Movies and TV Shows

I imagine that I will be watching a lot of horror this month, so I figured I would start spooky season off right by revisiting Halloween (1978).

This is one of the first horror movies I can remember watching. The image of Michael Myers effortlessly lifting Bob (John Micheal Graham) into the air, pinning him to the wall with a knife, and then just standing there, examining his work, is seared into my brain for life. The rest of the kills are comparatively low-key in this first installment, with Michael resorting to strangulation more often than his iconic oversized knife. Regardless of the method, Myers is one of the few slasher antagonists who I genuinely find creepy, even frightening.

The movie opens with a long POV shot from Michael's perspective (although the POV is situated much higher than where 6 year old Mikey's actual eyeballs should be) as he covertly observes his sister canoodling with her boyfriend. The boyfriend leaves, discarding a halloween mask on the floor as he does so, which Michael retrieves as he slowly, inexorably approaches his nude sister in her room, knife in hand. The murder is quick, and not that flashy, but the first-person POV and the reveal that the killer is this tiny little blonde-headed boy still make for an effective shock.

Fifteen Years pass, and we are introduced to Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), Michael Myers' psychiatrist during his long incarceration. Loomis does not fuck around. He spends the entire runtime telling anyone who will listen that Michael is pure, inhuman evil, even referring to him as 'it' until asked to do otherwise. It's almost hilarious how little this film does to establish Loomis as an actual doctor who cares about his patients. He's completely right in this case, but I like to imagine him strolling the halls of the asylum, hunting down evil like a modern day Van Helsing of the infirm, blowing away any patients who get a little jumpy with his concealed revolver. In all seriousness though, Pleasance is great, and the speeches he gives throughout the film are an irreplaceable component of this film's perfect formula.

Our true protagonist however, is Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis in her first role on screen. Laurie is a bookish teenager, just trying to navigate high-school, the homecoming dance, and her two friends, who are the worst people alive. Lynda (PJ Soles) is an obnoxious mean-girl type, and Annie (Nancy Kyes) is oversexed to the point of child endangerment. Laurie, by contrast, comes off as chaste and moral without making her a completely sexless figure. She pines for boys, and seeks a more lively social life, but she's also serious about her studies, and committed to being a good babysitter, unlike the other two who took the jobs just to have someone else' house to get laid in. I'm not sure if this is the absolute origin of the trope, but certainly nearly all subsequent slashers ran with the virginal Final Girl outliving her more promiscuous friends, with sexual frustration even being the explicit motivation behind several of the iconic baddies.

The plot kicks off with Michael Myers making his escape from the mental hospital where he is held, on the eve of some kind of parole hearing. I distinctly remember wondering 'How does he know how to drive?' for years after seeing this for the first time, and I was pleasantly surprised to note that there is actually a line of dialogue lampshading this later on in the film.

Michael returns to Haddonfield Illinois, the sleepy midwestern town (depicted quite convincingly by a California suburb strewn with fake leaves) where he killed his sister all those years before. He catches a glimpse of Laurie as she drops off a key to the old Myers' house for her dad, a realtor. It's not clear why Laurie becomes the object of his fixation. When I was a kid I though that she was also Michael's sister somehow, and that he was back to finish the job, but no, she's just the first person he sees while we're seeing from his POV. Regardless of his motivation, he begins a campaign of stalking, following Laurie around town in his stolen car, silently staring, and disappearing as soon as she blinks.

Michael also seems interested in Tommy, the little boy that Laurie babysits, watching him for a while after he is bullied by other children, whom Michael completely ignores. In this installement at least (my memory is hazy on the larger franchise) Michael never actually targets children, despite this one lingering shot of him observing Tommy. My impression is that Michael recognizes something of himself in Tommy. Maybe Michael was bullied at a young age too? In any case, the ambiguity of his intentions all throughout are a big driver of the tension. Michael never speaks. He doesn't explain his motivations, or curse in frustration as his victim slips away. He's an enigma, and that's a big part of his draw.

The real action begins once the sun has set and All-Hallows-Eve has begun in earnest. Michael tails Laurie and Annie to their babysitting gigs, watching silently all the while. Annie and her charge, Lindsey, don't seem to get along nearly as well as Laurie and Tommy, and Annie eventually pawns Lindsey off to Laurie so she can go get laid. This will be her final mistake. Later, Lynda and her boyfriend Bob show up to the now-empty house where Annie had been, and proceed to shag and toss beer cans all over the place, until Michael decides he's seen enough and mounts Bob to the pantry doors. Lynda meets her end at the hands of a telephone cord, while Laurie listens on, thinking it's a prank call.

Disturbed by the glimpses of unusual activity that she's been getting all day, Laurie decides to go investigate, and hopefully find her friends. She does, but arranged in a macabre display including the stolen gravestone of Judith Myers, Michael's first victim. This is the first indication that we get that Michael has anything at all going on upstairs beyond a drive to kill. He is clearly doing something that makes sense to his permanently warped six-year-old psychology, but is utterly incomprehensible to Laurie, Loomis, or anyone else.

The climax is fantastic, with stunts, and fake-outs, and a great split-second reveal of Michael's face (portrayed by Tony Moran. The Shape, as Myers is referred to in the script, is played by the incredible Nick Castle, who also portrayed the Beach Ball alien in Carpenter's Dark Star) that drives home how little there is underneath the mask. Loomis is right, there isn't really a person in there, the mask is who Michael is, and when that mask is dislodged momentarily, Michael doesn't know how to react. The film ends with Loomis blowing Michael away with his revolver, after Myers has already been stabbed in the eye and the chest (at one point, after Laurie believes she has killed Myers with his own knife, he does the slow sit-up thing that The Undertaker always did in the ring, and I just now understood where he got it from. It's an incredible shot.). There is the barest moment of respite, and then, horribly, Michael is just gone. The nightmare isn't over, even if the film is.

Jamie-Lee Curtis does an absolutely outstanding job in her first role, and this movie would be worth remembering just for her. The fact that it also gave us one of the most memorable Horror villains of all time, who is still being depicted in new films to this day, is a credit to John Carpenter. His script, his score, and his direction come together to create something that isn't quite an exploitation film (despite wearing the trappings proudly) and isn't quite a traditional slasher (because this is the film that inspired the genre-codifiers like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street) but is instead a brutally effective tale of terror that I am always happy to revisit.

Halloween rates 5/5 stars. There are places where the finished product could have used more polish, but there is no denying how effective this is as a horror film, or how important it became to the genre. If you've never seen it, this is as good a time as any!

“Saw X” begins with the kind of reverse time jump that only a horror franchise on its tenth film would dare to attempt. After the previous eight sequels advanced the story of John “Jigsaw” Kramer and his many imitators in a relatively linear fashion — while relying heavily on flashbacks to keep including Tobin Bell after his character’s early death — “Saw X” takes place in 2004, just three weeks after the events of the original film.

John Kramer is still alive in the new movie, battling a deteriorating cancer diagnosis that simultaneously serves as his motivation and an explanation for why he appears to have aged 20 years in three weeks. When his prognosis looks bleak, he travels to Mexico City to participate in an experimental treatment program that offers him a new lease on life. But when he finds out that the costly procedure was a scam and his cancer wasn’t actually cured, he sets out to exact revenge in the only way he knows how: playing a game with an arsenal of lethal homemade traps.

The narrative gambit turned “Saw X” into the most emotional film in the franchise, but it also placed its team in the predicament of having to deliver a tenth “Saw” movie that feels like it’s the third one. The early “Saw” films were sparse affairs that took great pride in constructing traps out of easily available materials that actually worked from a mechanical standpoint. But as the series grew, so did its narrative ambitions. It wasn’t long before Jigsaw and co. were using lasers and trains to make outlandish traps that were almost cartoonish in their violence. They served a narrative purpose in the wackier sequels — but for “Saw X,” everyone knew it was time to return to the barebones simplicity of early traps like “The Magnum Eyehole” and “The Needle Pit.”

“We knew we wanted to make the traps less complicated,” executive producer Mark Burg said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “We wanted to make traps that you could basically put together from Home Depot. At some point our traps got bigger and more complex, and we wanted to bring it back down.”

The task of constructing the stripped-down traps fell to production designer Anthony Stabley, a newcomer to the franchise who took the assignment seriously. Stabley told IndieWire that he limited his research to the first two “Saw” movies in order to ensure that his designs aligned with their place in the franchise’s larger timeline. Once it was time to start building, he prioritized simplicity to drive home the point that Kramer built these traps himself with limited resources.

“As far as the traps were concerned, our main objective was to make sure that everybody believes that John Kramer made these traps,” Stabley said. “We wanted to make sure that it reflects the early ‘Saw’ films.”

The simplified ethos extended all the way up to director Kevin Greutert, who previously directed “Saw VI” and “Saw 3D” and has edited all ten films in the series. He told IndieWire that, after 20 years of working on the franchise, he has a keen eye for discerning which shots are actually necessary to advance the larger story. On “Saw X,” he resisted the temptation to indulge in flashy cinematography in favor of a more utilitarian shot list that parallels the earlier films.

“I think I have more experience knowing exactly what kind of coverage I want,” Greutert said. “DPs and directors always want ‘cool shots,’ but to me the cool shot still has to tell some of the story. It still has to ground you emotionally and in the characters and not just be auteurish-looking.”

By simplifying everything, the team was able to pull off the kind of smooth timeline reset that has evaded countless other horror franchises. Bringing the action back to 2004 had the dual benefit of placating longtime “Saw” junkies who missed the feel of the original films and offering an easier entry point for new fans who haven’t ingested all the mythology.

“We tried to accomplish two things,” executive producer Oren Koules said. “We wanted to bring it back to O.G. We wanted an original ‘Saw’ movie. We wanted John Kramer very featured in this movie. But we also wanted a movie that was accessible to people that had never seen a ‘Saw’ movie.”

I followed up Them! with the classic Ray Harryhausen picture The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953).

This was, as far as I can figure, the very first Atomic Monster movie. There had been films with giant creatures before, most notably Kong, but the Kaiju genre as we understand it really began with this film. Beast was released just over a year before Gojira, and the influences on the later film are manifold. All of the basic plot elements are there, and the original script even called for the Beast to breathe atomic flames just like his Eastern cousin. The biggest difference between the two is the way in which the films brought their monsters to life. Gojira famously employed 'suitmation' to deliver a very naturalistic looking monster who interacted directly with the city he was destroying. Beast instead opted for the masterful miniature and stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen, integrating matte shots and technical effects with creature effects to sell the illusion of scale. Both films accomplish their goals quite effectively, and both highlight the advantages (and disadvantages) of either method.

The film opens on an Arctic expedition intended to test an Atomic device and collect some unspecified data. Our lead, Professor Tom Nesbitt (Paul Hubschmid, who was a Swiss actor who appeared in light-entertainment flicks produced by the Nazis...) and a colleague are hiking out to the detonation site in order to conduct their readings when they are attacked by a mysterious creature emerging from the ice. Nesbitt survives, but he is committed to a hospital upon his return, with nobody believing his tales of a giant monster.

Eventually, with the help of Professor Thurgood Elson (Cecil Kellaway, who is great in Harvey, and also every other role where he plays a silly little doctor man) and his beautiful assistant Lee Hunter (Paula Raymond), Nesbitt begins to accumulate evidence that the beast exists. Boats have been attacked, and a lighthouse destroyed (in the sequence that "inspired" the movie, from a Ray Bradbury short story. The sequence was already scripted, but when the filmmakers saw the success of the Bradbury story, they bought the rights to it and heavily pushed that angle in marketing.), making it harder and harder for the authorities to ignore him.

There is a lot of dubious scientific speak thrown around, a lot of it humorous, but one tidbit that stuck out to me was an Anecdote that Lee related about a group of scientists finding Mastodons so well preserved by permafrost that their flesh was still edible. I have no idea if that was true in 1953, but it definitely is today. In 2013 a group of Korean scientists cooked and ate samples of Mastodon tissue, finding that it was tough, but flavorful.

There are lot of great locations in this flick, from the Arctic sets, to the boats and underwater sequence with a diving bell, to the streets of Gotham itself. Harryhausen masterfully blended miniature effects with in-camera split-matte techniques to bring his monster into the same space as the actors, and it works extremely well. I won't sit here and tell you that it looks better than later practical effects, or even modern CGI, but it has a visceral physicality to it that makes it impossible to look away, even if the eye is never exactly fooled. The varied backdrops and destructable environments ensured that the gimmick never wore out its welcome either, I was always eager to see what the Beast was going to do next. The Beast itself is shown on-screen much more freqiently than the ants from Them! and even a lot of later Kaiju movies that rely on tiny glimpses to build suspense. We catch a decent look at the Beast early on, and then it's not a long wait before his full boat-smashing reveal. The action itself is fun and exciting all the way through.

I found the human actors somewhat less compelling than the cast of Them!, although most of that is antipathy towards Paul Hubschmid who seems to be an in-universe Operation Paperclip type figure, in addition to being a dancing monkey for the real-life Nazis. Paula Raymond and Cecil Kellaway are delightful, and I would have much preferred if they had been centered as the film's protagonists with Nesbitt being relegated to a supporting role, probably much like the one Kellaway actually plays. Lee Van Cleef shows up at the end as a National Guard sharpshooter, in a fun little role that foreshadows his long career as a hollywood gunslinger.

I'm going to give this one a 4.5/5. If I liked Paul Hubschmid even a little, this might be a 5 star film.

I am old enough to have witnessed the golden age of The Simpsons as it was happening, and I know that, even then, people thought it was past its prime. I was among the many who tut-tutted that it was trash beginning in the early 2000s, but… I was getting over being sick a week or so ago, and I gave myself an experiment that bore surprising results. I knew there were a couple episodes I liked in the early teen seasons (or at least, ones that stuck in my head and made me chuckle), so how far could I go through The Simpsons before I find a season with NO good episodes? I skipped ToH episodes just so I have more new stuff for spooky season, but I’m in the mid 20s seasons and I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying these episodes. I skip around based on synopsis, so I’m not watching all of them, but I feel like this show is much better than I thought it was at that point in its life. Just wanted to share this somewhere.

SKINNER: “Children, you can stop writing letters to soldiers overseas- that was just busywork.”

Tonight I thought I'd throw on some true classic monster movies from the golden age of the drive-in. I started the evening with Them! (1954).

James Whitmore leads the picture as Ben, a New Mexico cop on the lookout for a missing person. He and his partner, played by Christian Drake, find a little girl wandering alone in the desert, mute and unresponsive. A little further up the road a travel-trailer lies abandoned, its vinyl siding slashed to pieces. A bizarre footprint is found. Little by little the evidence mounts that something very strange is happening in the high desert.

This is the archetypal western Giant Monster movie. It was scooped (as was Gojira) on the trend by The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms a year earlier, but this is the film that cemented big critters as a mainstay of science-fiction in American cinema. Notably all three films use Atomic testing as the origin for their creatures, though each has a very different take on the concept.

When the local cops realize they are in over their heads (and the bodies start to pile up) they call in FBI agent Bob, played by the star of Gunsmoke! James Arness, who in turn calls in some government scientists to take a look. The doctors Medford are the most entertaining members of the cast; a father and daughter team of pharmacologist/entomologists working for the Department of Agriculture, their chemistry is delightful, and the elder Medford (Edmund Gwenn) delivers some truly excellent speeches throughout the runtime. Bob is less pleasant. His role seems to be to wear an ill-fitting suit, loudly demand answers from everyone, and clumsily hit on the younger Medford (Joan Weldon) while Ben does all the work.

The creature effects in this picture are great. The ants are freakish looking, and the eggs and other debris within their nests are very well done. There is one very naturalistic looking corpse that stood out to me as being almost modern-looking in comparison to most films from this era. There was blood, and visible injuries, but not overdone, and the body was placed very naturally. I think I was expecting this movie to look a lot worse than it did, and that factors a lot into how much I enjoyed it. The title sequence even holds a surprise, the film is shot in black-and-white, but the title, Them! is colorized and swoops in to almost pop out of the screen. I bet that was a real experience for drive-in viewers back in '54

The set design and prop work is all quite good as well. There is a sandstorm sequence near the beginning of the film that is just excellently shot, on a soundstage from the looks of it. It doesn't look real, but it looks like how driving through a bad sandstorm feels, with the claustrophobic curtains of dust closing in all around. There are a few shots like this that lean into almost dreamlike imagery rather than strict realism, and it really helps sell the tense nervousness of the characters as they prepare to confront the unknown.

There is a ton of actual military hardware in this film, from rifle-grenades to Bazookas, to a whole bunch of flamethrowers. The main cast was loaded with WWII veterans who had actually used the things in combat, so they look and act very natural in a way that was interesting to see.

The human drama is also quite watchable. The parts where no monster is on screen are always the roughest bits in traditional Kaiju films, and I can maybe picture three of the human characters from the entire Godzilla franchise, but the whole cast here had distinct roles and were given things to do in them that made for a tight, entertaining mystery/procedural in the early scenes before the reveal of the monsters, and a solid thriller for the rest of the runtime. I actually cared about the fates of most of the cast, and when one of them is killed in the climax, I was pretty upset about which one it was. (Ben. They kill Ben the hero cop, and let Bob the sleazy, incompetent FBI man live.)

The elder Dr. Medford drip feeds his suspicions to the increasingly impatient Bob and Ben as the plot unfolds, and even if you know already what the monster is, it's quite engaging to watch. At one point he gives a short film presentation on Ant ecology which was genuinely just a great little nature documentary (with some hilariously outdated factoids sprinkled in) that happens partway through this killer bug movie. Edmund Gwenn is one of the all-time greats, and he does not disappoint here.

There are jokes, and some of them are funny, but this is mostly a serious sci-fi picture. In fact, the degree to which it takes itself seriously was entirely unexpected. I forget sometimes that the trashy B-movies I grew up on were based on tropes that were originally played straight, and sometimes even had budgets to pull them off. This is a good movie, entirely aside from its legacy as the grandaddy of Big Bug movies, and I should have known that it would be a cut above the derivative stuff that came later. I'm going to give this one a 4/5 stars. If Bob weren't a useless misogynist, and Ben didn't die such a pointless death, I would call this a clean five stars, but alas, here we are.

I would love to see the “lost” footage mentioned in this article. Would make a great expanded mini series for some streamer. I know after this flopped that a four hour version ended up in syndicated TV, but this article mentions there’s like seven hours of cut scenes!

**Potential spoilers for both Castlevania Netflix in the comments **

also tall lady can make me her blood bag anytime

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/715124

What started as a series for kids that started to grow up has come back an adult, developed and matured. The new series doesn't shy away from complex themes of existence and growth while maintaining the characteristic charms of the original series. Unabashedly referential and queer accepting, this series clearly let the writers and art teams do what they wanted and the show was excellent for it, down to every detail. To everyone who watched the original series long ago I would recommend this sequel. If you hadn't seen the original then I don't know how it would land, I am interested to know what you thought.

Ending

The end made me cry, I couldn't help it. It was such a beautiful addition to the story, of what happened to Simon coming to grips with what he'd done, Marshal and Gary getting to be in love, the resolution of a world being returned to everyone within . The episode where those two got together was way too good. The tension of their lives and Fiona's somehow matched despite being worlds apart. Beautiful.

Calling back to the last episode of the original series hit me like a tonne of bricks too. I remember being much younger than I am now and hearing "Come along with me" for the last time. It was an interesting choice not to use it to close out the season but I think it was a good choice, it was the final signifier that they had moved on from Finn and Jake.

Watch this show so I can talk to more people about it

One movie from this list I absolutely adore is Psycho Goreman. More funny than scary.

| Title | Dumb Money | |

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| | Genre: | Biographical, Comedy | | MPAA Rating: | R | | Runtime | 01:45:00 | | Release Date (USA): | September 29, 2023 | | Director: | Craig Gillespie | | Main Cast: | Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Vincent D'Onofrio, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos | | Summary: | Based on the true story of a group of rag-tag investors from the Reddit r/WallStreetBets, who banded together to put the squeeze on hedge funds that had bet that GameStop shares would fall. |

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| Title | Saw X | |

|

| | Genre: | Horror | | MPAA Rating: | R | | Runtime | 01:58:00 | | Release Date (USA): | September 29, 2023 | | Director: | Kevin Greutert | | Main Cast: | Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnøve Macody Lund, Steven Brand, Michael Beach | | Summary: | A sick and desperate John Kramer travels to Mexico in hopes of a miracle cure for his cancer, only to discover the entire operation is a scam. Armed with a newfound purpose, the infamous serial killer returns to his work, turning the tables on the con artists in his signature visceral way through devious, deranged, and ingenious traps. |

Useful links:

• Wikipedia
• IMDb
• Movie Insider
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This is the place for all your general discussion, personal and/or linked reviews regarding the new 2023 film, Saw X, pinned for your convenience!

Please, for the benefit of the community, use spoiler formatting if you must reveal!

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With the recent fall from grace from NFTS i remembered the whole Seth Green NFT show fiasco, with his bored ape being stollen and and the show not being able to go foward due to that but icant find anymore info online other than he bought back his stollen nft, but i couldnt find if the show was cancelled or going foward. It would be a shame if it was cancelled because i was looking foward to point and laugh at the cringe that was coming with it and witness the colective disgust on the internet about it.

The actor, a four-time Bafta award winner, was best known for playing Dumbledore in the hit film series.

Officially, the Barbie movie isn't showing in Russia.

But unofficially…

I'm in a Moscow shopping centre. A giant pink house has been erected next to the food court. Inside: pink furniture, pink popcorn and life-size cardboard cut-outs of Barbie and Ken who are beaming from ear to ear.

No wonder they're smiling: the Barbie film is pulling in the crowds at the multiplex opposite, despite Western sanctions. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a string of Hollywood studios stopped releasing their movies in Russia. But unauthorised copies are getting through and being dubbed into Russian.

Over at the cinema it's a bit cloak and dagger. When I ask one visitor which movie he's come to watch he names an obscure 15-minute Russian film and smiles.

To avoid licensing issues, some cinemas in Russia have been selling tickets to Russian-made shorts and showing the Barbie feature film as the preview.

Russia's culture ministry is not amused. Last month it concluded that the Barbie movie was "not in line with the aims and goals laid out by our president for preserving and strengthening traditional Russian moral and spiritual values."

Mind you, the cinemagoers I speak to are tickled pink that Barbie's hit the big screen here.

"People should have the right to choose what they want to watch," Karina says. "I think it's good that Russian cinemas are able to show these films for us."

"It's about being open-minded about other people's cultures," says Alyona. "Even if you don't agree with other people's standards, it's still great if you can watch it."

But Russian MP Maria Butina believes there's nothing great about Barbie: the doll or the film.

"I have issues with Barbie as a female form," she tells me. "Some girls - especially in their teens - try to be like a Barbie girl, and they exhaust their bodies."

Ms Butina adds that the film has not been licensed to appear in Russian cinemas.

"Do not break the law. Is this a question for our movie theatres? Absolutely. I filed several requests to cinemas asking on what basis they are showing the film," she says.

"You talk about the importance of following the law," I say, "but Russia invaded Ukraine. The United Nations says that was a complete violation of international law."

"Russia is saving Ukraine," she replies, "and saving the Donbas."

You hear this often from those in power in Russia. They paint Moscow as peacemaker, not warmonger. They argue that it is America, Nato, the West, that are using Ukraine to wage war on Russia. It is an alternative reality designed to rally Russians around the flag.

Amid growing confrontation with Europe and America, the Russian authorities seem determined to turn Russians against the West.

From morning till night state TV here tells viewers that Western leaders are out to destroy Russia. The brand-new modern history textbook for Russian high-school students (obligatory for use) claims that the aim of the West is "to dismember Russia and take control of her natural resources."

It asserts that "in the 1990s, in place of our traditional cultural values such as good, justice, collectivism, charity and self-sacrifice, under the influence of Western propaganda a sense of individualism was forced on Russia, along with the idea that people bear no responsibility for society."

The text book encourages Russian 11th graders to "multiply the glory and strength of the Motherland."

In other words, Your Motherland (not Barbie Land) needs you!

At the Moscow multiplex I'd found many people still open to experiencing Western culture and ideas. But what's the situation away from the Russian capital?

I drive to the town of Shchekino, 140 miles from Moscow. There's a concert on at the local culture centre. Up on stage four Russian soldiers in military fatigues are playing electric guitars and singing their hearts out about patriotism and Russian invincibility.

One of the songs is about Russia's war in Ukraine.

"We will serve the Motherland and crush the enemy!" they croon.

The audience (it's almost a full house) is a mixture of young and old, including school children, military cadets, and senior citizens. For the up-tempo numbers they're waving Russian tricolours that have been handed to them.

As the paratrooper pop stars sing their patriotic repertoire, film is being projected onto the screen behind them. No Barbie or Ken here. There are images of Russian tanks, soldiers marching and shooting and, at one point, of President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

Patriotic messaging is effective. Barbie mania isn't a thing on the streets of Shchekino.

"Right now it's important to make patriotic Russian films to raise morale," Andrei tells me. "And we need to cut out Western habits from our lives. How can we do that? Through film. Cinema can influence the masses."

"In Western films they talk a lot about sexual orientation. We don't support that," Ekaterina tells me. "Russian cinema is about family values, love and friendship."

But Diana is reluctant to divide cinema into Russian films and foreign movies.

"Art is for everyone. It doesn't matter where you're from," Diana tells me. "And we shouldn't restrict ourselves to art from one nation. To become a more cultured, sociable and a more interesting person, you need to watch films and read books from other countries, too."

Looks great, but I liked the first one better.

Netflix decided that video game adaptations are in

From the creators of Frozen comes: Frozen 1.5

Looks alright but very much in line with Disney's recent movies.

In The Office (US version) it is revealed that the mockumentary the viewer watches does in fact exist inside the universe. Dunder-Mifflin crew is even interviewed as stars of the show and Pam has a thing for the boom mic operator who worked on the set.

Netflix' Tick tick boom is based on an eponymous theatre play, which told the background story of the shows creative process. Its main character is a fictional version of the creator, Jonathan Larson.

Season 4 of the Arrested Development revolves around Michael getting release rights from his family members to create a show based on their story from seasons 1-3. He even hires a fictitious version of Ron Howard, who is the real show's director.

Marvel's She-Hulk ends with the main character discussing the corners cut during production with a fictionalised version of Kevin Feige.

These are for examples that I could come up with from the top of my head. Can you think of any other?

We remain in NYC for tonight's feature: Rumble in the Bronx (1995)!

This is the movie that introduced Jackie Chan to America, and launched him to super-stardom. I watched the New-Line Cinema English dub, which cuts some scenes and adds others. If I can find it I'd like to see the Hong Kong/International cut as well.

My first Chan film was Rush Hour, released a few years later, and this feels very much like the spiritual predecessor to that film (Although the Police Story films were probably the more direct influence on that series, I haven't seen those yet). Jackie plays Keung, who has just arrived in town from Hong Kong, for Uncle Bill's (Bill Tung) wedding, and to help run Bill's shop while he is away on honeymoon. Complications begin more or less immediately when Keung learns that Bill is selling the store that very day to a new owner, Elaine (Anita Mui). We are quickly introduced to Bill's young, wheelchair-bound neighbor, Danny (Morgan Lam), as well as a very silly looking biker gang who ride dirt bikes and a dune buggy instead of regular motorcycles for some reason (the reason is dirt bikes are cheaper and easier to jump off of cars), who are led by Tony (Mark Akerstram, who is credited on Deep Rising, but whom I don't remember from that film) and the unhinged Angelo (Garvin Cross, who has had a long career as a stuntman in big name pictures).

We get our first taste of Jackie's skills as he finds himself drawn to a practice tree in Bill's apartment, delivering a series of practiced strikes so smoothly it looks almost unimpressive, until you remember that there's no way in hell you or I could replicate it, much less with that degree of nonchalance. He also gives Danny a Sega Game Gear, which he proceeds to play without a game cartridge, for reasons that are entirely unclear given that he only learned of the kid's existence a few minutes prior. This early portion is very silly, and the English dubbing is downright terrible, but it is definitely entertaining.

Before too long the plot starts happening and Jackie witnesses the dirt-bikers doing a very silly kind of race on the street behind the apartment, endangering Uncle Bill's humorously fancy borrowed vehicle. He intervenes and costs one of the riders the race, and the cash prize. The next day, after the wedding, some of the bikers show up to the store and start stealing things. This is where we get to see Jackie really show off for the first time. Grocery stores are up there in terms of best settings for a Hong Kong action sequence, and Jackie makes use of the varied terrain and endless props to absolutely jaw dropping effect. At one point in filming Jackie would break one of his ankles and spend the rest of the shoot in a cast and boot, but this fight scene is so rapid and kinetic, it has to have been shot beforehand. Even the stunts he did after the break are phenomenal, and the way they disguised his cast is fairly ingenious.

The central conflict revolves around a diamond heist and the fallout from a deal gone wrong, but before we get to that, the violence between Keung and the bikers continues to be on-sight, with the gang cornering him the next day in an alleyway and batting empty beer bottles at him until he's covered in glass wounds. Nancy (Francoise Yip), who was the biker that Keung interfered with, as well as Tony's girlfriend, takes pity on Keung when he staggers, blood-soaked, onto her doorstep. The day after that there's a fight that involves a giant mobile ball-pit. The beef is becoming deeply silly. After this goes on for a while, Keung, Danny, and a few of Tony's bikers witness the aftermath of the diamond deal, including lots of Uzis and a sweet car explosion. Angelo ends up with the diamonds, and the massive goons who are looking to recover them follow him into the building where Bill, Nancy, and Danny live.

The action sequences are so good, with every movement being intentional, and the plot macguffin moving rapidly through the space, but never in such a way that you lose track of it. Jackie was in his absolute physical prime here and it's a blast to just watch him go. Nancy works as a dancer in a club with a live tiger (giving me Roar flashbacks) and Keung goes there to meet her. Another chase sequence later and our romantic leads are established.

Since he's been running around playing grab-ass with the dirt-bikers, Keung hasn't been showing up to work, and those same bikers wreck the market while looking for him. Determined to squash the beef, Keung heads over to the punk warehouse/club where Tony's gang hangs out and proceeds to whoop so much ass that the apparent villain in this martial arts action movie straight up learns a lesson and decides to turn his life around. This movie is so unserious and I love it.

Once the bikers are on-side the focus shifts towards the bigger, badder guys, who are still looking for Angelo and the diamonds. From here on out the action just ratchets up and up and up, culminating in an extended hovercraft rampage that is shot like a Kaiju film with the hovercraft filling the role of the giant monster. The physical comedy is great, even if none of the actual jokes are very funny. There are about a billion and one lazy racial stereotypes in this, which is about par for the course with 90's action flicks, although I'm curious how much of it is a product of the changes made for the dub.

I'm going to give this one 3/5 stars, mostly on the strength of Jackie Chan's incredible physical skills and the fact that I was genuinely surprised when Tony just gave up and told Keung "You win." I may revisit that rating if the international release is less overtly stupid.

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