Dario Argento’s Deep Cuts Blu-ray Reivew

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I’ve talked about Dario Argento, the Italian horror director, many times on this site. He’s one of my favorite horror directors, and certainly my favorite director of Gialli. For a time, during the 1970s and 1980s, he styled himself as something of an Alfred Hitchcock figure – a persona bigger than the movies he made. He produced and hosted several different television series for Italian TV and Severin Films has boxed them all together in this nice little set.

You can read my full review of everything inside over at Cinema Sentries.

Hatari! (1962)Blu-ray Review

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My in-laws would love this movie. They were missionaries in West Africa for several years in the late 1970s and they tend to love movies and television series set in that continent. Especially fun ones.

Hatari! is a silly little movie from director Howard Hawks. The plot is incredibly thin – it is basically a hangout movie with some wild animals. At 2 1/2 hours it is definitely too long. But mostly it is an enjoyable little romp with some exciting animal chases, a little romance, and a lot of fun.

You can read my full review here.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Monkey (2025)

the monkey movie poster

“Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us… horribly. And that’s life.”

So says a mom to her twin boys just after attending the funeral of their babysitter whom they both watched die in a horrible accident involving a hibachi chef and his sharp blade.

Life is random and unfair, the film tells us over and over, and sometimes darkly funny.

Loosely based on a Stephen King short story of the same name The Monkey is short on plot and not much for delving deeply into those themes, but full of creative, often hilariously droll violence and death.

Somewhere in the 1990s two twin boys, Hal and Bill Shelburn (Christian Convery as a kid, and Theo James as an adult) live with their mother (Tatiana Maslany) as their father mysteriously abandoned them. Digging through his things they find a toy monkey holding a little drum. When they turn the key inside his back it spins its drumsticks then rat-a-tats a little song.

Later that evening the monkey, sitting in the car while the boys eat hibachi with their babysitter, plays a song on its own causing that horrific death I mentioned earlier.

A few days later Hal will wind the monkey again causing more death. When the boys realize it is the monkey causing all the horror they wrap it up and throw it down a deep, dark hole.

Flash forward twenty-five years later. The brothers no longer speak to each other and Hal has an estranged son whom he only sees once a year, for Hal is terrified he’ll cause harm to come to the boy. On their annual week together Hal receives a phone call from Bill claiming some more mysterious deaths have been happening in their hometown. The monkey must have gotten out.

There isn’t much more to it than that. Hal and his son investigate. More deaths occur. Eventually, they will figure out what is happening.

It is a weirdly glib, pitch-black comedy with wild and creative deaths. This is a film that begins with a man having a harpoon shot through his gut and when it is retracted it takes his small intestine, strung out like a chain of hot dogs, with him.

It totally worked for me.

Watch The Trailer For One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of our greatest working filmmakers. His films are always interesting. He has such a unique and idiosyncratic view of the world that you truly never know what is going to happen in his films.

The trailer for his latest film, One Battle After Another just dropped and it looks wonderful.

Microwave Massacre (1979)

One of the things I absolutely love about the abundance of Boutique Blu-ray labels we have now is that they sometimes find these ridiculous, obscure, weirdo movies and clean them up, restore them, and release them on Blu-ray with loads of extras.

Microwave Massacre is a terrible film. It is a movie about a serial killing cannibal, and it is a comedy. Or at least it is supposed to be a comedy. But according to my review (which was written in 2016 which you can read here), there are no laughs to be found.

And yet, it got a killer release from Arrow Video. You gotta love the audacity of that.

Bob Dylan – Tulsa, OK (03/25/25)

No, I’m not sharing a recording of this show (though you can already find one over at Expecting Rain). But I wanted to talk about it anyway.

Yesterday was my birthday. Bob Dylan, one of my all-time favorite artists came to town on my birthday. That would have made a great birthday present.

When the show was announced I was super excited. I missed him the last time he came to town because my in-laws were arriving that very night for a visit and it felt rude to not be here when they arrived.

I vowed to never miss him again. He is 83 after all and as much as I don’t want to think about it, he probably doesn’t have that many more tours left in him.

I am a stupid, stupid man. When tickets went on sale I was busy at work so I put off buying them. I don’t think he sold out last time so I figured he wouldn’t sell out this time.

Ah, but here’s the thing. When the Tulsa show was announced there were no other shows scheduled. We weren’t sure if he was ever going to tour again. Add to that the fact that the Bob Dylan Center is in Tulsa a buzz began that this might be a special show. Maybe Bob was finally going to recognize the center (I don’t think he’s ever even visited the place). Maybe there would be special guests. That turned out not to be true, but I think the buzz made people buy tickets like mad.

It sold out. I did not get a ticket.

There are worse things in life, but that is definitely a disappointment. I couldn’t help but follow the setlist and read the reviews. The big news was that Anton Fig took over the drumming position. He’s played with everyone from Warren Zevon to B.B. King to Cyndi Lauper but may be best known for his role in David Letterman’s house band. He also played on a couple of Bob records and was the drummer for Bob Fest.

The setlist remained pretty much the same as it was on his last tour. Interestingly he took a fifteen-minute break after the 8th song. It will be curious to see if that continues through the tour. Reviews have been very good and I’m excited to sit down with the recording sometime soon.

All Along the Watchtower (Bob on guitar and baby grand piano)
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Bob on guitar and baby grand piano)
I Contain Multitudes (Bob on baby grand piano)
False Prophet (Bob on baby grand piano)
When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob on baby grand piano and harp,
Tony on standup bass)
Black Rider (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
My Own Version of You (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
To Be Alone with You (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass,
Bob Britt on acoustic guitar)

15 minute break
Crossing the Rubicon (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
Desolation Row (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
Key West (Philosopher Pirate) (Bob on baby grand piano,
Tony on standup bass)
Watching the River Flow (Bob on baby grand piano)
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob on baby grand piano,
Tony on standup bass)
I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
(Bob on baby grand piano and harp, Tony on standup bass)
Mother of Muses (Bob on baby grand piano and brief harp at very beginning,
Tony on standup bass)
band introduction
Goodbye Jimmy Reed (Bob on baby grand piano)
Every Grain of Sand (Bob on baby grand piano and harp)

Band Members
Bob Dylan – guitar, piano, harp
Tony Garnier – electric and standup bass
Anton Fig – drums
Bob Britt – acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Doug Lancio – acoustic guitar, electric guitar

Delicatessen (1991) 4K UHD Review

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My wife speaks French. She has a Masters Degree in French Linguistics. She taught French at university for a time. She loves all things French. Especially movies. Obviously, I love movies and I dig foreign language films. I’ve seen a lot more movies than here, but she is the expert in French cinema in our house. She turned me on to director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with his absolutely delightful film Amelie. Then she hit me with his stranger, darker films Delicatessen and City of Lost Children.

Delicatessen is a visually stunning tale set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a butcher puts a help-wanted ad in the paper then murders those who answer and sells their meat to the rest of the apartment. It is romantic, funny, and a delight. You can read my full review here.

The Birthday Haul

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Today is my birthday. I’m pushing ever closer to the big 5-0 which freaks me out a little (okay, a lot) but I had a good day. I still had to work which wasn’t fun, but this afternoon my brother’s 4-year-old grandson showed up and that was a delight. There was a mix-up with his childcare so my brother had to pick him up. But we were behind on work so the boy came with him. I had forgotten how fun kids that age can be. And exhausting. He asked questions every five seconds and I kept having to find things for him to do.

Later, we had a nice meal at my mother’s place. My father shares my birthday so we always share a party together.

Anyway, it was a good day and my wife bought me some lovely gifts.

Obviously, I love me some Criterion Collection so I got three films from them. I’m especially excited about Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me as we just finished the original series and I’ve never seen the film.

I watched the movie adaptation of Master and Commander the other day and loved it. Everyone says the book series is even better so I’m excited to find out if everyone is correct.

And Batman is my favorite comic book character. I’ve read The Court of Owls before, but it is nice to have a hard copy.

Night Moves is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

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Sometimes I debate what my pick of the week should be – should I choose something I haven’t seen but am really excited about, or should I choose something I already love getting a nice release?

On one hand, it makes sense that I would pick something that I’ve already seen. I know the movie is good and therefore I can stand by my recommendation. On the other hand, when a highly anticipated film makes its home video debut that’s exciting. Or it used to be. Maybe I’m coming from a time when home video releases were exciting. I’m old enough to remember when a movie hit the theater and if you missed it you had to wait until it came out on video. But I guess now they hit streaming services even earlier.

Whatever, I went with the more traditional pick this week. Night Moves is a terrific little 1970s noir, and Criterion is giving it the 4K treatment. But in case you were wondering, I thought pretty hard about picking The Brutalist, which I haven’t seen but has received rave reviews.

You can read all my thoughts on this week’s releases here.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Maniac (2012)

maniac poster

Maniac has the feel of one of those gritty, nihilistic 1970s horror films. Which, in a way, it kind of is. It is a remake of a gritty horror film made in 1980. It stars Elijah Wood as Frank Zitto a serial killer who murders and scalps women. He owns a mannequin restoration shop and he takes the scalps back home, places them on the mannequins then talks to them like they are still alive.

The film is shot entirely from Frank’s point of view and I hate that gimmick. I’ve seen it in several other films and it always grows tiresome very quickly. In old films like Lady in the Lake (1947) and Dark Passage (1947) its use is cumbersome because cameras were so large movement was quite limited.

It is slightly better here mostly because cameras have gotten smaller allowing for easier movement and CGI allowed them to manipulate the images to create more interesting shots. But it is still a gimmick and a bad one at that. There is one scene where Frank is stabbing a woman and the camera moves away, and we see the action from a third-person point of view. It is an interesting moment because we realize that this is still Frank’s point of view. He feels trapped inside his body and he kills to escape. When he kills he literally (and visually in the case of the film) escapes from his body.

But the film doesn’t really do much else with that idea. There are some flashbacks (still filmed through his point of view) where we learn his mother was a prostitute and she often made him watch her have sex with her Johns. That made him a killer, I guess.

One day a kind young woman takes pictures of the mannequins he has on display at the front of his shop. She’s Anna (Nora Arnezeder) and she’s an artist. She’s got a show coming up and thinks his vintage mannequins will be perfect for it. They form a friendship and the question becomes whether she’ll save him or he’ll kill her.

Within the first few minutes of this film, as soon as I realized it was going to be completely shot from his POV I started hating this film. It didn’t help that it goes to some pretty dark places. Because so much of it is seen through the killer’s eyes we get into his headspace. We see him killing. There was a time when I would have loved the transgressiveness of that, but now I just find it depressing.

There are moments in the film where it lightens up and becomes interesting. Most of these are when Anna is on screen. Nora Arnezeder is quite good and her character’s relationship with Frank is an interesting one. She certainly lights up the screen giving what is mostly a dark, dreary movie some buoyancy. It was enough to make me like the film, but not enough to make me really enjoy it.