I have a soft spot for Golden Age movies that take place in tropical environments, which have left me with a life-long love of swaying palm trees, white sandy beaches, jungle birds cawing in the background, and exotic flora and fauna—giant snakes excluded. My love of tropical scenery and jungle locales began in childhood when I devoured the Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller that were frequently broadcast on one of the Cleveland television stations. Nothing seemed more adventurous and exotic to me than trekking through the jungle. In adulthood, I still enjoy these films, though the racist depictions of natives are difficult to watch. I enjoy them because they are not only an escape to an exotic Neverland filled with jungle animals, oversized tropical plants, and extra-large vines but also an escape from computers, cell phones, and those people who think they can’t live without them.

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Whether it’s John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson talking about hamburgers in Pulp Fiction (1994) or Anthony Hopkins scaring the heck out of Jodie Foster as he goes on about fava beans and chianti in Silence of the Lambs (1991), food brings out a primal passion that sometimes goes to an extreme. And while the number of films that touch on gluttony (La Grande Bouffe, The Meaning of Life, Seven, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) are many, they pale in comparison to the gluttony of films that tackle cannibalism.  READ MORE

Occasionally a movie comes along that defies easy categorization and doesn’t cater to audience expectations of any kind. And when the director’s intentions and directorial choices are also never made obvious or explicit, it can result in a baffling but memorable viewing experience. Welcome to Serge Bozon’s LA FRANCE (2007), which has been widely praised at various film festivals, but is receiving its first wide release in the U.S. now on DVD through Kino International.       READ MORE

This Sunday evening, March 14th (check your local listings for the air time for your zone),Turner Classic Movies will run Rex Ingram’s THE MAGICIAN (1926) as part of its “Silent Sunday Nights.”  If you love silent films, if you love old timey melodrama, if you love vintage movie magic and crumbly Gothic architecture, if you love mad scientists with laboratories full of bubbling beakers and twisty retorts and scenes set in the very bowels o’Hell, where demonic satyrs prance and prey and fair maidens scream at the threat to their maidenhood, then you owe it to yourself to tape, TiVo or sit up with a mug of Postum… because this movie has it all! READ MORE

In the flurry of interviews Martin Scorsese granted running up to the release of Shutter Island, he rattled off a long list of movies he screened for his cast, including Laura, Out of the Past, Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim. The first two were studied by DiCaprio and Ruffalo to look good in a rumpled suit (thanks to Dana Andrews and Robert Mitchum), while the last three, of course, were churned out by Val Lewton’s miraculous horror unit at RKO, a remarkable run of terror keyed off of the suggestion of violence rather than the blood and guts themselves. But the main wellspring of Scorsese’s recent box-office champ are two later Lewtons, which he also mentions: Isle of the Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946) [Spoilers abound below].

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Last week, I wrote about Chicago’s role in the birth of the mainstream film industry, which is most often treated as a footnote in text books and film histories. Even less known is the city’s importance to the development of an African American cinema in which black entrepreneurs made movies for black audiences. While there are several scholarly studies on the development of an African American cinema, and many of them chronicle the early pioneers, the whole story has yet to creep into coffee-table film histories or filter into the popular consciousness.

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I’ve been taking a break from this entertaining site for a while, but I didn’t want to completely disappear during Academy Award time.  As the Morlocks have each explored their varied and fascinating takes on the season over the past few weeks, I tried to rustle up some photos on the theme.  You know how winners are supposed to always be kissing their Oscars, giving thanks to the gold statuette after they win?  The action has evolved into a glorious pop culture cliche, but if an internet photo search is any indication, either the kisses have been highly over-reported or they’re nearly mythical.  Where are all those kisses, anyway?

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Even hardcore fans of the “Man in Black” might not know that back in 1959 the bad boy of country-western music decided to dabble in motion pictures and made his film debut in a low-budget wonder entitled FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE (aka DOOR TO DOOR MANIAC). TCM Underground will unveil this rarely seen “gem” on April 9^th at 2 a.m. ET and it’s an enjoyably trashy genre mash-up that is part bank heist thriller, part home invasion psychodrama and part family sitcom in the style of “Father Knows Best.” Plus, in addition to Cash chewing up the scenery, the cast includes Country Music Hall of Famer Merle Travis as a bowling alley manager, little Ronnie Howard (who was already appearing on television in such series as “Dennis the Menace” and “The Andy Griffith Show”) and Vic Tayback, the Emmy-nominated co-star of the TV series “Alice.” It’s not their finest hour but if you’re a Cash fan or appreciate wild card obscurities like BLAST OF SILENCE (1961) or SHACK OUT ON 101 (1955), you know you must see it.        READ MORE

Here I am talking about vampires again.  In the course of our discussion last Friday about the size of fangs in vampire movies, my fellow Morlock Moirafinnie asked “What do you think of the changing effect of sunlight on various vampires over time in movie history? I always think it’s a gyp when a Dracula figure doesn’t start to sizzle when the sun’s rays hit him or her. Where do you stand, RHS?”  Of course, I could have given Moira a simple answer but why do that when I can squeeze a whole ‘nuther blog post out of the topic? READ MORE