watching. You can read my full review here.

Jeff Tweedy – Montreal, Canada (10/11/25)

Jeff Tweedy
Théâtre Beanfield
Montreal, QC, Canada

Twilight Override Tour

Western Clear Skies
Betrayed
One Tiny Flower
Caught Up in the Past
Cry Baby Cry
Forever Never Ends
This Is How It Ends
Low Key
Evergreen
Mirror
Stray Cats in Spain
Out in the Dark
Flowering
New Orleans
Guess Again
Feel Free
Lou Reed Was My Babysitter
Amar Bharati
World Away
Half‐Asleep

Encore:
Twilight Override
Diamond Light, Pt. 1
Houses(Elyse Weinberg cover)
Suzanne (Leonard Cohen cover)
Enough

—

Liam Kazar opened

Images:
Poster

Video:
Instagram recording of “Suzanne“

—

I have no intention of posting download links to shows in these spaces ever again, but that doesn’t mean I want to give up entirely on the music.

I’ve been slowly integrating the old music site back into this space. It seems pointless to have two sites for what I do. It is a slow process because I’m removing all the download links first, and I have to import them one artist at a time.

I have this idea that it might be fun to go back and include all the known source information, plus posters, ticket stubs, artwork, etc. And then maybe add in YouTube videos, reviews, etc. Basically everything I can find except the actual recordings.

At the same time I think it would be fun to follow certain tours as they happen. I won’t be doing all the artists I collect, just my favorite ones.

My idea is to put up the setlist a day or two after the show happens, plus maybe posters or other information that will be available that quick. I’ll try to add some thoughts to the show if the setlist looks interesting or something like that. And then I’ll keep tabs on when recordings do become available and add that source info whenever I find it. Plus I’ll keep looking for videos uploaded to YouTube, etc.

Does that sound interesting to anyone?

Wilco is one of my all-time favorite bands. I’ve seen them live more than anyone else. For whatever reason, they seem to love Tulsa and specifically the Cain’s Ballroom. I’ve seen them there multiple times.

Jeff Tweedy just released a triple-album and he’s coming to Tulsa next month. I got my tickets already, so it seemed natural to start following his tour.

Looking at this setlist, I have to say I’m just slightly disappointed. It covers a lot of that triple album plus some of his other solo work, but not a single song from Wilco. I get that since this is a solo tour, he’d cover his solo work, but if I’m being honest, I’ve never really loved his solo albums.

There are always good songs in them, but there are also quite a few that just don’t do it for me. The triple album called Twilight Override is the same. I actually like it a bit more than his other solo albums; most of the songs are more energetic than a lot of his solo work has been. A triple album feels like a bit much. It is hard to sit for that long and listen to it all; thus, I’ve only given it two full spins.

So, yeah, I kind of wish he was doing more Wilco material, but I get it. I do dig him covering Leonard Cohen. And I am absolutely sure that when I see him next month I’ll have a blast even if the setlist isn’t one of my dreams.

Last Known Address (1970) Blu-ray Review

last known address bluray

I love a good shoe leather movie. That’s a film that gets into the nuts and bolts of a job. Whether it is police work, newspaper reporting or any other thing, it is fascinating to watch people really do their jobs. Last Known Address has a lot of shoe leather. We watch our two cops knock on doors, meticulously dig through paperwork and do the type of policing most movies skip over.

There is a balance to that, you have to make the shoe leather interesting or audience will get bored and skip to something else. This movie keeps it interesting. I loved it.

You can read my full review here.

Now Watching: City on Fire (1987)

cit on fire poster

City on Fire (1987)
Directed by Ringo Lam
Starring: Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, Sun Yueh, Carrie Ng , and Roy Cheung

Synopsis: An undercover cop infiltrates a gang of thieves who plan to rob a jewelry store.

Rating: 7/10

City on Fire is now mostly known as one of the inspirations for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. There are certainly similarities there, but Tarantino more than makes his film his own.  Chow Yun-fat plays the undercover cop who doesn’t really want to be there. He’s ready to quit, but his uncle (who is also a cop) pushes him to complete the assignment. He kind-of, sort-of befriends one of the robbers, which makes the whole thing more complicated, especially when it goes bad. 

There are some terrific set pieces and some very goofy romantic angles. I’m not super soaked in Hong Kong action movies. I’ve seen several, but not enough that I can claim any sort of authority on them. It always throws me off how weird the romances are in these things. Our guy here comes home, more or less harasses his lady by following her into the bathroom, then jumping into the shower with her, pushing into her space, and then giving her a ring. Then he postpones the wedding, then he doesn’t show up…etc. It’s probably a cultural thing, but so many of these films play the romances off with the weirdest bits of humor.

But Chow Yun-fat is amazing.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

nightmae on elm street

This is going to be a slight cheat. Obviously, I write a lot of movie reviews for Cinema Sentries. I do it for fun; I don’t get paid for it (I do get free Blu-rays, which is nice.) I’m not sure if I’d want to be in the cultural critic business right now; those folks are having a tough time of it. I’m also happy I don’t have anyone demanding I watch certain things. I review the things I request. I try to keep my requests down to a steady pace, but sometimes I go a little overboard, and I wind up with a stack of Blu-rays sitting on my desk, and that can be overwhelming.

That’s happening to me right now. I have a Blu-ray in front of me that I just watched but need to review. I’ve got another one I’ll hopefully watch later tonight. I have a six-film boxed set of Errol Flynn movies and another boxed set of all seven Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

That’s a lot of movies to watch and review. The Nightmare set is actually on the bottom of the pile, but since tonight is Friday and I always do a horror movie on Fridays, I thought I’d bump the first Nightmare on Elm Street up and kill two birds with one stone. 

That also means I won’t be digging too deep into it because I’ll want to save all my best thoughts for the official review. 

What I will say is that I love this movie. I grew up in the 1980s, and so slashers are my horror movie sweet spot, and this is one of my all-time favorites. Freddy Kreuger is a horror icon, and this is where he started. In later films he’d become a wise-cracking goof (admittedly a goof that will kill you in the end, but still a goof), but here he’s absolutely terrifying. 

It was a stroke of genius having him kill inside of dreams, as that allows the film to eschew the laws of physics and reality. Anything goes, and the film makes good use of that. The imagery here is absolutely iconic. From the wall that turns elastic to the claws reaching up from the bathtub or the stairway steps turning to goo, to Freddy’s outstretched arms, the film is simply loaded with memorable shots. There is a wonderful tactile quality to the film and its use of practical effects. Sometimes that means you can see the filmmaking behind it – you can tell that the goo inside those steps is oatmeal, and when Freddy falls down the stairs, you can see the mattress he lands on—but I much prefer that to the CGI garbage so many modern films rely on.

So, yeah, I love this movie. I will have more to say about it and all of its sequels in a week or so. Look right here in these pages for that link when it comes out.

Funny story, just now as I’m about to post this I have a premonition to do a search of my site for this film, just in case I’d written about it before. I couldn’t remember writing about it, but I write a lot of stuff so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick search.

Friends I wrote a full review of the film (and its release in UHD) just over a year ago!

The Strange Woman (1946) Blu-ray Review

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Hedy Lamarr was a remarkable woman. Not only was she a great actress, but she was an inventor too. She helped design a torpedo navigation system that became the basis for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies.

Here she plays a woman who is considered strange, and perhaps evil because she has the audacity to act like a man. Not in any physical, sexual, or gendered way, but rather she recognizes that to get what she wants, she has to do what the men do around her – she has to take it.

It is a strange movie, and not a particularly great one, but it has a great performance from Lamarr. You can read my full review of the new Blu-ray over at Cinema Sentries.

The Rapacious Jailbreaker (1974) Blu-ray Review

rapacious jailbreaker

This Japanese drama is loosely based on a real guy who kept breaking out of jail only to be sent back shortly after (then he’d break out again.) In the film this becomes his entire identity. He cannot live in the hell that is prison, yet when he escapes he doesn’t know what to do with himself so he always gets caught and finds himself back in prison.

It is more of a character study than any type of thriller, but it is a good one. You can read my full review here.

31 Days of Horror: The Mummy (1959)

the mummy

I’ve talked about Hammer Horror numerous times in these pages. Their most famous, and arguably their best, films were when they essentially remade the classic Universal Monster Movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy). Hammer updated the filmmaking to 1950-1970s standards, giving them lots more violence and sex appeal, while still keeping the stories interesting and familiar. They made a lot of sequels to the three main monsters, and I’ve seen most of them, but never in order. A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to actually watch them in order. Unfortunately, I watched the first two (Dracula, The Revenge of Frankenstein) before I decided to start writing again, and it has been too long for me to reasonably be able to talk about them now. So we’ll just begin here.

The Mummy (1932) is my least favorite of the classic Universal Monster Movies (at least of the originals; some of the later sequels are pretty bad.) And so it is with Hammer’s attempt at making a Mummy movie (the only truly good Mummy film is that one with Brendan Fraser from the 1990s).

This one has its moments, but it gets bogged down in a rather dull backstory that completely destroys any momentum the film had going for it. The plot steals most of its details from several of the sequels to the Universal Mummy movie. A couple of archaeologists are searching for the tomb of Egyptian Ananka in 1885. The father finds it and accidentally awakens Kharis (Christopher Lee) the mummified guardian of Ananka. This sends the father into a catatonic state.

He awakens three years later and tells his tale to his son, John Banning (Peter Cushing.) The Mummy will now attack all those who desecrated Ananka’s tomb. But first, an overly long backstory. The film flashes back to tell us about Kharis and his secret relationship with Ananka. Honestly, it isn’t interesting enough to delve into, but the film seems to love it.

Actually, I feel like the costume and set designers worked really hard on this section (and probably spent a lot of money on it), so the filmmakers felt they needed to make all that time and money fill the screen for a while. There is literally a parade where extras in extravagant costumes, carrying ornate props, walk across the screen for several minutes. It completely kills the momentum of the film.

Eventually, we get back to the film proper and get some good Mummy action, and it is there that the film excels. Christopher Lee’s mummy costume looks great. He mostly just moans and walks awkwardly across the screen, so I can’t say much about his acting (he is unmummified in the flashbacks, which might be why that scene is so long – Lee wanted more time on screen unwrapped). Whenever the Mummy gets shot, holes blow right through him. The effect is pretty chilling (though sadly there is no scene like you see on the poster where a light shines straight through.

Peter Cushing is great as always and the scenes where he’s battling it out with the Mummy are the best parts of the movie. The rest of it is rather dull, I’m afraid.

Still, it is definitely worth watching if you are interested in Hammer Horror. But I’d recommend the Dracula films first.