watching movies

Gamestopped

/ Alex Good / 6 Comments

Over at Goodreports I’ve added a review of Ben Mezrich’s take on the Gamestop short squeeze, The Antisocial Network. This is the book that the movie Dumb Money was based on. I didn’t care for the movie (in fact, I hated it), and I didn’t like the book for a lot of the same reasons, but I think Mezrich at least gives you enough of the story to draw your own conclusions about what was going on.

Given the terrifying explosion in sports betting that’s happening, the crypto phenomenon, and the broader “gamification” of the stock market it’s a lesson that really needs to be driven home at every opportunity: If you’re gambling, you’re losing. The house always wins.

A bloody pain in the neck

/ Alex Good / 8 Comments

This is an index of some of the vampire movies I’ve reviewed over at Alex on Film. I’ll keep adding to it as I go along.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Dracula (1931)
Vampyr (1932)
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
Son of Dracula (1943)
House of Dracula (1945)
Horror of Dracula (1958)
The Brides of Dracula (1960)
The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
Orgy of the Dead (1965)
Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Daughters of Darkness (1971)
Requiem for a Vampire (1971)
Dracula’s Dog (1977)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
The Hunger (1983)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
From Dusk till Dawn (1996)
John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)
Underworld (2003)
Underworld: Evolution (2006)
30 Days of Night (2007)
Let the Right One In (2008)
Let Me In (2010)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Afflicted (2013)
Morbius (2022)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
Renfield (2023)
Nosferatu (2024)
Sinners (2025)

Balls of steel

/ Alex Good / 6 Comments

Digging deep.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve just wrapped up my notes on the Phantasm series. This was a surprisingly long-lived franchise, running from 1979 to 2016 with the same core cast (except for the recasting of Mike in Phantasm II) and the same writer-director in Don Coscarelli (who wrote and directed the first four films and co-wrote and produced the fifth). Most franchises rebooted several times over the same period, but the Phantasmverse maintained a remarkable continuity. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many franchises, horror or otherwise, that managed such a feat. And I was happy they ended on what I felt was a high note. Here’s the line-up.

Phantasm (1979)
Phantasm II (1988)
Phantasm III (1994)
Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)
Phantasm: Ravager (2016)

Chan’s the man!

/ Alex Good / 30 Comments

The one and only.

This is an index to my reviews of Charlie Chan films over at Alex on Film. When I review more I’ll update.

Behind That Curtain (1929)
The Black Camel (1931)
Charlie Chan in London (1934)
Charlie Chan in Paris (1935)
Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
Charlie Chan in Shanghai (1935)
Charlie Chan’s Secret (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Race Track (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)
Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)
Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937)
Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937)
Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1939)
Charlie Chan in Reno (1939)
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939)
City in Darkness (1939)
Charlie Chan in Panama (1940)
Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise (1940)
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940)
Murder Over New York (1940)
Dead Men Tell (1941)
Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)
Castle in the Desert (1942)
Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944)
Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944)
Black Magic (1944)
The Jade Mask (1945)
The Scarlet Clue (1945)
The Shanghai Cobra (1945)
The Red Dragon (1945)
Dangerous Money (1946)
Dark Alibi (1946)
The Trap (1946)
The Chinese Ring (1947)

John Wick: Table of contents

/ Alex Good / 7 Comments

Check with the prop department, John.

Just posted my notes on John Wick: Chapter 4 over at Alex on Film. That winds up (for now) a very expensive action series that did crazy box office. I was only really impressed by the second entry. The first movie only got a shrug out of me (looking back on my notes, I guess I even thought it was crap), and the third and fourth just seemed like banging on the same drum as the second. But Keanu Reeves really was the man of the moment (who saw that coming?) and comic-book action Hollywood’s sweet spot, so the films became cultural touchstones, at least for a while. I have to wonder though how long they’ll last.

John Wick (2014)
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum (2019)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Cronenbergiana

/ Alex Good / 5 Comments

Another unhappy family reunion.

Being a Canadian fellow who watches a lot of horror movies I’ve seen most of the work of the Cronenbergs (father David and son Brandon) over the years. So I thought I’d provide an index here to the notes I’ve made on some of them at Alex on Film. As I (and they) go on I’ll add to the list.

David

Stereo (1969)
Crimes of the Future (1970)
They Came From Within (a.k.a. Shivers) (1975)
Rabid (1976)
The Brood (1979)
Scanners (1981)
Videodrome (1983)
The Dead Zone (1983)
The Fly (1986)
Naked Lunch (1991)
Crash (1996)
eXistenZ (1999)
Maps to the Stars (2014)
Crimes of the Future (2022)

Brandon

Antiviral (2012)
Possessor (2020)
Infinity Pool (2023)