Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

  Yellow Submarine In the 1960s the Beatles Mania was at its height, and there was a demand for Beatles films.  The Beatles made five films with A Hard Day's Night (1964), Help! (1965), Magical Mystery Tour (1967), Yellow Submarine (1968), and Let It Be (1970).  The first four films were under contract with United Artists, that required that they do four films for them, and the last film documented the making of the Let It Be album as well as the tension that led to the breakup of the band.   Yellow Submarine released in 1968 was the Beatles first animated feature film, though there was also a Beatles cartoon for a time as well.  The film doesn't actually feature the Beatles voicing their characters, however they do appear in a brief live action scene at the end that was enough to fulfill their contractual obligations to UA.   The film was directed by George Dunning; with a screenplay written by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn, Erich Segal, and Roger McGough (who went un

  Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein In 1948 the original big three classic Universal Monsters got their swan song with (in my opinion) the best of all of the monster rally films, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.   This film would see famed comedic duo Abbott and Costello (famed for skits such as Who's On First?) meeting up with the Wolfman, Dracula, and Frankenstein's Monster, and one other classic monster plays a cameo at one point of the film.   Abbott and Costello are baggage handlers, who deliver two large crates to McDougal's House of Horrors (a horror themed wax museum), but the bodies of Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster are missing, and Abbott and Costello are on the hook for their disappearance.   Then a mysterious Larry Talbot arrives in search of the missing bodies, and a delicious mix of horror and comedy ensues.   Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was directed by Charles Barton, with a screenplay by John Grant (who often writes for Abbott and

House Of Dracula In 1945 Universal Pictures brought us another classic Monster Rally film, again promising all new thrills and chills with Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolf Man, Dracula, the Mad Doctor, and The Hunchback in House of Dracula.  This would be the last of the serious Universal Monster rally films, though the monsters would come together again for one final film in 1948 when they meet the comedic duo Abbott and Costello.   This would also be the last film that Lon Chaney Jr would do under contract with Universal as they ended his contract soon after this film, he would appear again in Universal Pictures, but no longer as a contracted actor.   This would also be the last time that Lionel Atwill would appear in a Universal Monster film, as he would die only five months after the release of The House Of Dracula as a result to his battle with cancer.  This would also be Glen Strange's second appearance as Frankenstein's Monster, as well as John Carradine's second

  House Of Frankenstein In 1944 Universal Pictures brings us another monster mash, in their second of the "Monster Rally" films that would conclude in 1948 with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.  In this film we see Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolf Man, Dracula, the Hunchback, and the Mad Scientist all together in one film.  The film plays on classic horror tropes that made the Universal films classics, however, it does lack originality, and serves purely as a vehicle for putting the monsters together and capitalize on the popularity of the Universal Monster franchise.     House of Frankenstein was directed by Erle C. Kenton with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak.   It was of course distributed by Universal Pictures.   Original drafts would have saw more of the famous monsters being included, such as the Mummy, The Ape Woman, and even the Invisible Man, though I am sure that would have caused some major issues logistically and to make a script to include all of those woul

  Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman In 1943, Universal Pictures released a film that was both a sequel to The Son of Frankenstein and The Wolfman, called Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman.  The idea of the film supposedly came about at the  commissary  at Universal Studios when it is said that screenwriter Curt Siodmak joked to producer George Waggner  that he had a great title for a new film in the Monsters series, "Frankenstein Wolfs The Meat Man", he supposedly said he needed a down payment for a new car.  Thus was born Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman.  The film would be written by Siodmak and directed by Roy William Neill. The film stars Lon Chaney Jr reprising his role as Larry Talbot/The Wolfman, Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's Monster (a role that he turned down originally in 1931, which was given instead to Boris Karloff, and launched Karloff as a horror film star, and from then on Lugosi was rarely given leading roles again), Ilona Massey as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, Pa

The Wolfman "Even a man who is pure of heart, And says his prayers at night; Will turn into a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, And the autumn moon is bright" In 1931 Universal Pictures began bringing the classic monsters to life on the big screen with their new "talkie" pictures, and the world would change forever.  In 1931 they brought us Dracula, and then later Frankenstein, and ten years later in 1941 they brought us another important Universal monster with Lon Chaney Jr as The Wolfman.   The Wolfman was not Universal's first werewolf film, as they did release Werewolf of London in 1935, it was The Wolfman that really became the werewolf that would shape all future werewolf films.   Many people think that the legends and rules about werewolves in The Wolfman came from ancient mythology, but in fact many of the facts that we know werewolves actually came from The Wolfman.  For example the turning into a werewolf from being bit by a werewolf, a werewolf can only

  Crab 3 Ways I wanted to make a nice dinner for my roommate tonight, whose favourite seafood is crab.  At work I've been thinking a lot about a nice crab feast that I could make for my roommate to thank them for being so awesome, and I decided to not settle for one preparation, but instead to make three different crab preperations that would each compliment each other, but would also stand as their own independent dish.   My roommate is allergic to dairy, so I used no dairy at all in the preparation of this dish, because opposed to popular belief, seafood does not need to be drenched in butter to be good, there are many other ways to make a sauce that compliments seafood much better than butter does.   I decided to do Snow Crab Legs, Jonah Crab Claws, and and a Linguini with an Alaskan King Crab with brussels sprouts, zucchini, and broccoli rabe sauce.   One note, thought, I have tried Jonah crab claws multiple different ways, and I still really am not a fan of it.  I find it to b

The VVitch: A New England Folktale The VVitch: A New England Folktale is a 2015 period horror film, set in Puritan New England in the 1630's.  The film is about a family whose patriarch's strong religious convictions go against the church of the Plymouth Plantation, and they are told to leave the Plantation and find their own way.  So the father leads his family to a remote location in New England where they establish their farm in a meadow that borders a dark forest, which the children are told to never enter.   When their youngest child goes missing, and their crops fail (plagued with a bad rot), and other mysterious things start to happen, they start fearing that the family is cursed and that the devil or a witch is causing their the family's collapse, and soon fingers start to point towards the eldest daughter Thomasin.   The VVitch was written and directed by a New England native Robert Eggers, who grew up in southern New Hampshire. The film was distributed by A24 Pict

  Winchester Released in 2018, Winchester is a horror film inspired by the "true events" at the Winchester Mansion, which has been hailed as the most haunted house in history.   The film is also known as Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built, and is about Sarah Winchester and her house that she continuously built and added to throughout her life, and supposedly ghosts were telling her to build.   I wonder if this might have been Stephen King's inspiration for his miniseries event Rose Red about a house that ghosts built.  In this film a doctor named Eric Price is hired by the Winchester Repeating Firearms Company to assess Sarah Winchester's mental state to see if she is still in sound mind to be half owner of the company.   Winchester is directed by the Spierig Brothers, and has a screenplay written by the Spierig Brothers and Tom Vaughan.   The film was distributed by Lionsgate and CBS Films and was a box office success grossing $46 million against its $3.5 millio

  Willy Wonka Double Feature In 1964 author Roald Dahl wrote his novel Charlie and the Chocolate factory, which became a popular novel among children everywhere (sadly this was a book that I never got around to reading myself).   Several years later the book found its way into the hands of film director Mel Stuart's daughter's hands, and she gave the book to her dad and said that he needed to make a movie of the novel, and that would lead to the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which would go on to be a film that is still loved by viewers of all ages even today, and even lead to a remake in 2005 by acclaimed film director Tim Burton, and would star Johnny Depp. The story of 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is interesting, the film was co-produced by Quaker Oats, the popular breakfast cereal company.   Quaker Oats had a candy company in Chicago, called Breaker Confections (later renamed to the Willy Wonka Candy Company), and they were looking f