watching movies

Running with the Hound

/ Alex Good / Leave a comment

Over at Alex on Film I’ve just posted my notes on another adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles. There have been many versions of The Hound over the years so I thought I’d provide this page as an index to some of them.

First off, here’s a link to my thoughts on Conan Doyle’s book.

Then here’s a link to a graphic novel adaptation, and here’s one to a pop-up version.

Now on to the movies:

Der Hund von Baskerville (1914)
Der Hund von Baskerville (1929)
Der Hund von Baskerville (1937)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000)

As always, you can find my index to reviews of the Holmes canon here, and Holmes on film here.

Jurassic Days

/ Alex Good / 7 Comments

With more on the way.

Over at Alex on Film I just posted my notes on Jurassic World Rebirth, the seventh film in a franchise that has made loads of money without ever being good. I know some people have a soft spot in their hearts for the first movie, but even at the time I found it overrated and on my most recent re-watch I wasn’t any more impressed. As for the rest of the line-up, I never thought the series went downhill but only stayed on the same level. And as I say in my most recent set of notes, they’re all bad in the same way. Here’s the list.

Jurassic Park (1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Jurassic World III (2001)
Jurassic World (2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

Here in my car, I feel safest of all

/ Alex Good / 6 Comments

Bill Skarsgård. Not going anywhere for a while?

Over at Alex on Film I just wrapped up my notes on a trio of movies about rich psychos who trap car thieves in specially designed automobiles: Captured (1998), 4×4 (2019), and Locked (2025). Watching them, I couldn’t help but think of what Hitchcock would have made out of such a set-up. He liked challenges like pretending a movie was shot all in one take, or setting a whole film on a lifeboat. Alas, none of the directors involved in these films made much out of the idea, either in terms of generating suspense or having a political message, even though each makes gestures in that direction.

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)