Welcoming the fresh meat.

Added my notes on Hostel: Part II (2007) over at Alex on Film. I think this series is a bit unfairly tarred with the “torture porn” brush. They aren’t as bad as all that, and they have a contemporary political angle that works pretty well (the 1% as corporate-killer elite). I don’t think this one does as much as it could with the gender switch, perhaps because they just didn’t want to go there. By the strictures of American puritanism, torture is OK but porn is bad. Murder can be seen as a rite of passage for teen audiences, but sex is morally corrupting.

If these walls could talk.

Added my notes on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) over at Alex on Film. This is a personal favourite of mine. It never gets old because it’s such an oddity and outlier.

Added my notes on Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) over at Alex on Film. You might come to this movie with high expectations seeing as it reunites a lot of the same talent as the classic noir Laura (director Preminger, stars Andrews and Tierney, screenwriter Hecht). But it’s not in the same league. I mainly blame Hecht, as it’s a really clumsy script.

Added my notes on Sherlock Holmes (2009) over at Alex on Film. It’s a beautiful movie to look at, but all these CGI epics seem the same to me. Holmes here is just another Marvel superhero. The comic book aesthetic has taken over to the point where even movies that aren’t based on comic books are being re-imagined this way. I’m not purist about these things, but something is wrong when everything is re-interpreted through the same creative matrix.

You’d recognize them anywhere.

Added my notes on Murder by Decree (1979) over at Alex on Film. Each generation gets the Holmes they deserve, and this film was very much a product of the ’70s. Most of it holds up pretty well though.

Oh you sly dog, Moriarty.

You’re probably wondering what the secret weapon is in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943). Well, I won’t keep you in suspense. It’s a bombsight. Why they misspelled Moriarty’s name in the credits is a bigger mystery. Perhaps they just didn’t know any better.

Next line: “I admire it. I admire it so much I’d like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society. “

I’m kicking off a couple of weeks of Sherlock Holmes coverage over at Alex on Film with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). This is a good one, but ends up feeling like less than the sum of its parts.

Added my notes on The Passion of the Christ (2004) over at Alex on Film. A huge success and the center of a storm of controversy ten years ago, how does it play today?

Go on, take the money and run.

Added my notes on The Amazing Transparent Man (1960) over at Alex on Film. Atomic-age nonsense with a rather unlikeable cast from low-budget auteur Edgar G. Ulmer. At times it stumbles into humour, but it’s not quite bad enough to be good.