Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

  Children Of The Sea (2019) All things are connected, all animals human and non human are all connected, the ocean and the stars, all living things are born of star-stuff.   Or as Carl Sagan once said "The cosmos is within us.  We are made of star-stuff".   That is the message in the 2019 Japanese animated film Children Of The Sea, the message that we are all connected, and we need to listen to the ocean, and take a moment and be more conscious of the world around us.  I think that this film quite literally illustrates the "We are made of star-stuff." that Carl Sagan famously said.  This is a film that gets its message out more through beautiful art, than it does through dialogue.   Children Of The Sea isn't a film that bluntly tells you its story, it has a vaguity to it, encouraging you to think about the meaning of the images, what did it mean to you, rather than just having it spelled out for you.  So therefore this is a thinking film, one that you must acti

 J-Horror Anthology Underworld (2004) I like horror anthology films, they are to me like the joy of reading a collection of short stories, and if done right they are short bursts of terror that uses every available second without long segments of filler.   The short story has deep roots in the horror genre, with Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft making the short story their bread and butter, and even for modern authors like Stephen King, some of his best stories are the short stories, and films are no exception from that.  Look at films like Tales Of Terror, Tales From The Darkside, Creepshow, and Cats Eye, all great short story anthology films, and rank among some of my favourite films.   Some like Cat's Eye or even Heavy Metal have short stories that are somehow linked, while others are completely unrelated to each other.   In J-Horror Anthology Underworld, we see Kadokawa the creator of Ring, Darkwater, and Ju-on The Grudge creating six horror shorts, each having its own moral

Cinematic Catastrophes (2001-2010)   So many of you might know him as his character The Angry Video Game Nerd, his name is James Rolfe, and long before he put on the white shirt and played the character of the Angry Video Game Nerd, he was a filmmaker.  Rolfe first got interested in making films as a child, and when he was able to start using the family camcorder, his career as a filmmaker started its long wild road.   Many of his early films were just him and his friends, and even just himself, he developed interesting filming, editing, and production techniques, and in time attended filmmaking classes, and finally got a BA in filmmaking.   Cinematic Catastrophes collects 6 films that James Rolfe had made between 2001-2010, some of the films were no budget home movies made with just him and his friends, and some of the other films that he made in college and after, showcased some rather adept filmmaking skills.  I would love to see what he could do if given a major studio and financia

  Madhouse (1974) In my past reviews I talked about some of the Corman-Poe Cycle films that starred Vincent Price, this review is taking a look at Madhouse from 1974, which isn't directed by Roger Corman or based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, but this film uses footage of the films I talked about previously as part of the film.  Madhouse is an interesting film about an aging horror actor played by Vincent Price who is offered an opportunity to play his famous character Dr. Death again in a television show.  But when he returns to filming, people mysteriously start dying in deaths modeled after the deaths from his old films.   Is he committing these murders and not aware of it, or is there something even more sinister happening?  Vincent Price is joined with Hammer Horror Films icon Peter Cushing in this delightfully evil whodunnit-horror film.  Mad house was directed by Jim Clark, with a screenplay written by Ken Levison and Greg Morrison.  The film is based on Angus Hall's 1969

  The Masque Of The Red Death (1964) In 1964 director and producer Roger Corman would again team up with Vincent Price for another entry in the Corman-Poe Cycle with the film The Masque Of The Red Death, based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name.   Unlike the previous Corman-Poe films that I have reviewed, this one does not have a script by author Richard Matheson.  This was Roger Corman's favourite of the eight films that he made with American International based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and he originally intended it to be the follow up to The Fall Of The House Of Usher, but it kept getting pushed back, this would also be the second to last film in the Corman-Poe Cycle.   The Masque Of The Red Death sees Vincent Price in his most diabolically evil roles, as the evil Prince Prospero.  The Story follows the events after Prince Prospero steals a peasant girl, Francesca from her village and takes her to his palace.  Her boy friend and father are sentenced to pu

  The Raven (1963) Roger Corman with writer Richard Matheson return again in 1963 with another film in the Corman-Poe Cycle, this time with The Raven.   The Raven is a light hearted horror comedy with an all-star cast featuring Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and a young Jack Nicholson.   The film is inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name, and tells the story of  Dr. Craven who can't get over the death of his wife, encounters a speaking raven who is the magician Dr. Bedlo, who was turned into a raven by Dr. Craven's father's enemy Dr. Scarabus.  Dr. Craven then finds out that his wife, Lenore, or her spirit anway is with Dr. Scarabus so he and Dr. Bedlo along with Dr. Craven's daughter Estelle, and Dr. Bedlo's son Rexford set off to confront Dr Scarabus.   This film never tries to take itself too seriously, and the fun and comedy run riot throughout.  But can Dr. Craven find out the truth about what happened to his love, Lenore? The Raven w

  Tales Of Terror (1962) In the early 1960s, Roger Corman made a series of films based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe for American International Pictures, they have been referred to as the Corman-Poe Cycle.   Many of these films were really well done films that starred Vincent Price.  One of these films, Tales Of Terror, released in 1962, might be one of the most true to Poe's style I've seen in film.  Rather than taking a short story and having to add to it, to create enough content for a full length film, Tales Of Terror instead works as a horror anthology, showcasing three shorts, rather than one full length film, which allows it to more truly capture the nature of Poe's short stories, keeping them short, and concise.   Tales Of Terror features Morella, The Black Cat (which mixes The Black Cat and the Cask Of Amontillado into one story), and The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar.  All three stories following Poe's stories without adding too much of their own, with the