Coraline (2009)

Introduction

I’ve been a fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing for a few years now. I’ve never read his book, “Coraline”, but while watching the movie I could see his hallmark touches all over the script. So what happens when you combine Gaiman’s mythic storytelling with Henry Selick’s stop motion wizardry?

Summary

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) and her family move into The Pink Palace, a large house on a hill populated with all kinds of oddballs. Coraline is having a rough time with the move and the fact that her parents are to busy to be bothered with her. But things get interesting when Coraline finds a secret door in the house, one that leads to a world where her mother and father love her, the neighbors are all fun and wacky (rather than dull and eccentric) and everything just seems more colorful and exciting. There is only one small problem, if Coraline wants to stay, she’ll have to give up her eyes and get them replaced with buttons – just like all the doll-like inhabitants of this world. It quickly becomes apparent that her “other mother” will not take no for an answer, and Coraline must figure out a way to escape the new world and keep it from destroying everything she cares about.

Good Points

• Wonderful visuals, music and sound effects create a very immersive world
• The voice acting is excellent and not filled with distracting distinctive actors
• The story never speaks down the audience

Bad Points

• This movie has some very dark and scary scenes for younger viewers
• A couple of slow moving patches make the pace flag in places
• Some of the humor may be too odd for some viewers

Overall

“Coraline” takes a bunch of familiar story elements ranging from “Alice in Wonderland” to mythic native American stories and adds a modern edge to them. The result is an amazingly imaginative story with visuals to match. Even if you don’t care for the story the overall package is just amazing to watch – a real breath of fresh air. For those looking for a bit of the odd and dark in their animation, you will find plenty to enjoy here. Superb voice acting and a good script turn this into something everyone should check out.

Scores (out of 5)

Animation: 5

Sound: 5

Music: 5

Voice Acting: 4

Script: 4

Direction: 4

Entertainment: 4

Total: 4

Film Review

I really enjoy Neil Gaiman’s imagination. His novels and short stories are full of all kinds of great characters and situations. He loves mythology and fuses it into nearly all his tales, making them familiar and yet new all at the same time. Gaiman’s main issue in his novels is that he had issues creating an interesting and compelling lead character. Usually the supporting cast and situations of his books are much more memorable. He changed this in “Anansi Boys” an excellent book with a great main character as well as an entertaining story and supporting cast. Turns out, he must have done the same in “Coraline”, because the film version of our lead not only carries the story, but adds a level of realism to the fairy tale that makes it all work.

In many ways Coraline is like a modern “Alice in Wonderland” or more accurately, “Through the Looking Glass”. The main difference is that Coraline is more of an active participant in both of her worlds. Alice gets to react to the strangeness around her, but Coraline ends up directly affecting both her worlds by her actions. Because of her actions and her attitude, she comes across as a real girl and as someone we can understand. When we first meet her, Coraline seems to be a bit of a brat, but when she tries to interact with her parents we see why she acts the way she does. You start to feel bad for her, and when she finds the perfect world behind the door – it does seem appealing.

This set up is key for the rest of the film to work. We have to like Coraline and understand her, so when she starts to make decisions we go along with her. Luckily the script is written well enough to provide us with enough time with Coraline and her two worlds that we clearly understand what’s at stake in the last half of the film.

The worlds created here are truly an amazing mixture of imagination, darkness, color and quirk. As lauded as “Nightmare Before Christmas” is, I have to say that “Coraline” visually trumps it. Selick creates two worlds that look alike in many ways, but are so vastly different that we know immediately where we are. Coraline’s real world is drab and what strange elements that do exist aren’t colorful or fun. This is all executed with a wonderful visual sense. When colorful items show up, like the gloves that Coraline wants, they pop off the screen.

When Coraline goes into the other world, the colors are very rich and the result is that Coraline herself looks a bit on the drab side. The garden is definitely the highlight of these establishing moments. The flowers, water and grass are beautifully luminescent. The animation as Coraline gets her bird’s eye view of the garden is also impressive.

The design of the worlds isn’t the only thing that’s impressive, but the stop motion itself is amazing. Scene after scene passed looking like magic. I was amazed with the fluidity of the motion, the way certain characters seemed to fly through the air, and the skill that the cat’s movement was created. Sure some things were a bit exaggerated, but it never took away from the film. A lot of love went into making this film and you can see it on the screen.

To assist in the creation of the world is all the sound effects that need to be added to what is essentially a silent film process. The dull real world sounds of rain hitting the window or the sound of a bike rolling over grass are captured and used perfectly. And as you might expect there are more outlandish sounds used for the Other World and its characters. Highlights include the mouse circus and the climactic battle against the vicious Bedlam.

The music is really something else. It shifts so easily and effortlessly that it creates It’s own unique tapestry of styles and moods, each matched well with what is on screen. While I didn’t detect any distinct theme, there was a nice little children’s choir used to provide some haunting vocals in key places. There is funky jazz pieces and eerie moments that creep along the soundtrack. It’s an interesting mix, one that may not play well away from the film, but it fits it like a glove. The much advertised new song by They Might Be Giants is cute, but extremely short. I hate to be cynical but it feels much like a marketing device at worst and a nice little inclusion of someone’s favorite band at the best.

The voice acting is uniformly good, and has a few stand out performances in it. Dakota Fanning has the toughest job of making Coraline work as a character, and she does a great job. But for me the real surprise is Teri Hatcher who plays Coraline’s mom and her Other Mom. These characters are key to the whole film and act as foils for Coraline. The real world mom seems exasperated and harried most of the time. But she does show us some glimpses of caring for her daughter. The Other Mom is a much more interesting character, one who is sickly sweet on the surface and yet devolves into the real monster of the film. Hatcher makes the transformation very believable and that makes the climax much more exciting.

The supporting cast does a great job as well with Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French doing well as the dotty old actresses. Ian McShane plays the circus performer Mr. B with verve. But Keith David nearly steals the show as the cat.

The script ends up working fine, but gets a bit predictable here and there. Anyone familiar with fairy tales and mythology will know where the story is going and see the ending coming. There are a few familiar twists involved but nothing too exciting. The flip flopping from world to world seems to be a bit overdone at the half way point in the film, but it’s all needed to establish the climax, and looking back it, the structure makes sense. But at the time, that middle portion of the film drags a little bit. It’s not a major pacing slip, but the movie is pretty long, nearly two hours, and you begin to feel it at that point.

I found “Coraline” to be very entertaining, and highly rewatchable. There is so much going on visually, that you almost need to see it twice to take it all in. Not only that, but you can really check out the amazing animation at work in the film. Now the movie is dark in places, and has some scary sequences in it. I can’t imagine that younger viewers are going to not get nightmares from Bedlam and her creepy crawly friends. There is also some odd semi-nudity during one scene. It wasn’t offensive, but just seemed to be out of place. On top of that, there is some really odd humor at work in the film. I found most of it funny, but I could see some people turned off by it, or worse seeing it as being weird for weirdness sake. But I think it all adds up to a very good movie, one I wouldn’t mind revisiting in the near future.

Space Children (1958) - MST3K Review

Summary:

First off there’s a short film called “Century 21 Calling”, which follows a couple of over exuberant teens to the worlds fair in 1962, where they learn all about amazing telephone technology thanks to Bell Labs. The feature film, “Space Children” presents us with the Brewster family heading out to a new home on a military base near the sea. When Bud (Michel Ray) and his brother spot a bizarre light from the ski, the parents think they’re just playing around. But it soon becomes very clear that a visitor from beyond has arrived in a cave near the sea. All the local kids come to it’s call (which grown ups can’t hear, of course) and concoct a plan to sabotage the rocket project that their dads are working on! Will the combined forces of Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) and The Professor from “Giligan’s Island” (Russell Johnson) be enough to stop, “The Space Children”?

Review:

“Century 21 Calling” is an odd little film. The first few minutes are devoid of any dialogue, with the two lead kids running around the ’62 world faire and interacting with others and each other. I think it’s meant to show the excitement of the faire, but it comes across like an early 60’s music video. When the pair reaches the Bell Labs exhibit, we get actual dialogue. Mostly it turns into a movie about how cool Bell Labs is and all the neat phone technology they have. It’s interesting to see pagers, call waiting and “brand new” push button dialing back in the day. Mostly the odd tone of the film, with the teens acting so over-excited about phone technology and the pre-rock and roll soundtrack make the short seem quaint and amusing all at the same time.

“The Space Children” will disappoint anyone hoping to see something like a 50’s version of “Space Camp”. Instead of kids journeying into space, they are visited by an alien that looks like something out of the original Star Trek series (the Horta to be specific, if you know your classic episodes).

All in all, this 1958 movie isn’t a bad little film. It’s a bit on the talky side, but there is nothing truly horrible about it. Mostly it features kids running around the beach, using mental powers to talk with the alien and sneak into highly secure military bases, and of course killing off The Professor from “Gilligan’s Isle”.

It’s the grown ups that make the movie. First there’s Mr. Brewster, played by the wooden Adam Williams. His lack of emotion, especially when confronting AN ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE is pretty funny, but it seems to be the man’s MO. Peggy Webber as Mrs. Brewster comes off a bit abrasive at times. MST3K fans will remember from “The Screaming Skull” where she comes off as just plain whiney.

It’s Jackie Coogan and Russell Johnson who bring the most to the party. Coogan wears tiny little shorts, a rather feminine robe and keeps wanting to swim with “the kids”. To our cynical minds today it just conjures all kinds of remarks, but I’m sure it was innocent back then. Russell Johnson plays a man so different from The Professor that I was agog. He’s drunk. He’s angry. He tries to beat his stepson with a bit of driftwood. His drunken rage is something to behold, and you’re actually pleased to see him get taken out by alien powers.

With that said, the movie suffers from some pacing issues, really taking it’s time to do anything. The last quarter of the film leading up the climax is the best part. The movie is fairly short. There just isn’t enough of a story to fill all 69 minutes of the movie. This would have been a fun “Twilight Zone” or “Outer Limits” episode, but as a feature film, it just doesn’t quite pull it off.

MST3K Review:

And so shorts return to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Short films were a staple of the Comedy Central years and they’ve provided a huge number of laughs over the years. But, for some reason, the Sci-Fi channel didn’t want the crew tackling shorts in Season 8. So, it is in this Season 9 episode that we get the triumphant return.

It’s a good one. There’s lots of stuff that just lends itself to instant riffing, including the “Triumph of the Will” photography of the first portion of the film. I love how the young man wants to go into a peepshow in one scene, and Mike and bots just roll with it, introducing the peepshow into the rest of the short when you least expect it. The telephone technology itself isn’t as fanciful as the stuff in 50’s Motorama film “Design for Dreaming”, but the presentation is very goofy. My favorite moment is the demonstration of using your phone to turn off your oven or activating your sprinklers. The ascent into heaven via the Space Needle is the icing on the cake. It makes the whole short very funny and sets us up for a good time with the feature.

Its kind of a shame that feature just doesn’t give the team enough juice to work with. Again it seems to come down to movie structure. The first quarter works pretty well with the kids running around, meeting all the characters and discovering the space blob. Coogan and Johnson appear quite a bit in this part and they really provide the crew with a lot of jokes (including references to “The Adams Family” and “Giligan’s Island”, naturally).

But the middle portion of the movie really slows down, and there isn’t too much for our boys to work with. I know the pickings are getting slim when they resort to eight bald jokes in five minutes. Talky scenes can be tough and this movie has quite a few. But once the sabotage sequence kicks in, the riffing falls back into place. And how can it not, with the kids wandering around the base putting the old “Jedi Mind Trick” on the guards and Jackie Coogan getting the whammie placed on him by the alien blob. The climax with, as Tom puts it, “The Magnificent Seven… year olds” is filled with riffing. A solid end to a so-so feature.

The host segments mostly fall flat for me on this episode. Tom Servo has a kissing booth and swindles Mike. Pearl decides to install a phone system on the Satellite and ends up in a conference call nightmare. After the short, Mike decides to imitate the over excited kid. The bots hate him for it and take drastic action. Then there’s fun with model rockets and Bobo in a centrifuge. Crow is disturbed by Jackie Coogan’s short shorts and comes up with a vomit inducing fashion line for the man (shudder). After the film ends, the space blob arrives on the satellite and Pearl tries to launch her own rocket, and loses control of it… ooops.

Add it all together and you get an average episode of the show. Not a bad watch on a weekend, but not one I’ll pick up often. I give the whole episode 3 Space Blobs out of five, but for me the short is solid four Space Needles out of five.

The episode is available on DAP. "Century 21 Calling" is available as a bonus feature on "The Killer Shrew's" disc of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol 7.

MST3K Introduction can be found here.

Art of Animation – Miyazaki

Just posted a blog about Hayao Miyazaki, the master of Japanese animation over at my sister site. Feel free to check it out and post your feelings on the subject. Click this link for more.

The Deadly Bees (1967) – MST3K review

Summary:

Poor Vicki Robbins (Suzanna Leigh), she has it tough as a super famous pop singer in the 60’s. All of her engagements pile up and next thing you know she’s swooning during a television performance. Luckily her agent knows good old Farmer Hargrove (Guy Doleman) and his wife Mary (Catherine Finn). Unluckily there are a swarm of deadly bees going around killing people. So now Vicki has to try to relax, avoid deadly bees and try to enjoy tea with the local eccentric Manfred (Frank Finlay). Does Vicki have a chance, or is she going to end up the latest victim.

Review:

It’s back to the British Isles again with this episode of MST3K, and this 1967 feature seems promising. You’ve got the British pop culture fusing with killer bees, how can this not work?

Truth be told, this isn’t a bad movie really, it’s just dull. Frightfully dull. Director Freddie Francis would actually go on to be a award winning cinematographer (check out his wonderful work on “Glory”, “The Elephant Man” and “The Straight Story”), but he doesn’t show a lot of skill directing, because the pacing here is what is really deadly – not the bees.

The movie never really takes off, even in scenes that are supposed to have tension, it never appears. You’d think that attacks by killer bees could be scary, but the combination of the poor effects with the lack of intensity makes the whole thing come across rather limp.

One of the really odd things about the film are the characters – not a likable one in the bunch! Vicki comes across a bit like an airhead, clueless to her danger until it’s too late. Before she actually encounters the bees we don’t get much of a sense of her stardom, other than the fact that she sings a fairly hideous 60’s style ballad (making me think of the cheesy theme from “Man with the Golden Gun”, without the funky 70’s guitar). She’s pretty enough, but that’s about her best attribute.

The tag team of Mr. and Mrs. Hargrove is amazing. Obviously there are marriage problems here, but you wonder how they even got married in the first place. They seem to loathe each other. And both are abrasive and nasty to Vicki, and even if she is a little dim, she didn’t deserve that kind of reception. It’s pretty sad that you start hoping either of them will get swarmed, instead of the poor dog.

And then there’s Mr. Manfred who is played very well by Frank Finlay, a veteran character actor. He nails the eccentric git part perfectly. He stammers and stutters in front of everyone as if contact with real humans is truly frightening. He is constantly dressed in tweed. He makes furtive glances around, as if expecting to get hit. It’s actually the most fun performance in the film. Unfortunately it becomes fairly obvious early on that Manfred isn’t just eccentric – he’s barking mad. So when he finally spills his guts and indulges in one of the longest flashbacks in film history – you aren’t surprised in the least.

That’s the final nail in the coffin. I’m not kidding when I say that Manfred dives into a flashback that basically covers all the events in the film from his point of view. It is endless, and if you have the IQ of a banana slug it may be helpful, but anyone who is remotely sober during the bulk of the film doesn’t need the flashback to explain the movie. Seriously, it isn’t that difficult to figure out what’s going on. But this guy doesn’t shut up, and it’s all capped off with a flashback to something that happened right before Manfred started his flashback. Tom blurts out, “You can’t flashback to something that happened three minutes ago!”

MST3K Review

Mike and bots have another challenge with a dull film in this episode. And like “The Projected Man” a few episodes ago, this movie just isn’t bad enough to generate top notch comments. “Puma Man” and “Werewolf” were filled to bursting with odd characters, bad effects and silly accents, and oddly, the “The Deadly Bees” has all those things – but they just don’t add up to comedy.

Part of the reason is that the film is competent in the most basic ways. The story makes sense, the characters act as we expect, and even though the effects are bad, they aren’t laughable. You get the feeling that “The Deadly Bees” was a movie that was made by a polished film crew. Compared to the last couple movies , it’s a vast difference.

But the dullness in the script and direction are the killers here. Sure Mike and bots have fun with the silly 60’s television show and Vicki’s horrible wardrobe. But in the end they end up relying on riffs on being British and some bad bee puns. It’s just not a very good effort for the movie that needed some serious energy to the riffing

But the host segments are pretty entertaining. My favorite is the first, where Mike and bots take us into “Previously on Mystery Science Theater 3000” and proceed to add every evening drama cliché in the book and then some more into the mix. Watching Mike kiss Gypsy in a fit of passion is hilarious. Back in Castle Forrester, the two Observers from Season 8 arrive to take Brain Guy back to his home planet. This leads to a funny Gilbert and Sullivan inspired song in segment three between Brain Guy, Bobo and Pearl. The storyline ends with Brain Guy locked in a final battle with the Observers, with the fate of Earth in the balance. On the satellite, Crow sings a love song to the crotchety Mrs. Hargrove, and Mike dresses like a bee and attempts to communicate via dance.

Alas, fun host segments are icing on the cake for me, and don’t do much to push up the overall grade. This movie gets only two bees out of five.

This episode is available on DAP.

MST3K Introduction can be found here.

Inner Sanctum (1948)

Introduction:

Decided to give this movie a spin because actress Mary Beth Hughes has appeared in a couple Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes and she’s actually pretty good in both of them (I Accuse My Parents, and Last of the Wild Horses). But since this movie was part of the 100 Mystery Classics DVD pack, I kept my expectations low. The other reason I picked this was because I actually have a few “Inner Sanctum” radio shows from the 40’s. And so like movie goers in the 40’s I went in based on name recognition. But can the movie live up to the name?

Summary:

A woman meets a strange man on a train who seems worried about her for some reason. He tells her a story about a man named Harold (Charles Russell) who kills a woman at a train station and tosses her body on a train as it leaves. Unfortunately a young boy named Mike (Dale Belding) sees him at the station. Before Harold can do anything about this, the boy gets away. Harold finds himself trapped in the small town by torrential rains that flood the roads. He takes a room at a boarding house where he meets the lovely but clever Jean (Mary Beth Hughes). Turns out Mike and his mom live there too. Will Harold be able to get away before Mike reveals the murder, Jean gets wise to him, or will Harold have to take matters into his own hands?

Good Points:

• The framing story actually has a clever pay off.
• Mary Beth Hughes is solid in her part.
• Harold’s character is really dark.

Bad Points:

• Charles Russell doesn’t bring much to the part.
• I found the character of Mike to be annoying.
• The movie never generates thrills or mystery, and meanders on its way to the conclusion

Overall: There is actually an interesting story in here, but I think the name “Inner Sanctum” promised more thrills and even a touch of the supernatural. Instead, this is more of a film noir with characters you never really connect to. Harold isn’t a hero, but a dark and disturbed man – or is he. Even the movie cant’ seem to make up its mind. The pacing is too uneven to really enjoy, even if Mary Beth Hughes gives the role her all.

Score (out of 5)

Visual Aspects – 3

Sound Aspects – 3

Acting – 2

Music – 3

Script – 3

Direction – 2

Entertainment – 2

Final Grade: 2

Film Review

If you go into “Inner Sanctum” expecting more of noir film than a thriller, you might enjoy it a bit more than I did. There are a lot of little elements to enjoy, but there are a few glaring issues that just allow the whole thing to fire on all cylinders. Pretty close but no cigar.

Visually this movie is typical noir fare. Lots of shadows play around our characters, especially Harold. The best use of this happens early in the film, when Harold is attacked and kills the woman attacking him. You never get a good look at his face the entire time, and this is especially creepy when he realizes that Mike has seen him at the station and could identify him later. He comes up behind the kid with his face in shadow his hands reaching for Mike’s neck in stark light. A few other good moments in the woods during the climax are well filmed in noir fashion. Nothing really overwhelming, but well done for the movie.

The sound and music are typical for a 40’s film. The sound of the train station and the torrential rain add to the scenes they are used. The music is a bit over the top, but that was the style at the time. Nothing truly remarkable here.

The acting is a mixed bag. Charles Russell has a bit of a tricky part with Harold. The man is obviously a killer, we see him commit the act. However the incident is framed in such a way as to make it look like an accident. So Harold could be frightened and on the run, OK. But when he figures out that Mike can identify him, he attempts to kill the kid – a number of times. Would a desperate but innocent man do that? Maybe one who is a sociopath. It’s an interesting idea. Maybe Harold was just a murderer waiting to happen? In any case Russell never really shows us anything with depth to it. He’s all surface, one minute a killer who is crazed, another a wrong man in a bad spot, in another a bitter man with nothing to lose. It never gels and creates someone compelling enough to watch. It’s a shame because this role is the key to the story, with Russell not working the movie just never recovers.

Not that Mary Beth Hughes doesn’t try. Playing against the type I’ve seen her play (the nice girl in a bad spot, or the spunky cow girl), she’s the world-weary girl with a past. Hughes is pretty enough and uses her eyes to show us that she’s not a dumb blonde. Jean is the first character to figure out what Harold did, and Hughes allows us to see her put the pieces together and figure out how to use it her advantage. She seems to genuinely like Harold (in spite of Russell’s performance), but she also wants to get out of the little town. As I said Hughes does try, but it never quite works for me. Maybe because I’m so used to seeing her as the nice girl in “I Accuse My Parents” that to see her a bit more shady here doesn’t work. In the end I’ll say that her performance is fine, and the fault is more on my side of the coin.

The last performance I’ll mention in particular is Dale Belding as Mike. The character is written in a way that is almost convincing. The lines sound like they’d be perfect for a kid of 9 or 10. But Belding looks to be 13 or 14 and the lines just don’t ring true coming from him. It’s not just the lines, but the whole performance looks like it was supposed to be younger than Belding looks. Maybe Belding just looked older than he was, but the whole time I was annoyed that a kid that old was acting so young. This kept pulling me right out of the movie and since it’s a key role to the story, it also ends up affecting the rest of the film.

The supporting cast does a solid job playing an array of wacky character types. You get drunk old men, a eccentric old newspaper reporter, the protective mom and the wise old woman who runs the boarding house. Most of the roles are to inject a little humor into the darker movie. Some of it works OK, but my tolerance for 40’s style drunken old coot humor is pretty low. Those “comedic” moments fell flat for me.

There is also the two characters of the framing story (the woman on the train and mysterious storyteller). Both do their parts well and sell the twist ending. I thought that the storyteller did a good job of appearing to be slightly off, saying things in a way that just put you on your guard.

Speaking of the framing story in a way the construction of the movie reminds me of one of those hour long episodes of “The Twilight Zone”. It has an interesting premise but it feels padded just a bit too long. As I mentioned the script seems to have a bit of potential. The framing story and the twist are interesting enough. The main story works well if you can settle on how you feel about Harold. And that is the most difficult thing to determine. Was he supposed to be our hero? Was he supposed to be an anti-hero? It’s never defined clearly in the film. Maybe it was in the script, but I have a feeling that the reason the movie feels so odd in places is because it wasn’t defined clearly. Neither Russell or the director Lew Landers seems to have a clear idea.

In the end Landers was the one who had to edit the film, guide the performances and approve of the whole thing. I bet the movie was shot quickly and on a low budget. Fair enough. But at the same time a little bit of guidance for Russell and his approach to the part would have made this a classic B film instead of a forgotten one. But Landers does a good job creating his noir look and keeping the story together. As I mentioned a bit of trimming of the fat and a sharper idea of what kind of movie was being made would have help the pacing issues. The movie starts and stops a lot – mostly with the comic relief scenes stopping the plot. In addition, there is never a real threat, because we never know if we are supposed to be afraid of Harold or hoping he does get away.

Let’s just say I was happy the movie was a short one. I enjoyed certain aspects of it, and it was neat to see Mary Beth Hughes in a different role, but as a whole the movie was pretty dull. I could see what it wanted to be and how it was attempting it, but it just never came together. This is a movie that could be remade into a solid thriller, maybe made for TV, but still a solid one at that.

Check out James Lileks take on the film here.

100 Mystery Classics

Being a fan of movies means that I enjoy watching pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I love good movies, bad movies, new movies and old movies and any combination in between.

My wife knows this and enjoys watching old movies with me so she picked up the 100 Movie Pack of Mystery Classics from Mill Creek. This collection includes all kinds of forgotten flicks from 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Now most of these films are probably forgotten for a reason, but you never know what kind of nuggets you may find in here.

So I’m going to attempt to review these movies as I watch them. Hopefully it will reveal something interesting to you, and maybe you’ll be curious enough to seek them out for yourself.

Oh and if this pack sounds familiar, it’s because the very funny and talented James Lileks has attempted the same thing here. I don’t think I’ll be as humerous James, but I’ll take the films a little more seriously. Or at least I’ll try.

Enjoy!

Review List

• The Death Kiss - 1932
• He Walked by Night - 1948
• Inner Sanctum - 1948
• The Man on the Eiffel Tower - 1949
• Murder At Midnight - 1931
• Murder with Pictures - 1936
• Mystery Liner - 1934
• Please Murder Me - 1956
• Strange Illusion - 1945
• Study in Scarlet - 1933