Chloe Sevigny shines as the infamous Lizzie Borden in a film that reminded me of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford."
Lizzie (Chloe Sevigny), her sister Emma (Kim Dickens), and their father Andrew (Jamie Sheridan) and stepmother Abby (Fiona Shaw) live in a small house in Fall River, Massachusetts. They hire on Irish housemaid Bridget (Kristen Stewart), who the parents insist on calling Maggie. The household is in a constant state of tension, as Andrew tries to keep order but Lizzie often acts out like a repressed teenager. She and Bridget grow closer, despite Andrew's nighttime visits to Bridget's small room, and soon the new couple are pushed too far by the overbearing parental figures.
Knowing the basics of the Lizzie Borden case, the film contains many historical inaccuracies and the Savannah, Georgia location filming is all wrong. The strength of the film lies in its performances and direction. While Stewart's accent comes and goes as many times as Bridget meekly enters a room, Sevigny anchors the film with her strong performance. Her Lizzie puts up a strong facade that is easily shattered when confronted. The house is a prison of sorts to Lizzie and Emma, who are both trapped in societal expectations, expectations that may have contributed to Lizzie's not guilty verdict when she was tried on the charges of double murder. I've loved Shaw since "Mountains of the Moon," and she does a lot with her character. Although second billed, Stewart doesn't try to hog the film from Sevigny, and the two have a very halting chemistry just like their characters do. Sheridan is good as Andrew, if not a little to modern looking- I would have liked to see a full beard just like the original Andrew Borden had. Denis O'Hare is menacing as the women's ne'er-do-well uncle.
One piece of sound design/set decoration is the constantly creaking floors of the Borden house. No one can "sneak" around anywhere without being heard or overheard, and there are many quiet scenes where all you can listen to is creaking. Director Macneill also frames his film differently. There are many obscured shots, as panes of glass are opaque and distort what is being seen. I would have liked to see more background on Bridget, and a few scenes ring false, but I enjoyed the underwhelming sense of dread (I mean that in a good way) that develops without the use of jump scares or obvious foreshadowing. The violence in the film is brutal, the murders have become the thing of jokes today. Other reviews I read highlighted the nudity and sexual relationship between Lizzie and Bridget, forgetting that two people being bludgeoned to death with a hatchet isn't exactly fun. Kudos to Jeff Russo's careful score and the natural but unpretty cinematography.
Lizzie Borden's maybe-murders will probably never be solved. Over a century has passed, and there isn't any cold case DNA testing to do. Instead, we get quite a few dramatizations and murder mystery parties at the site of the original murders, which is now a bed and breakfast. "Lizzie" is one of the better, serious efforts to tell the stories of the murders, once Kristen Stewart fans get past her presence onscreen; the film isn't called "Bridget," after all.
Stats:
-(2018) 105 min. (8/10)
-Directed by Craig William Macneill
-Written by Bryce Kass
-Cast: Chloe Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Jamie Sheridan, Fiona Shaw, Kim Dickens, Denis O'Hare, Jeff Perry, Tara Ochs, Daniel Wachs, Jody Matzer, Don Henderson Baker, Jay Huguley, Roscoe Sandlin
-(US: R)-(UK: 15)-(Aus: MA15+)- Physical violence, some sexual violence, strong gore, some profanity, nudity, some sexual content, mild sexual references, strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Saturday, February 21, 2026
This Is the Tom Green Documentary (2025)
This is a surprisingly straightforward documentary on the subversive comedian Tom Green, who seemed to be everywhere in the 1990s and early 2000s before receiving a cancer diagnosis that derailed his career.
Green was from Canada, born in 1971. He was into skateboard culture, formed a locally successful rap group, and then started getting involved in making comedy videos that would emulate the man-on-the-street comedy that David Letterman was doing on his show at the time. The videos and material took off, Green was brought to the States and replicated his cult cable access show on MTV, and he and his friends started to rise in the entertainment industry.
Green directs the film and interviews his parents, who were the targets of many famous bits on his show. They seemed genuinely upset and put out by their son's shenanigans, unlike what passes as "reality" entertainment today. They were not privy to what their son was doing for TV (repainting the house plaid, waking them at 3am to listen to Bon Jovi), but they don't seem very angry about it today. Green goes through his career with friends and co-on air personalities Phil Giroux and Glenn Humplik (Humplik is the greatest name in the history of talk show sidekicks), his assorted films, his marriage to star Drew Barrymore, and his eventual testicular cancer scare that still shakes him and his family. I remember his cancer special, and talking about this taboo subject to millions of fans his age, like myself. He gives behind-the-scenes looks at how much pain he was going through in those times, the surgeries, the show cancellation, and we realized that we weren't immortal or enduring in this age. He tried to kickstart his career here and there, realizing the potential that the internet held, and now he's on the comeback trail with this documentary, a reality series, a stand-up special, and more.
Watching the old clips from his television show, I was having major nostalgia for the turn of the century when anything possible was in my future. Green is three years younger than me, firmly planted in our Generation X, and I felt a connection to him. He is more thoughtful and humble now, he doesn't try any zany stunts on his older parents in the documentary (thank god) because he's not that same guy. The film is well cut between crazed video bits from the good old days, and nice interviews with his subjects today. It's fun to see clips from the show and wonder where these people are now after having a huge impact on popular culture back in the day- Craig Kilborn, Flavor Flav, Janeane Garofalo, Monica Lewinsky, Dennis Miller, etc.
As I fast approach my late fifties, and friends and family start leaving us at an alarming rate (in the past year, I've discovered college classmates and coworkers have passed away and I had no idea until well after the fact), it's comforting to see I'm not the only one who is taking a step back and reflecting on the future. Green keeps his eye on his eventful past, but is doing the work instead of becoming frozen-in-place creatively, rising above internet-age rage and tumult. This is a very good film.
Stats:
(2025) 97 min. (8/10)
-Directed by Tom Green
-With Tom Green, Mary Jane Green, Richard Green, Glenn Humplik, Phil Giroux, Chris Mullington, Merilyn Read, Jackie Stearn, David Letterman, Drew Barrymore, Eric Andre, Joe Rogan, Monica Lewinsky
-(Amazon Prime Video: 16+)-(UK: 15)-(Aus: MA15+)- Some physical violence, gore, profanity, strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Green was from Canada, born in 1971. He was into skateboard culture, formed a locally successful rap group, and then started getting involved in making comedy videos that would emulate the man-on-the-street comedy that David Letterman was doing on his show at the time. The videos and material took off, Green was brought to the States and replicated his cult cable access show on MTV, and he and his friends started to rise in the entertainment industry.
Green directs the film and interviews his parents, who were the targets of many famous bits on his show. They seemed genuinely upset and put out by their son's shenanigans, unlike what passes as "reality" entertainment today. They were not privy to what their son was doing for TV (repainting the house plaid, waking them at 3am to listen to Bon Jovi), but they don't seem very angry about it today. Green goes through his career with friends and co-on air personalities Phil Giroux and Glenn Humplik (Humplik is the greatest name in the history of talk show sidekicks), his assorted films, his marriage to star Drew Barrymore, and his eventual testicular cancer scare that still shakes him and his family. I remember his cancer special, and talking about this taboo subject to millions of fans his age, like myself. He gives behind-the-scenes looks at how much pain he was going through in those times, the surgeries, the show cancellation, and we realized that we weren't immortal or enduring in this age. He tried to kickstart his career here and there, realizing the potential that the internet held, and now he's on the comeback trail with this documentary, a reality series, a stand-up special, and more.
Watching the old clips from his television show, I was having major nostalgia for the turn of the century when anything possible was in my future. Green is three years younger than me, firmly planted in our Generation X, and I felt a connection to him. He is more thoughtful and humble now, he doesn't try any zany stunts on his older parents in the documentary (thank god) because he's not that same guy. The film is well cut between crazed video bits from the good old days, and nice interviews with his subjects today. It's fun to see clips from the show and wonder where these people are now after having a huge impact on popular culture back in the day- Craig Kilborn, Flavor Flav, Janeane Garofalo, Monica Lewinsky, Dennis Miller, etc.
As I fast approach my late fifties, and friends and family start leaving us at an alarming rate (in the past year, I've discovered college classmates and coworkers have passed away and I had no idea until well after the fact), it's comforting to see I'm not the only one who is taking a step back and reflecting on the future. Green keeps his eye on his eventful past, but is doing the work instead of becoming frozen-in-place creatively, rising above internet-age rage and tumult. This is a very good film.
Stats:
(2025) 97 min. (8/10)
-Directed by Tom Green
-With Tom Green, Mary Jane Green, Richard Green, Glenn Humplik, Phil Giroux, Chris Mullington, Merilyn Read, Jackie Stearn, David Letterman, Drew Barrymore, Eric Andre, Joe Rogan, Monica Lewinsky
-(Amazon Prime Video: 16+)-(UK: 15)-(Aus: MA15+)- Some physical violence, gore, profanity, strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Attack of the Doc! (2023)
This documentary covers the cult show "Attack of the Show!" on the old G4 cable television channel. After watching the film, and doing a little reading online, the internet troll vitriol was sometimes more entertaining than the film.
I never saw "Attack of the Show!" or anything else on the G4 network. My first marriage had ended four days before the 9/11 attacks, and I was too busy sulking in a basement apartment or renting a spare bedroom from my best friend to sit down and watch cable television much, when I could afford basic cable at all. I was not a gamer anyway, getting that out of my system back in high school thanks to popping quarters into arcade machines or suffering through the Intellivision system at home. I didn't know AOTS was a thing, and I'm not even sure if G4 was on my cable system. One thing I was familiar with, however, was Chris Gore. I used to frequent a rundown little gas station in my then-hometown because they carried Film Threat magazine for some ungodly reason that I never figured out. I read and re-read every issue I could get my hands on, along with the Film Threat Video Guide, before loaning my collection to a friend and never seeing them again. I was going to be a film maker back then, carrying around well-worn issues of FT, Entertainment Weekly, Movieline, Premiere, and reading Variety and Film Comment at my alma mater university library. I wrote and directed one music video of a friend's song, graduated from college with a degree in Broadcasting (no, everyone in my life, it's not "the same thing" as film making), and never pursued my "chosen career." Writing about film, on the other hand...
When I was in elementary school in the late 1970's and early 1980's (I'm the epitome of Generation X), I used to flip through Leonard Maltin's TV and Movie Guide. I started writing capsule reviews on 3x5 inch index cards, and put them in a little recipe file box. It was stuffed full by the time I got to high school, but it eventually disappeared during one of the many moves in my life as an Air Force Brat. Once I discovered the internet, all bets were off. I wrote reviews for Epinions, and then eFilmCritic/HollywoodBitchslap- those sites are long gone now. I had 10,000 TV and film rankings on IMDb, which consistently crashed my local library's computer. I'm now on Letterboxd, where I have over 6,600 films ranked, and I have almost a thousand old reviews here and there- an archive blog, IMDb, TMDB, Amazon, and Rotten Tomatoes. All told, I've made approximately $1.75 from my decades of online film criticism.
I've been watching and reading Chris Gore since he had dark hair, and I had any hair. I don't have time to do entire podcasts, I'm a stay-at-home Dad and recovering victim of three decades in the Corporatethink/Big Box Retail field, but I enjoy Film Threat's clips on YouTube and Rumble, and reading the written reviews on their website. Gore pops up on Film Courage's YouTube channel as well, and his long interviews have me nodding in agreement consistently. I found a kindred spirit in Chris Gore and his Film Threat sidekicks (Alan Ng), as well as Heath Holland at Cereal at Midnight, The Critical Drinker, and Jeremy Jahns- they're among my must-watches. I don't necessarily agree with them all of the time, but I like hearing their views on film, television, and physical media collecting- I own almost a thousand shiny discs and about as many books.
But what about the film?! Sorry, I'm talking about the film maker more than the film- something most of the reviews I read online are guilty of, too. "Attack of the Doc!" is a fun, nostalgic trip down memory lane for a show I had no memory of. Gore couldn't get interviews with the most famous hosts (Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn), and I don't know why. He covers it well, though, with plenty of old footage from the show as well as voiceover interviews with people involved in the production. Gore himself appeared on over eighty episodes, according to IMDb, and he appears onscreen in recently shot footage. I was never bored, the show seemed like something I could have watched in between episodes of "The State," "Mystery Science Theater 3000," "The Whitest Kids U'Know," "The Kids in the Hall," and all the other subversive comedy I absorbed, if I had known the show existed.
The trolls lambast Gore for an anti-woke section of the film. From my reading, I expected an hour-long diatribe, and was laughing out loud at the very few sentences I heard. They really couldn't do a lot of the material found on AOTS today, and it was funny to read about how "alt-right" Gore is: "A biased Gore inserts himself into the documentary on a show he was barely on and made it all about himself!" I'm hard pressed to think of a documentary that is unbiased, and when it comes to a film maker putting himself into a documentary, the names Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield, as well as almost every "reality show," are forgotten. I wouldn't call eighty episodes "barely on" the show. Gore is criticized more for his honest takes about current pop culture, which is something I appreciate in the left-leaning world of Hollywood and film criticism. Sometimes I just want to read a writer's thoughts on a film without detrimental comparisons to the latest Trump rally, which has nothing to do with the film being reviewed in the first place. This is why I also frequently read John Nolte, Armond White, Bret Easton Ellis, and Christian Toto, and old material from Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, and Gene Siskel. I don't agree with any of them all the time, but I'm not insulted for being a Middle America Conservative either.
So yes, if you were a G4 fan back in the day, you'll like this film. If you are like me and had no idea what the show or network were about, I think you'll still like this film. Chris Gore is still "doing the work" as Gary Vaynerchuk preaches, and I appreciate that.
Stats:
(2023) 87 min. (7/10)
-Written and Directed by Chris Gore
-With Chris Gore, Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, Candace Bailey, Sara Jean Underwood, Morgan Webb, Eric Andre, James Cameron, John Cena, Jimmy Fallon, Alison Haislip, Tom Green, Chris Hardwick, Tony Hawk, Stan Lee
-(Amazon Prime Video: 16+)- Physical violence, some gun violence, some gore, profanity, sexual references, adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
I never saw "Attack of the Show!" or anything else on the G4 network. My first marriage had ended four days before the 9/11 attacks, and I was too busy sulking in a basement apartment or renting a spare bedroom from my best friend to sit down and watch cable television much, when I could afford basic cable at all. I was not a gamer anyway, getting that out of my system back in high school thanks to popping quarters into arcade machines or suffering through the Intellivision system at home. I didn't know AOTS was a thing, and I'm not even sure if G4 was on my cable system. One thing I was familiar with, however, was Chris Gore. I used to frequent a rundown little gas station in my then-hometown because they carried Film Threat magazine for some ungodly reason that I never figured out. I read and re-read every issue I could get my hands on, along with the Film Threat Video Guide, before loaning my collection to a friend and never seeing them again. I was going to be a film maker back then, carrying around well-worn issues of FT, Entertainment Weekly, Movieline, Premiere, and reading Variety and Film Comment at my alma mater university library. I wrote and directed one music video of a friend's song, graduated from college with a degree in Broadcasting (no, everyone in my life, it's not "the same thing" as film making), and never pursued my "chosen career." Writing about film, on the other hand...
When I was in elementary school in the late 1970's and early 1980's (I'm the epitome of Generation X), I used to flip through Leonard Maltin's TV and Movie Guide. I started writing capsule reviews on 3x5 inch index cards, and put them in a little recipe file box. It was stuffed full by the time I got to high school, but it eventually disappeared during one of the many moves in my life as an Air Force Brat. Once I discovered the internet, all bets were off. I wrote reviews for Epinions, and then eFilmCritic/HollywoodBitchslap- those sites are long gone now. I had 10,000 TV and film rankings on IMDb, which consistently crashed my local library's computer. I'm now on Letterboxd, where I have over 6,600 films ranked, and I have almost a thousand old reviews here and there- an archive blog, IMDb, TMDB, Amazon, and Rotten Tomatoes. All told, I've made approximately $1.75 from my decades of online film criticism.
I've been watching and reading Chris Gore since he had dark hair, and I had any hair. I don't have time to do entire podcasts, I'm a stay-at-home Dad and recovering victim of three decades in the Corporatethink/Big Box Retail field, but I enjoy Film Threat's clips on YouTube and Rumble, and reading the written reviews on their website. Gore pops up on Film Courage's YouTube channel as well, and his long interviews have me nodding in agreement consistently. I found a kindred spirit in Chris Gore and his Film Threat sidekicks (Alan Ng), as well as Heath Holland at Cereal at Midnight, The Critical Drinker, and Jeremy Jahns- they're among my must-watches. I don't necessarily agree with them all of the time, but I like hearing their views on film, television, and physical media collecting- I own almost a thousand shiny discs and about as many books.
But what about the film?! Sorry, I'm talking about the film maker more than the film- something most of the reviews I read online are guilty of, too. "Attack of the Doc!" is a fun, nostalgic trip down memory lane for a show I had no memory of. Gore couldn't get interviews with the most famous hosts (Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn), and I don't know why. He covers it well, though, with plenty of old footage from the show as well as voiceover interviews with people involved in the production. Gore himself appeared on over eighty episodes, according to IMDb, and he appears onscreen in recently shot footage. I was never bored, the show seemed like something I could have watched in between episodes of "The State," "Mystery Science Theater 3000," "The Whitest Kids U'Know," "The Kids in the Hall," and all the other subversive comedy I absorbed, if I had known the show existed.
The trolls lambast Gore for an anti-woke section of the film. From my reading, I expected an hour-long diatribe, and was laughing out loud at the very few sentences I heard. They really couldn't do a lot of the material found on AOTS today, and it was funny to read about how "alt-right" Gore is: "A biased Gore inserts himself into the documentary on a show he was barely on and made it all about himself!" I'm hard pressed to think of a documentary that is unbiased, and when it comes to a film maker putting himself into a documentary, the names Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield, as well as almost every "reality show," are forgotten. I wouldn't call eighty episodes "barely on" the show. Gore is criticized more for his honest takes about current pop culture, which is something I appreciate in the left-leaning world of Hollywood and film criticism. Sometimes I just want to read a writer's thoughts on a film without detrimental comparisons to the latest Trump rally, which has nothing to do with the film being reviewed in the first place. This is why I also frequently read John Nolte, Armond White, Bret Easton Ellis, and Christian Toto, and old material from Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, and Gene Siskel. I don't agree with any of them all the time, but I'm not insulted for being a Middle America Conservative either.
So yes, if you were a G4 fan back in the day, you'll like this film. If you are like me and had no idea what the show or network were about, I think you'll still like this film. Chris Gore is still "doing the work" as Gary Vaynerchuk preaches, and I appreciate that.
Stats:
(2023) 87 min. (7/10)
-Written and Directed by Chris Gore
-With Chris Gore, Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, Candace Bailey, Sara Jean Underwood, Morgan Webb, Eric Andre, James Cameron, John Cena, Jimmy Fallon, Alison Haislip, Tom Green, Chris Hardwick, Tony Hawk, Stan Lee
-(Amazon Prime Video: 16+)- Physical violence, some gun violence, some gore, profanity, sexual references, adult situations
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Amanda Taylor: The Selfie Killer in Her Own Words (2025)
Jonathan Doe leaves his emetophilia fetish films (if you don't know what that is, you're better off) to interview the infamous "Selfie Killer" in this compelling documentary.
Amanda was leading a troubled life when she married Rex Taylor. They bonded over grindcore music, "Natural Born Killers," and writing serial killers in prison. Amanda gave birth to two children, one was Rex's, and they tried to create a family as they suffered the throes of addiction. Rex eventually committed suicide, and Amanda tried to grieve without really knowing how. She blamed Rex's father Charles for Rex's death, and stabbed him thirty-one times, taking a selfie with the body and posting it online afterward. She then went on the run with her new boyfriend, shooting him too, before being arrested and thrown in prison for the rest of her life.
The entire film is the video call interview between Doe and Taylor, with some footage of the locations that the Taylors would be at, and the outside of the house where the murder took place. Doe is a very calm, complacent, almost monotone interviewer, and he lets Amanda tell her story with few interruptions- and what a story it is.
I empathized, but did not sympathize, with Amanda. This is a deeply troubled woman suffering from mental illness. To say that she blames everyone but herself for her crimes and problems would be an understatement. I felt bad for everyone involved in this situation, especially Amanda's two children, as well as the victims of her crimes. This is not a jazzy "Dateline" episode, the production is bare bones to the detriment of the viewer. Doe gives Amanda a platform to speak, and Amanda contradicts herself again and again- not factually, she admits what she did, but about her feelings and thoughts of what she put people through. Amanda is photogenic and it's easy to see why some men would be attracted to her, but it seems she had three strikes against her before she got a chance to start living her life.
The film bogs down a bit in the middle, I took three days to complete it since listening to Amanda's twisted outlook on her life would depress anyone. Hoping to see her late husband in hell is not a goal anyone should have. Regretting not shooting up a parade is also a regret no one else should have. I didn't pity or like Amanda, but letting her talk uninterrupted, and wondering how much of what she said was the same manipulation she learned to be an expert at in jail, took up most of my thinking process during the film.
I wish Doe had tightened up his film, and given some much needed background. Searching for Amanda Taylor online brings up dozens of videos and stories about what she did, she's almost turned her murder into a cottage industry. Once again, the killer becomes the celebrity and the victims are forgotten.
Stats:
(2025) 120 min. (7/10) out of five stars
-Directed by Jonathan Doe
-With Jonathan Doe, Amanda Taylor
-(US: NR)- Strong violence references, some explicit gore, very strong adult situations, strong drug and alcohol references
-Media Viewed: YouTube
Amanda was leading a troubled life when she married Rex Taylor. They bonded over grindcore music, "Natural Born Killers," and writing serial killers in prison. Amanda gave birth to two children, one was Rex's, and they tried to create a family as they suffered the throes of addiction. Rex eventually committed suicide, and Amanda tried to grieve without really knowing how. She blamed Rex's father Charles for Rex's death, and stabbed him thirty-one times, taking a selfie with the body and posting it online afterward. She then went on the run with her new boyfriend, shooting him too, before being arrested and thrown in prison for the rest of her life.
The entire film is the video call interview between Doe and Taylor, with some footage of the locations that the Taylors would be at, and the outside of the house where the murder took place. Doe is a very calm, complacent, almost monotone interviewer, and he lets Amanda tell her story with few interruptions- and what a story it is.
I empathized, but did not sympathize, with Amanda. This is a deeply troubled woman suffering from mental illness. To say that she blames everyone but herself for her crimes and problems would be an understatement. I felt bad for everyone involved in this situation, especially Amanda's two children, as well as the victims of her crimes. This is not a jazzy "Dateline" episode, the production is bare bones to the detriment of the viewer. Doe gives Amanda a platform to speak, and Amanda contradicts herself again and again- not factually, she admits what she did, but about her feelings and thoughts of what she put people through. Amanda is photogenic and it's easy to see why some men would be attracted to her, but it seems she had three strikes against her before she got a chance to start living her life.
The film bogs down a bit in the middle, I took three days to complete it since listening to Amanda's twisted outlook on her life would depress anyone. Hoping to see her late husband in hell is not a goal anyone should have. Regretting not shooting up a parade is also a regret no one else should have. I didn't pity or like Amanda, but letting her talk uninterrupted, and wondering how much of what she said was the same manipulation she learned to be an expert at in jail, took up most of my thinking process during the film.
I wish Doe had tightened up his film, and given some much needed background. Searching for Amanda Taylor online brings up dozens of videos and stories about what she did, she's almost turned her murder into a cottage industry. Once again, the killer becomes the celebrity and the victims are forgotten.
Stats:
(2025) 120 min. (7/10) out of five stars
-Directed by Jonathan Doe
-With Jonathan Doe, Amanda Taylor
-(US: NR)- Strong violence references, some explicit gore, very strong adult situations, strong drug and alcohol references
-Media Viewed: YouTube
Captivity (2007)
The few defenders of this film have portrayed its detractors as a bunch of easily offended, pearl clutching sissies who were more affected by an aborted marketing campaign than what eventually showed up onscreen. I can attest that I never saw the original marketing campaign, and still feel this project is terrible.
Jennifer (Elisha Cuthbert) is a world famous model who is drugged at a party and kidnapped. She wakes up in a cement room and is terrorized by a hooded man. She has a fellow prisoner in the form of Gary (Daniel Gillies), who is not famous and can't figure out why he was abducted, too. The duo become closer as they look for an opportunity to escape when they aren't being violently tortured. In the outside world, the search for Jennifer continues.
Almost as shocking as the gore, anger, and violence of the film is the fact that it was directed by Roland Joffe, the two-time Oscar nominee for "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission." In one of the behind-the-scenes featurettes, Joffe seems excited to be helming something different- a claustrophobic thriller. Interestingly enough, in the second behind-the-scenes featurette, Joffe is shown directing the intense and unnecessary "torture porn" aspect of the film, and does not seem to have any of the enthusiasm that he had in the first featurette.
There are many versions out there, and the DVD I screened had a few deleted scenes and two absolutely terrible alternate endings. I don't know where things went wrong, but the R-rated version I saw, as released, is a gaffe-ridden, unbelievable film. Cuthbert and Gillies turn in awful performances. Scenes of violence play out with no context or purpose. Thanks to reshoots and alternate versions, Cuthbert's character is a mess of conflicting emotions, sometimes in the same scene. The climax is laughable, with the film makers trying to make a sociological statement that never sticks. Marco Beltrami's musical score sounds a lot like John Carpenter's incidental notes from 1978's "Halloween," except played in a different key. The film runs under an hour and a half, but I was often bored and checking the running time. The final motive for the murders is nonsensical, the script did not earn the taboo reason- not that the film makers give the audience any reason to care in the first place.
This is a mess, and I refuse to seek out any other versions to give the cast and crew a chance to redeem themselves. Maybe a "final edit" will come out one day, and join the "(R)-Rated," "Uncut," "Unrated," and "Non-Gory" versions but why bother? Escape this "Captivity."
Stats:
(2007) 96 min. (1/10)
-Directed by Roland Joffe
-Screenplay by Larry Cohen and Joseph Tura, Story by Larry Cohen
-Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Harney, Laz Alonso, Rebekah Ryan, Remy Thorne, Elijah Runcorn, Carl Paoli, Trent Broin
-(US: R)-(UK: 18)-(Au: MA15+)- Strong physical violence, gun violence, some sexual violence references, some violence involving children, strong gore, profanity, sexual content, some nudity, strong adult situations, alcohol use, drug abuse
-Media Viewed: DVD
Jennifer (Elisha Cuthbert) is a world famous model who is drugged at a party and kidnapped. She wakes up in a cement room and is terrorized by a hooded man. She has a fellow prisoner in the form of Gary (Daniel Gillies), who is not famous and can't figure out why he was abducted, too. The duo become closer as they look for an opportunity to escape when they aren't being violently tortured. In the outside world, the search for Jennifer continues.
Almost as shocking as the gore, anger, and violence of the film is the fact that it was directed by Roland Joffe, the two-time Oscar nominee for "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission." In one of the behind-the-scenes featurettes, Joffe seems excited to be helming something different- a claustrophobic thriller. Interestingly enough, in the second behind-the-scenes featurette, Joffe is shown directing the intense and unnecessary "torture porn" aspect of the film, and does not seem to have any of the enthusiasm that he had in the first featurette.
There are many versions out there, and the DVD I screened had a few deleted scenes and two absolutely terrible alternate endings. I don't know where things went wrong, but the R-rated version I saw, as released, is a gaffe-ridden, unbelievable film. Cuthbert and Gillies turn in awful performances. Scenes of violence play out with no context or purpose. Thanks to reshoots and alternate versions, Cuthbert's character is a mess of conflicting emotions, sometimes in the same scene. The climax is laughable, with the film makers trying to make a sociological statement that never sticks. Marco Beltrami's musical score sounds a lot like John Carpenter's incidental notes from 1978's "Halloween," except played in a different key. The film runs under an hour and a half, but I was often bored and checking the running time. The final motive for the murders is nonsensical, the script did not earn the taboo reason- not that the film makers give the audience any reason to care in the first place.
This is a mess, and I refuse to seek out any other versions to give the cast and crew a chance to redeem themselves. Maybe a "final edit" will come out one day, and join the "(R)-Rated," "Uncut," "Unrated," and "Non-Gory" versions but why bother? Escape this "Captivity."
Stats:
(2007) 96 min. (1/10)
-Directed by Roland Joffe
-Screenplay by Larry Cohen and Joseph Tura, Story by Larry Cohen
-Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Harney, Laz Alonso, Rebekah Ryan, Remy Thorne, Elijah Runcorn, Carl Paoli, Trent Broin
-(US: R)-(UK: 18)-(Au: MA15+)- Strong physical violence, gun violence, some sexual violence references, some violence involving children, strong gore, profanity, sexual content, some nudity, strong adult situations, alcohol use, drug abuse
-Media Viewed: DVD
Meteor (1979)
If Hollywood award gold is your benchmark for excellence in cinema, "Meteor" should have been one of the greatest films of all-time. The first nine credited cast members were all Oscar and Emmy nominees and winners sometime in their careers before and after the movie's release, with more golden talent further down in the cast list, credited and uncredited. Likewise with the director, screenwriters, soundtrack composer, cinematographer, editor, production designer, set decorator, and costume designer. It was nominated for an Oscar itself for Best Sound- the film's only nomination for any award from any awards group (getting beat by "Apocalypse Now"). However, the film craters thanks to an uninterested cast, hilarious special effects, screenplay padding, and its arrival a few years too late in the cooling disaster film subgenre.
Paul Bradley (a terminally angry Sean Connery) is called back in to his former employer NASA. A giant meteor is headed for Earth, arriving in six days. Paul was involved with the installation of nuclear missiles in space to thwart such a situation that will never happen, so instead the United States pointed the missles at those Commies in the U.S.S.R. As luck would have it, the Russians had their own system, and likewise pointed theirs at the United States. Neither country has the necessary firepower to destroy the meteor, but if we can just work together (any Cold War kid/Generation Xer remember détente?) we can defeat a common enemy and save this crazy screwed-up planet!
There's a germ of a good idea, copied many times later for straight-to-video and basic cable television pablum. A little online reading shows that some of the special effects companies involved were hired and fired, with the budget shrinking each time. I give plenty of leeway when it comes to special effects from the films and television of my childhood, but I couldn't help but shake my head at a lot of this. The production company was American-International Pictures, a studio known for its low budgets. It looks like their money was spent entirely on the cast. Natalie Wood doesn't appear until a third of the way through the picture but is involved in the best scene featuring duelling Russian translators. For a big piece of rock traveling at 30,000 miles per hour, this is one slow moving meteor. The nuclear missiles also move at a snail's pace, adding a few precious minutes to the running time. The underground command center looks like something out of a Bond film, disconcerting when you consider the film's lead. There's an argument during a Cabinet meeting that had me muttering "you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" as Landau portrays a typical Hollywood unhinged military officer, more concerned with the Russkies finding out about our missiles than trying to save the planet. Speaking of typical Hollywood unhinged military officers, a surprising amount of supporting cast members also guested on the television series "M*A*S*H," a show whose episodes I have seen many times over thanks to syndicated blocks of programming on over-the-air stations.
Like the previous year's "Avalanche," "Meteor" comes at the end of the disaster film cycle, which gave us classics like "The Poseidon Adventure," "Airport," and "The Towering Inferno," and the genre was skewered a year later by "Airplane!" The Best Sound Oscar nomination was a surprise, but considering the Special Visual Effects Academy Awards nominees for that year, there was no way "Meteor" was going to score anything else- Visual Effects winner "Alien," and nominees "The Black Hole," "Moonraker," "1941," and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
I remember wanting to see "Meteor" when it was released (I was eleven and already a rabid film fan, recognizing most of the cast names), and then when it appeared again on HBO. I never seemed to get to it, not even clips, so watching it on a streaming service was a bittersweet nostalgia.
Stats:
(1979) 108 min. (2/10)
-Directed by Ronald Neame
-Screenplay by Stanley Mann & Edmund H. North, Story by Edmund H. North
-Cast: Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Richard Dysart, Henry Fonda, Joe Campanella, Bibi Besch, Clyde Kusatsu, Peter Donat, Sybil Danning, Philip Sterling, Johnny Yune, Roy Edward Disney, John Spencer
-(US: PG)-(UK: PG)-(Au: PG)- Physical violence, mild gore, profanity, alcohol use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Paul Bradley (a terminally angry Sean Connery) is called back in to his former employer NASA. A giant meteor is headed for Earth, arriving in six days. Paul was involved with the installation of nuclear missiles in space to thwart such a situation that will never happen, so instead the United States pointed the missles at those Commies in the U.S.S.R. As luck would have it, the Russians had their own system, and likewise pointed theirs at the United States. Neither country has the necessary firepower to destroy the meteor, but if we can just work together (any Cold War kid/Generation Xer remember détente?) we can defeat a common enemy and save this crazy screwed-up planet!
There's a germ of a good idea, copied many times later for straight-to-video and basic cable television pablum. A little online reading shows that some of the special effects companies involved were hired and fired, with the budget shrinking each time. I give plenty of leeway when it comes to special effects from the films and television of my childhood, but I couldn't help but shake my head at a lot of this. The production company was American-International Pictures, a studio known for its low budgets. It looks like their money was spent entirely on the cast. Natalie Wood doesn't appear until a third of the way through the picture but is involved in the best scene featuring duelling Russian translators. For a big piece of rock traveling at 30,000 miles per hour, this is one slow moving meteor. The nuclear missiles also move at a snail's pace, adding a few precious minutes to the running time. The underground command center looks like something out of a Bond film, disconcerting when you consider the film's lead. There's an argument during a Cabinet meeting that had me muttering "you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" as Landau portrays a typical Hollywood unhinged military officer, more concerned with the Russkies finding out about our missiles than trying to save the planet. Speaking of typical Hollywood unhinged military officers, a surprising amount of supporting cast members also guested on the television series "M*A*S*H," a show whose episodes I have seen many times over thanks to syndicated blocks of programming on over-the-air stations.
Like the previous year's "Avalanche," "Meteor" comes at the end of the disaster film cycle, which gave us classics like "The Poseidon Adventure," "Airport," and "The Towering Inferno," and the genre was skewered a year later by "Airplane!" The Best Sound Oscar nomination was a surprise, but considering the Special Visual Effects Academy Awards nominees for that year, there was no way "Meteor" was going to score anything else- Visual Effects winner "Alien," and nominees "The Black Hole," "Moonraker," "1941," and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
I remember wanting to see "Meteor" when it was released (I was eleven and already a rabid film fan, recognizing most of the cast names), and then when it appeared again on HBO. I never seemed to get to it, not even clips, so watching it on a streaming service was a bittersweet nostalgia.
Stats:
(1979) 108 min. (2/10)
-Directed by Ronald Neame
-Screenplay by Stanley Mann & Edmund H. North, Story by Edmund H. North
-Cast: Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Richard Dysart, Henry Fonda, Joe Campanella, Bibi Besch, Clyde Kusatsu, Peter Donat, Sybil Danning, Philip Sterling, Johnny Yune, Roy Edward Disney, John Spencer
-(US: PG)-(UK: PG)-(Au: PG)- Physical violence, mild gore, profanity, alcohol use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Drop (2025)
I appreciated so many aspects of this tight thriller that I'm disappointed that I was disappointed in the final product.
Widow Violet, who was in an abusive relationship with her late husband Blake (Michael Shea), decides to date after being a single mother to Toby (Jacob Robinson) for many years. Violet counsels abuse survivors, healing vicariously through them, and decides to take the next step herself and go out with too-good-to-be-true photographer Henry (Brandon Sklenar). Smart aleck sis Jen (Violett Beane) comes over to babysit, and Violet meets Henry at an impossibly beautiful restaurant that's located in a towering skyscraper.
The couple goes through the awkward first date motions as Violet begins receiving threatening AirDrops (labelled as something else) on her phone. I'm not gonna lie, I had to look up exactly what the heck these were, and I never thought of myself as technically inept. Someone in the restaurant wants Violet to kill Henry, or else a mysterious masked man now in her home will kill her sister and son. The game is on as Violet tries to figure out who in the restaurant is terrorizing her without telling Henry too much.
I read a few reviews where Fahy's performance was criticized, but I thought she did a fantastic job as the formerly abused Violet. During the more threatening, angry aspects of the mystery dropper's campaign of terror, Violet would remove herself from the situation- putting on a blank expression and pulling inward- and her performance was very effective. Sklenar as Henry is very good and they have a great chemistry, but this is Violet's story and we spend the most screen time with Fahy. The restaurant locale is a triumph of set decoration and design. Along with the fantastic cinematography, the restaurant, bar, cage-like entry tunnel, and even the bathroom are memorable and menacing. I also appreciated that director Landon or the screenwriters did NOT have Violet read her messages out loud to herself so the audience would know what was happening. The film makers made great use of text and images onscreen, reading what was being sent while watching Violet react to the messages as we were reading them. Violet is not former special forces/commando, so that was another plus.
Unfortunately, as with many films of this ilk, the filmmakers could not maintain the intensity of the opening act as things began to get more ridiculous. I started to question character motivations and scene placement- there's a strange man beating your sister and child at home, but we're going to pause to open up about our feelings to our new date? Are we going to circle around to the immediate danger later, after dessert and coffee? The final few minutes of the film are especially disappointing, losing me and my timeline belief suspension completely.
Landon's direction is certainly enthusiastic and interesting, and I was glad we didn't try to stretch this tight little story into a two and a half hour running time just because we could. I was hoping to get a lean-and-mean tone, but "Drop" will probably drop out of my memory as soon as I post this review.
Stats:
(2025) 95 min. (5/10)
-Directed by Christopher Landon
-Written by Jillian Jacobs & Chris Roach
-Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan, Sarah McCormack, Jeffery Self, Ed Weeks, Ben Pelletier, Travis Nelson, Saoirse Hayden, Fiona Browne
-(US: PG-13)-(UK: 15)-(Au: MA15+)- Physical violence, gun violence, some gore, some profanity, adult situations, alcohol use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Widow Violet, who was in an abusive relationship with her late husband Blake (Michael Shea), decides to date after being a single mother to Toby (Jacob Robinson) for many years. Violet counsels abuse survivors, healing vicariously through them, and decides to take the next step herself and go out with too-good-to-be-true photographer Henry (Brandon Sklenar). Smart aleck sis Jen (Violett Beane) comes over to babysit, and Violet meets Henry at an impossibly beautiful restaurant that's located in a towering skyscraper.
The couple goes through the awkward first date motions as Violet begins receiving threatening AirDrops (labelled as something else) on her phone. I'm not gonna lie, I had to look up exactly what the heck these were, and I never thought of myself as technically inept. Someone in the restaurant wants Violet to kill Henry, or else a mysterious masked man now in her home will kill her sister and son. The game is on as Violet tries to figure out who in the restaurant is terrorizing her without telling Henry too much.
I read a few reviews where Fahy's performance was criticized, but I thought she did a fantastic job as the formerly abused Violet. During the more threatening, angry aspects of the mystery dropper's campaign of terror, Violet would remove herself from the situation- putting on a blank expression and pulling inward- and her performance was very effective. Sklenar as Henry is very good and they have a great chemistry, but this is Violet's story and we spend the most screen time with Fahy. The restaurant locale is a triumph of set decoration and design. Along with the fantastic cinematography, the restaurant, bar, cage-like entry tunnel, and even the bathroom are memorable and menacing. I also appreciated that director Landon or the screenwriters did NOT have Violet read her messages out loud to herself so the audience would know what was happening. The film makers made great use of text and images onscreen, reading what was being sent while watching Violet react to the messages as we were reading them. Violet is not former special forces/commando, so that was another plus.
Unfortunately, as with many films of this ilk, the filmmakers could not maintain the intensity of the opening act as things began to get more ridiculous. I started to question character motivations and scene placement- there's a strange man beating your sister and child at home, but we're going to pause to open up about our feelings to our new date? Are we going to circle around to the immediate danger later, after dessert and coffee? The final few minutes of the film are especially disappointing, losing me and my timeline belief suspension completely.
Landon's direction is certainly enthusiastic and interesting, and I was glad we didn't try to stretch this tight little story into a two and a half hour running time just because we could. I was hoping to get a lean-and-mean tone, but "Drop" will probably drop out of my memory as soon as I post this review.
Stats:
(2025) 95 min. (5/10)
-Directed by Christopher Landon
-Written by Jillian Jacobs & Chris Roach
-Cast: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan, Sarah McCormack, Jeffery Self, Ed Weeks, Ben Pelletier, Travis Nelson, Saoirse Hayden, Fiona Browne
-(US: PG-13)-(UK: 15)-(Au: MA15+)- Physical violence, gun violence, some gore, some profanity, adult situations, alcohol use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Puzzle (1974)
This Italian film tells the story of a man with amnesia who he may not have been a perfect angel in his former life. It's a reliable trope, and in this case, is silly and campy enough to make a passable time waster.
Ted (Luc Merenda) has been in a clinic in England with no memory of who he is. He is discharged, and almost killed by a man who is murdered after he tells Ted what a horrible person he is ("a dirty son of a double-crosser; a two-bit con artist"). Ted is summoned to Italy by his wife, swimming instructor Sara (Senta Berger). Ted had been missing for almost a year just after their whirlwind romance and marriage, so she barely knows her husband. Strange underworld types begin stalking Ted and Sara, threatening the couple. Ted is having flashbacks to murdering people himself, and what is in "the package" everybody is certain Sara has and that they are willing to kill for?
This isn't a complicated, labyrinthine story. Berger, an international star at this point, and Merenda, the main protagonist of the film, must figuratively wrestle for the audience's attention. The action scenes are pedestrian, with one fight scenes involving karate chops that had me laughing. The version I viewed was dubbed and not subtitled, and is a perfect example of plot development being lost in translation. The dialogue is melodramatic, confusing, and unintentionally funny. I figured out the twist pretty quickly, there's a convenient plot point involving a preteen (who sounds like he's voiced by Ernest Borgnine) and his camera, so I settled back for the film's seriousness and peek-a-boo, naughty glances at Berger.
I could plead that "Puzzle" was ripe for a remake, but it's like every other "amnesia victim does good" film out there. Also known as "L'uomo senza memoria."
Stats:
(1974) 92 min. (6/10)
-Directed by Duccio Tessari
-Screenplay by Bruno di Geronimo and Duccio Tessari and Ernesto Garaldi, Story by Roberto Infascelli
-Cast: Senta Berger, Luc Merenda, Umberto Orsini, Anita Strindberg, Bruno Corazzari, Rosario Borelli, Manfred Freyberger, Tom Felleghy, Carla Mancini, Vittorio Fantoni, Duilio Cruciani
-(US: R)- Physical violence, gun violence, gore, some profanity, brief nudity, some sexual references, adult situations, alcohol use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Ted (Luc Merenda) has been in a clinic in England with no memory of who he is. He is discharged, and almost killed by a man who is murdered after he tells Ted what a horrible person he is ("a dirty son of a double-crosser; a two-bit con artist"). Ted is summoned to Italy by his wife, swimming instructor Sara (Senta Berger). Ted had been missing for almost a year just after their whirlwind romance and marriage, so she barely knows her husband. Strange underworld types begin stalking Ted and Sara, threatening the couple. Ted is having flashbacks to murdering people himself, and what is in "the package" everybody is certain Sara has and that they are willing to kill for?
This isn't a complicated, labyrinthine story. Berger, an international star at this point, and Merenda, the main protagonist of the film, must figuratively wrestle for the audience's attention. The action scenes are pedestrian, with one fight scenes involving karate chops that had me laughing. The version I viewed was dubbed and not subtitled, and is a perfect example of plot development being lost in translation. The dialogue is melodramatic, confusing, and unintentionally funny. I figured out the twist pretty quickly, there's a convenient plot point involving a preteen (who sounds like he's voiced by Ernest Borgnine) and his camera, so I settled back for the film's seriousness and peek-a-boo, naughty glances at Berger.
I could plead that "Puzzle" was ripe for a remake, but it's like every other "amnesia victim does good" film out there. Also known as "L'uomo senza memoria."
Stats:
(1974) 92 min. (6/10)
-Directed by Duccio Tessari
-Screenplay by Bruno di Geronimo and Duccio Tessari and Ernesto Garaldi, Story by Roberto Infascelli
-Cast: Senta Berger, Luc Merenda, Umberto Orsini, Anita Strindberg, Bruno Corazzari, Rosario Borelli, Manfred Freyberger, Tom Felleghy, Carla Mancini, Vittorio Fantoni, Duilio Cruciani
-(US: R)- Physical violence, gun violence, gore, some profanity, brief nudity, some sexual references, adult situations, alcohol use
-Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video Streaming
Friday, February 20, 2026
Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein (2023)
Seemingly taking a cue from Joe Berlinger's "Conversations with a Killer" Netflix shows, this limited series has a "lost" audio recording of 1950's murderer and ghoul Ed Gein, who would inspire the film makers of "Psycho" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
The audio tape is the highlight of the almost four hour documentary. Many interviewees are hearing his voice for the very first time, and the film makers subtitle the conversation he had with law enforcement. Hearing his slow speech pattern and heavy Midwestern accent deflecting about the horrors he committed with corpses he dug up from the local Plainfield, Wisconsin cemetery is chilling. Day directs the episodes solidly, with many Gein experts chiming in as they hear the audiotape as well.
I would have to agree with other online opinions that much of this material feels padded in order to make a predestined running time. The tape must not be very long, sections are replayed again and again. There is some creepy AI generated animated footage of Gein and his hellhole of a farmhouse, and old photographs presumably of Gein and his parents. He murdered two local women and did unspeakable things with their bodies, as well as his cemetery trophies, but the town of Plainfield (understandably) would rather forget about his crimes. No one will exhume any of the cemetery plots to see if all the bodies were replaced or desecrated (there is too-brief footage of a mass grave where what they found in his home was dumped), but with today's DNA technology, answers could be sought. Gein was suspected of other killings, including his own brother, but his word was taken as gospel back when he was arrested, since no one had dealt with this type of situation before. He spent many decades in the state mental hospital, dying at the age if 77, and there is another round of lost recorded interviews done by another set of documentary film makers for an abandoned project. The sheer amount of books, documentaries, fictional films, and even merchandise on Gein is overwhelming.
I was put off by the padding of the "series," (they could have trimmed a half hour to even a full "episode" if they had wanted to), and also by the flippancy of the podcasters they decided they would interview. They try to justify the gallows humor, but I was still cringing at their asides and jokes. The victims' families either were not contacted or declined to be interviewed, but if they were going to keep showing crime scene photographs of one of my ancestors- decapitated, nude, and trussed up like a deer in Gein's attached shed- I probably wouldn't want to talk to anyone either.
Plainfield is trying to forget, but Hollywood and the rest of the country keeps this story in our national consciousness. There are some interesting dives into some horror films that Gein inspired, before these scenes also fall prey to the padding.
An edit here and there, and expanding on the gravity of the situation that Wisconsin law enforcement found themselves dealing with back in the halcyon days of the late 1950's, might have improved "Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein."
Stats:
(2023) 201 min. (6/10)
-Directed by James Buddy Day
-With Ed Gein, Harold Schechter, Dr. Jooyoung Lee, Dr. N.G. Berrill, Louis B. Schlesinger, Henry Zebrowski, Marcus Parks, Ben Kissel, Fred Reid, Dr. Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, Sonja Gould, Ethan Snowden, Chuck Parello
(TV-MA)- Strong extreme gore, profanity, some nudity, strong sexual references, gun violence references, sexual violence references, very strong adult situations
Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video
The audio tape is the highlight of the almost four hour documentary. Many interviewees are hearing his voice for the very first time, and the film makers subtitle the conversation he had with law enforcement. Hearing his slow speech pattern and heavy Midwestern accent deflecting about the horrors he committed with corpses he dug up from the local Plainfield, Wisconsin cemetery is chilling. Day directs the episodes solidly, with many Gein experts chiming in as they hear the audiotape as well.
I would have to agree with other online opinions that much of this material feels padded in order to make a predestined running time. The tape must not be very long, sections are replayed again and again. There is some creepy AI generated animated footage of Gein and his hellhole of a farmhouse, and old photographs presumably of Gein and his parents. He murdered two local women and did unspeakable things with their bodies, as well as his cemetery trophies, but the town of Plainfield (understandably) would rather forget about his crimes. No one will exhume any of the cemetery plots to see if all the bodies were replaced or desecrated (there is too-brief footage of a mass grave where what they found in his home was dumped), but with today's DNA technology, answers could be sought. Gein was suspected of other killings, including his own brother, but his word was taken as gospel back when he was arrested, since no one had dealt with this type of situation before. He spent many decades in the state mental hospital, dying at the age if 77, and there is another round of lost recorded interviews done by another set of documentary film makers for an abandoned project. The sheer amount of books, documentaries, fictional films, and even merchandise on Gein is overwhelming.
I was put off by the padding of the "series," (they could have trimmed a half hour to even a full "episode" if they had wanted to), and also by the flippancy of the podcasters they decided they would interview. They try to justify the gallows humor, but I was still cringing at their asides and jokes. The victims' families either were not contacted or declined to be interviewed, but if they were going to keep showing crime scene photographs of one of my ancestors- decapitated, nude, and trussed up like a deer in Gein's attached shed- I probably wouldn't want to talk to anyone either.
Plainfield is trying to forget, but Hollywood and the rest of the country keeps this story in our national consciousness. There are some interesting dives into some horror films that Gein inspired, before these scenes also fall prey to the padding.
An edit here and there, and expanding on the gravity of the situation that Wisconsin law enforcement found themselves dealing with back in the halcyon days of the late 1950's, might have improved "Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein."
Stats:
(2023) 201 min. (6/10)
-Directed by James Buddy Day
-With Ed Gein, Harold Schechter, Dr. Jooyoung Lee, Dr. N.G. Berrill, Louis B. Schlesinger, Henry Zebrowski, Marcus Parks, Ben Kissel, Fred Reid, Dr. Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, Sonja Gould, Ethan Snowden, Chuck Parello
(TV-MA)- Strong extreme gore, profanity, some nudity, strong sexual references, gun violence references, sexual violence references, very strong adult situations
Media Viewed: Amazon Prime Video
Amityville: An Origin Story (2023)
This long miniseries documentary isn't an end-all, be-all about the 1974 murders of the DeFeo family in Amityville, New York, but a very good modern look at the story that has entranced (and fooled) a nation for over five decades.
Ronald DeFeo, Jr. killed six members of his sleeping family one night in 1974, and was eventually sent to prison for a life sentence. George and Kathy Lutz and their three kids eventually moved into the giant house, but fled four weeks later after they said they were terrorized by demonic and unseen forces. The Lutzes gave recorded interviews of their experiences to author Jay Anson, who published the book The Amityville Horror (one of the greatest book, and later film, titles of all-time). A (terrible) hit 1979 film was made of the experiences of the Lutzes, which spawned dozens of sequels, spoofs, and remakes, all mostly unrelated to the original DeFeo murders except in passing. As the Lutzes continued to talk about what happened, lawsuits began as the major players tried to get their piece of a very lucrative pie. The series concentrates on Christopher Lutz, one of Kathy's sons from her first marriage (her other son appeared in the documentary "My Amityville Horror"), and his bitterness at a celebrity he never asked for.
George Lutz is the villain in the series, although it's understandable to see how an average guy can get caught up in the glitz and glamour of money and fame. There are a lot of clips from the 1979 film, and I thought the film makers were relying on it a little too much before I realized they were showing what everyone else at that time was seeing and accepting as the truth. I was eleven in 1979, and I remember the Amityville story vividly. There is a quick shot of a newspaper series based on Anson's book, and I remember reading that exact same series of articles when I was living across the country in Louisiana. I've seen a lot of the earlier sequels, and reviewed "Amityville: No Escape" (2016) a while back. I also had the misfortune of seeing "Amityville Vibrator," a stupid decision on my part. The final episode's credits show the physical media containers of other Amityville films, and they get progressively dumber as they go along.
The documentary is a little meandering, dwelling on odd aspects of the case. The infamous "red room" isn't mentioned until the final episode of the four episode run. The "ghost boy" photograph is debunked in a story I was hearing for the very first time. Ed and Lorraine Warren don't escape blame, either. "The Conjuring" films and their preceding cinematic universe are all thanks to the exposure they gained investigating the Lutzes' story, not the DeFeo murders. Even the murderer, Ronald DeFeo, Jr., wanted in on the profits. I watched an interview with DeFeo years ago, he was an awful drug burnout/killer looking to blame everyone else for the murders he committed. A Native American indigenous spokesperson pops in to tell everyone to quit blaming "indian burial grounds" for the evils of many a horror film (I have no dog in that fight), and even the Mafia was looked into after the original shootings. The DeFeo case is touched upon, but the documentary wants to show how this snowball of lies quickly overtook the original tragedy, dragging everyone with it as it plunged downhill into the country's consciousness. Director Riccobono needs to get his hands on a horror film soon. His direction is fantastic, elevating this above basic cable true crime show levels and discomforting the viewer.
Having recently started watching more true crime documentaries and fictionalizations, I keep coming back to a focus that many film makers keep missing- the original case and their victims. I've had passing brushes with true crime in my over half a century on this planet- a family member was friends with a child who was killed in a murder/suicide. I have lived within walking distance of houses where murders were committed. I have known sexual crime perpetrators back before they were caught and jailed, throwing everyone who knew them "before" for a loop. I have been the victim of criminal trauma, untried by the courts and eventually forgotten by everyone but me and maybe the abusers. I don't mean to sound like a narcissist and make this case about me- we should be making the case about the people who can no longer speak for themselves anymore. Ask the DeFeo's children's friends, now understandably angry adults (the film "Amityville II: The Possession" hinted at incest in the DeFeo home), about what those forever-kids were like. We all know the names Amityville, Lutz, the Warrens, the DeFeos, but what were the deceased family members really like? I've mentioned this about serial killers and their victims in the past, too: I can say the name Gacy, and you don't need any additional information to know who I'm talking about, but can you name any of John Wayne Gacy's almost three dozen victims? The documentary wisely goes after Hollywood and the irresponsibilities of profit over storytelling and the cinematic and literary arts.
This film puts the brakes on the ridiculousness that the DeFeo murders and the Lutz infamy have turned into. Christopher reminds us that there were children involved, and he and his brother (through his documentary "My Amityville Horror") show that they still aren't ready to talk about what really happened back then, if anything did at all. Christopher does allude to physical abuse at the hands of George, whose idea for a sequel to the original film was both stupid and shocking. Christopher's story about elitist actor James Brolin winking and shrugging off an incident with a young Christopher should anger you too- and you can see why the Lutz children haven't come out with a tell-all book or long documentary of their own, if they even have a relationship today. We forget they were kids, but getting their story out there might help others heal. George and Kathy Lutz are no longer alive, Christopher changed his name from Lutz to his original last name, and he seems to be trying to move on. Looking back over past true crime stories, many involve children and young adults who now suffer in silence and/or self-inspired anonymity. Even victims can't rest in peace, as Ronald DeFeo, Jr. blamed his sister for the murders, another silly and easily debunked claim.
"Amityville: An Origin Story" plays with the conventions of the modern true crime documentary, and succeeds.
Stats:
(2023) 201 min. (8/10)
-Directed by Jack Riccobono
-With Christopher Lutz, George Lutz, Kathy Lutz, Ronald DeFeo Jr., James Brolin, Ed Warren, Lorraine Warren, Gloria Gangitano, Carol Soviero, Joe Vetter, Erik Davis, Diane Franklin, Tommy Maher
-(TV-MA)-Physical violence, some gun violence, violence involving children, gore, profanity, very brief nudity, sexual references, adult situations, strong violence involving children references, drug abuse references, alcohol and tobacco use
-Media Viewed: Streaming
Ronald DeFeo, Jr. killed six members of his sleeping family one night in 1974, and was eventually sent to prison for a life sentence. George and Kathy Lutz and their three kids eventually moved into the giant house, but fled four weeks later after they said they were terrorized by demonic and unseen forces. The Lutzes gave recorded interviews of their experiences to author Jay Anson, who published the book The Amityville Horror (one of the greatest book, and later film, titles of all-time). A (terrible) hit 1979 film was made of the experiences of the Lutzes, which spawned dozens of sequels, spoofs, and remakes, all mostly unrelated to the original DeFeo murders except in passing. As the Lutzes continued to talk about what happened, lawsuits began as the major players tried to get their piece of a very lucrative pie. The series concentrates on Christopher Lutz, one of Kathy's sons from her first marriage (her other son appeared in the documentary "My Amityville Horror"), and his bitterness at a celebrity he never asked for.
George Lutz is the villain in the series, although it's understandable to see how an average guy can get caught up in the glitz and glamour of money and fame. There are a lot of clips from the 1979 film, and I thought the film makers were relying on it a little too much before I realized they were showing what everyone else at that time was seeing and accepting as the truth. I was eleven in 1979, and I remember the Amityville story vividly. There is a quick shot of a newspaper series based on Anson's book, and I remember reading that exact same series of articles when I was living across the country in Louisiana. I've seen a lot of the earlier sequels, and reviewed "Amityville: No Escape" (2016) a while back. I also had the misfortune of seeing "Amityville Vibrator," a stupid decision on my part. The final episode's credits show the physical media containers of other Amityville films, and they get progressively dumber as they go along.
The documentary is a little meandering, dwelling on odd aspects of the case. The infamous "red room" isn't mentioned until the final episode of the four episode run. The "ghost boy" photograph is debunked in a story I was hearing for the very first time. Ed and Lorraine Warren don't escape blame, either. "The Conjuring" films and their preceding cinematic universe are all thanks to the exposure they gained investigating the Lutzes' story, not the DeFeo murders. Even the murderer, Ronald DeFeo, Jr., wanted in on the profits. I watched an interview with DeFeo years ago, he was an awful drug burnout/killer looking to blame everyone else for the murders he committed. A Native American indigenous spokesperson pops in to tell everyone to quit blaming "indian burial grounds" for the evils of many a horror film (I have no dog in that fight), and even the Mafia was looked into after the original shootings. The DeFeo case is touched upon, but the documentary wants to show how this snowball of lies quickly overtook the original tragedy, dragging everyone with it as it plunged downhill into the country's consciousness. Director Riccobono needs to get his hands on a horror film soon. His direction is fantastic, elevating this above basic cable true crime show levels and discomforting the viewer.
Having recently started watching more true crime documentaries and fictionalizations, I keep coming back to a focus that many film makers keep missing- the original case and their victims. I've had passing brushes with true crime in my over half a century on this planet- a family member was friends with a child who was killed in a murder/suicide. I have lived within walking distance of houses where murders were committed. I have known sexual crime perpetrators back before they were caught and jailed, throwing everyone who knew them "before" for a loop. I have been the victim of criminal trauma, untried by the courts and eventually forgotten by everyone but me and maybe the abusers. I don't mean to sound like a narcissist and make this case about me- we should be making the case about the people who can no longer speak for themselves anymore. Ask the DeFeo's children's friends, now understandably angry adults (the film "Amityville II: The Possession" hinted at incest in the DeFeo home), about what those forever-kids were like. We all know the names Amityville, Lutz, the Warrens, the DeFeos, but what were the deceased family members really like? I've mentioned this about serial killers and their victims in the past, too: I can say the name Gacy, and you don't need any additional information to know who I'm talking about, but can you name any of John Wayne Gacy's almost three dozen victims? The documentary wisely goes after Hollywood and the irresponsibilities of profit over storytelling and the cinematic and literary arts.
This film puts the brakes on the ridiculousness that the DeFeo murders and the Lutz infamy have turned into. Christopher reminds us that there were children involved, and he and his brother (through his documentary "My Amityville Horror") show that they still aren't ready to talk about what really happened back then, if anything did at all. Christopher does allude to physical abuse at the hands of George, whose idea for a sequel to the original film was both stupid and shocking. Christopher's story about elitist actor James Brolin winking and shrugging off an incident with a young Christopher should anger you too- and you can see why the Lutz children haven't come out with a tell-all book or long documentary of their own, if they even have a relationship today. We forget they were kids, but getting their story out there might help others heal. George and Kathy Lutz are no longer alive, Christopher changed his name from Lutz to his original last name, and he seems to be trying to move on. Looking back over past true crime stories, many involve children and young adults who now suffer in silence and/or self-inspired anonymity. Even victims can't rest in peace, as Ronald DeFeo, Jr. blamed his sister for the murders, another silly and easily debunked claim.
"Amityville: An Origin Story" plays with the conventions of the modern true crime documentary, and succeeds.
Stats:
(2023) 201 min. (8/10)
-Directed by Jack Riccobono
-With Christopher Lutz, George Lutz, Kathy Lutz, Ronald DeFeo Jr., James Brolin, Ed Warren, Lorraine Warren, Gloria Gangitano, Carol Soviero, Joe Vetter, Erik Davis, Diane Franklin, Tommy Maher
-(TV-MA)-Physical violence, some gun violence, violence involving children, gore, profanity, very brief nudity, sexual references, adult situations, strong violence involving children references, drug abuse references, alcohol and tobacco use
-Media Viewed: Streaming
Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation (2007)
While a sometimes interesting documentary about child murderer Albert Fish, film maker John Borowski tries to one up the horror of Fish's crimes with little success.
On the surface, Albert Fish was a kindly old man shuffling around New York in the 1930s. In reality, he was a child molester, killer, and cannibal who was regularly nabbed by police on lesser charges but released and not charged since he was perceived to be harmless to society at large. Little did society know he was racking up a body count when he wasn't feeding his sadomasochistic lifestyle.
Dramatically narrated by Tony Jay, the documentary is very informative. Fish was a single father to six children, all adults when he was finally caught and later executed, and his descendants are still around today. His crimes were monstrous, and he wrote about them with a sick glee, preying on the impoverished because no one cared about them enough to look into their missing children cases- who's going to kidnap the child of a poor family if there is no money to pay a ransom? Katherine Ramsland is interviewed for her psychological insights, and artist Joe Coleman is interviewed because he owns the original confessional letter written by Fish about the last murder he committed.
Borowski's direction and script run hot and cold as his budget can't quite cover his desire to make this more than a talking-heads-and-reenactments documentary. Cheap video effects and drawn-out fantasy elements to Fish's crimes don't play as well as they may have looked on paper. This is an unrated documentary, so there are some nude scenes and profanity, but not any gory dramatizations of Fish's crimes. Coleman is always an interesting interview subject, but he gets caught up in his own navel gazing about Fish, assigning him ethereal qualities and elevating him to god-like status, when he was actually an insane individual who needs to be studied by forensic psychiatrists to find out just what happened to create him. I would be interested to see if his children and their progeny suffered the same mental problems, and what kind of lives they led knowing about Grandpa Albert.
Also known as simply "Albert Fish," this documentary isn't as unwatchable as some reviews would have you believe, but I wish Borowski would have stuck to the facts of the case and not tried to subjugate the viewers' imagination as well. Fish was evil enough on his own, he didn't need help.
Stats:
(2007) 86 min. (5/10)
-Written and Directed by John Borowski
-With Tony Jay, Albert Fish, Oto Brezina, Joe Coleman, Katherine Ramsland, Derek Gaspar, Cooney Horvath, Garrett Shriver, Nathan Hall, Kasey Skinner, Harvey Fisher, Bob Dunsworth, David Sherman
-(Not Rated)- Physical violence, sexual violence, violence against children, some extreme gore, very strong violence against children references, profanity, very strong sexual references, some sexual content, nudity, very strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Streaming
On the surface, Albert Fish was a kindly old man shuffling around New York in the 1930s. In reality, he was a child molester, killer, and cannibal who was regularly nabbed by police on lesser charges but released and not charged since he was perceived to be harmless to society at large. Little did society know he was racking up a body count when he wasn't feeding his sadomasochistic lifestyle.
Dramatically narrated by Tony Jay, the documentary is very informative. Fish was a single father to six children, all adults when he was finally caught and later executed, and his descendants are still around today. His crimes were monstrous, and he wrote about them with a sick glee, preying on the impoverished because no one cared about them enough to look into their missing children cases- who's going to kidnap the child of a poor family if there is no money to pay a ransom? Katherine Ramsland is interviewed for her psychological insights, and artist Joe Coleman is interviewed because he owns the original confessional letter written by Fish about the last murder he committed.
Borowski's direction and script run hot and cold as his budget can't quite cover his desire to make this more than a talking-heads-and-reenactments documentary. Cheap video effects and drawn-out fantasy elements to Fish's crimes don't play as well as they may have looked on paper. This is an unrated documentary, so there are some nude scenes and profanity, but not any gory dramatizations of Fish's crimes. Coleman is always an interesting interview subject, but he gets caught up in his own navel gazing about Fish, assigning him ethereal qualities and elevating him to god-like status, when he was actually an insane individual who needs to be studied by forensic psychiatrists to find out just what happened to create him. I would be interested to see if his children and their progeny suffered the same mental problems, and what kind of lives they led knowing about Grandpa Albert.
Also known as simply "Albert Fish," this documentary isn't as unwatchable as some reviews would have you believe, but I wish Borowski would have stuck to the facts of the case and not tried to subjugate the viewers' imagination as well. Fish was evil enough on his own, he didn't need help.
Stats:
(2007) 86 min. (5/10)
-Written and Directed by John Borowski
-With Tony Jay, Albert Fish, Oto Brezina, Joe Coleman, Katherine Ramsland, Derek Gaspar, Cooney Horvath, Garrett Shriver, Nathan Hall, Kasey Skinner, Harvey Fisher, Bob Dunsworth, David Sherman
-(Not Rated)- Physical violence, sexual violence, violence against children, some extreme gore, very strong violence against children references, profanity, very strong sexual references, some sexual content, nudity, very strong adult situations
-Media Viewed: Streaming
Girl 27 (2007)
Author David Stenn had just finished writing a biography of Jean Harlow when he discovered the story of Patricia Douglas.
In 1937, seventeen year old Douglas was one of a hundred girls brought in to entertain a group of MGM film sellers who were partying in Hollywood at a convention. She was assaulted by David Ross, one of the sellers. There is incredible newsreel footage of the film sellers' arrival, MGM chairman Louis B. Mayer, and David Ross. Stenn, in his only directing effort as of this writing, then opens the film up and engages the viewer in many connected stories.
Stenn could not believe the headlines he was reading about Douglas' case and how film studios had a tight grip on local law enforcement and government with Douglas' case made to disappear. The daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, Judy Lewis, is also interviewed about her incredible life journey of being born out of wedlock to Young, given to an orphanage, and then being "adopted" by her natural mother- all to avoid a scandal. Another assault victim, Eloise Spann, is covered and her family's story is heartbreaking. Stenn's pursuit of Douglas is chronicled, and we finally get to see Douglas onscreen. The way her life was changed by the assault, as confirmed by her estranged daughter and a grandson, is also emotional.
To say Ross, who died in the early 1960s with no charges ever brought against him, ruined Douglas' life would be an understatement. Everything was changed by the assault. Douglas' relationships with everyone around her was ruined. She was a virgin when attacked, and her life took a downward spiral that never recovered. There is no happy ending- Douglas doesn't lovingly reunite with her family, get revenge on Ross, or receive an official apology from the City of Los Angeles or MGM. She never smiles during the documentary, leading a sad and solitary life of late-night television, and not eating well after a few broken marriages. No one believed Douglas, despite a witness and necessary medical attention, so she bottled it up and shut down for the next few decades. She became a nobody living in an apartment in Las Vegas and watching MTV for the dancing- she was a background dancer in a few films, and was still a fan.
Eloise Spann, who committed suicide in 1960, could have been a great singer on film but stopped singing after her attack. Her adult son had never heard his mother sing until he was played an old film clip. As an audience, we don't get to hear Spann's voice because the studio holding the film's rights wouldn't release them to the documentary film makers, which speaks volumes about how things are in Hollywood all these years later.
Watch this movie and fight back against our culture of cruelty.
Stats:
(2007) 86 min. (9/10)
-Written and Directed by David Stenn
-With: Patricia Douglas, David Stenn, Judy Lewis, Peggy Montgomery, Richard W. Bann, Greta Van Susteren, Eloise Spann, Louis B. Mayer
-(Not Rated)- Physical violence, some sexual violence, sexual references, strong sexual violence references, strong sexual violence against children references, strong adult situations, alcohol and tobacco use
-Media Viewed: Streaming
In 1937, seventeen year old Douglas was one of a hundred girls brought in to entertain a group of MGM film sellers who were partying in Hollywood at a convention. She was assaulted by David Ross, one of the sellers. There is incredible newsreel footage of the film sellers' arrival, MGM chairman Louis B. Mayer, and David Ross. Stenn, in his only directing effort as of this writing, then opens the film up and engages the viewer in many connected stories.
Stenn could not believe the headlines he was reading about Douglas' case and how film studios had a tight grip on local law enforcement and government with Douglas' case made to disappear. The daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young, Judy Lewis, is also interviewed about her incredible life journey of being born out of wedlock to Young, given to an orphanage, and then being "adopted" by her natural mother- all to avoid a scandal. Another assault victim, Eloise Spann, is covered and her family's story is heartbreaking. Stenn's pursuit of Douglas is chronicled, and we finally get to see Douglas onscreen. The way her life was changed by the assault, as confirmed by her estranged daughter and a grandson, is also emotional.
To say Ross, who died in the early 1960s with no charges ever brought against him, ruined Douglas' life would be an understatement. Everything was changed by the assault. Douglas' relationships with everyone around her was ruined. She was a virgin when attacked, and her life took a downward spiral that never recovered. There is no happy ending- Douglas doesn't lovingly reunite with her family, get revenge on Ross, or receive an official apology from the City of Los Angeles or MGM. She never smiles during the documentary, leading a sad and solitary life of late-night television, and not eating well after a few broken marriages. No one believed Douglas, despite a witness and necessary medical attention, so she bottled it up and shut down for the next few decades. She became a nobody living in an apartment in Las Vegas and watching MTV for the dancing- she was a background dancer in a few films, and was still a fan.
Eloise Spann, who committed suicide in 1960, could have been a great singer on film but stopped singing after her attack. Her adult son had never heard his mother sing until he was played an old film clip. As an audience, we don't get to hear Spann's voice because the studio holding the film's rights wouldn't release them to the documentary film makers, which speaks volumes about how things are in Hollywood all these years later.
Watch this movie and fight back against our culture of cruelty.
Stats:
(2007) 86 min. (9/10)
-Written and Directed by David Stenn
-With: Patricia Douglas, David Stenn, Judy Lewis, Peggy Montgomery, Richard W. Bann, Greta Van Susteren, Eloise Spann, Louis B. Mayer
-(Not Rated)- Physical violence, some sexual violence, sexual references, strong sexual violence references, strong sexual violence against children references, strong adult situations, alcohol and tobacco use
-Media Viewed: Streaming
The Devil's Chair (2007)
Patient Nick (Andrew Howard), living in a mental institution, is released into the care of psychiatrist Dr. Willard (David Gant) and must return to the scene of the crime that put him away four years earlier. The film starts out strong, with an unlikeable protagonist, good practical gore effects, and some really terrible computer animated effects, but it tends to drag here and there, with the lead character finally breaking the fourth wall. Much has been written about the film literally insulting the horror fan, but some of us in the community have thicker skins than that. The finale is ugly, and the last scene only led to more questions. I was going to give it a very good rating up until those last few minutes.
Stats:
(2007) 91 min. (3/10)
-Directed by Adam Mason
-Written by Adam Mason, Simon Boyes
-Cast: Andrew Howard, Louise Griffiths, David Gant, Elize du Toit, Matt Berry, Pollyanna Rose, Graham Riddell, Olivia Hill, Nadja Brand, Eric M. Breiman, Gary MacKay, Paul Sweeney
(US: Unrated)-(UK: 18)-(Au: R18+)- Strong physical violence, sexual violence, strong gore, strong profanity, sexual references, strong adult situations, drug abuse, alcohol and tobacco use.
Stats:
(2007) 91 min. (3/10)
-Directed by Adam Mason
-Written by Adam Mason, Simon Boyes
-Cast: Andrew Howard, Louise Griffiths, David Gant, Elize du Toit, Matt Berry, Pollyanna Rose, Graham Riddell, Olivia Hill, Nadja Brand, Eric M. Breiman, Gary MacKay, Paul Sweeney
(US: Unrated)-(UK: 18)-(Au: R18+)- Strong physical violence, sexual violence, strong gore, strong profanity, sexual references, strong adult situations, drug abuse, alcohol and tobacco use.
Mel Brooks: Seriously...Well, Almost (2024)
The film makers pull a bait-and-switch on the viewer with this disappointing documentary.
The description for the film promised that comedy legend Mel Brooks was going to discuss the films he produced uncredited. He didn't want his name attached to "The Elephant Man," David Lynch's heartbreaking 1980 drama, because with a title like that people might mistake it for one of his comedies. Brooks also had his hand in "Frances" and David Cronenberg's "The Fly," all films that no one should be guffawing at.
The film is a filmed interview with Brooks, who is as spry and sharp as ever as he closes in on 100 years old, and padded with onscreen factoids about whatever the subject being discussed is- including his comedies. In fact, despite the description, more time is spent on his comedies than his dramas. While this was very interesting, I still wanted to learn more about what attracted him to these heavy dramas and genre fare (1986's "Solarbabies" starring Jami Gertz and Jason Patric isn't even mentioned). The film makers waste time telling the viewer who Alfred Hitchcock and Errol Flynn are, and I spotted a misspelling in the end credits that should not have been there. Brooks mentions his wife Anne Bancroft, and I could have listened to another three hours of stories about her, instead of how "High Anxiety" got greenlighted.
"Mel Brooks: Seriously... Well, Almost" was a quick watch, and just as hurried. I looked at it as nothing but filler on a New Year's Eve before a new year brings in new movies.
Stats:
(2024) 38 min. (4/10)
-Directed by Stanley Isaacs
-Featuring Mel Brooks, Michael Gruskoff, Alan Ladd Jr.
-(US: NR)- Some profanity
The description for the film promised that comedy legend Mel Brooks was going to discuss the films he produced uncredited. He didn't want his name attached to "The Elephant Man," David Lynch's heartbreaking 1980 drama, because with a title like that people might mistake it for one of his comedies. Brooks also had his hand in "Frances" and David Cronenberg's "The Fly," all films that no one should be guffawing at.
The film is a filmed interview with Brooks, who is as spry and sharp as ever as he closes in on 100 years old, and padded with onscreen factoids about whatever the subject being discussed is- including his comedies. In fact, despite the description, more time is spent on his comedies than his dramas. While this was very interesting, I still wanted to learn more about what attracted him to these heavy dramas and genre fare (1986's "Solarbabies" starring Jami Gertz and Jason Patric isn't even mentioned). The film makers waste time telling the viewer who Alfred Hitchcock and Errol Flynn are, and I spotted a misspelling in the end credits that should not have been there. Brooks mentions his wife Anne Bancroft, and I could have listened to another three hours of stories about her, instead of how "High Anxiety" got greenlighted.
"Mel Brooks: Seriously... Well, Almost" was a quick watch, and just as hurried. I looked at it as nothing but filler on a New Year's Eve before a new year brings in new movies.
Stats:
(2024) 38 min. (4/10)
-Directed by Stanley Isaacs
-Featuring Mel Brooks, Michael Gruskoff, Alan Ladd Jr.
-(US: NR)- Some profanity
The Mother (2023)
The screenplay to "The Mother" is so bad, you don't have to wait until the end credits to ruminate on its flaws. The glaring plot holes and errors of logic occur in real time, and all the scenes of Jennifer Lopez kicking butt aren't going to save it.
Lopez is the title character, a perfect-shot military assassin who gets caught between two ruthless arms dealers- Adrian (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal) in a confusing guns-and-love triangle. She ends up pregnant, and gives birth to a girl who is immediately put up for adoption. Because of the danger to her daughter, Lopez must go on the run, using sympathetic FBI agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick) as her eyes and ears on her daughter's upbringing. Bad guys come back into The Mother's life in a big way after the-now twelve year old daughter Zoe's (Lucy Paez) whereabouts are discovered, and The Mother must spring into The Action.
Caro directs the film with confidence. There are long, complicated action sequences, and the cast is athletic and ready. A few too many overhead drone shots to be sure, but given the right screenplay, Caro could have directed set-pieces that enhanced the story and added to the suspense. This screenplay is not the right screenplay. I found myself wondering out loud what the writers were thinking. The characters onscreen weren't thinking, I could be an elite assassin, too, up against this bunch of henchmen. Every action film cliche ever concocted seems to have found its way onto the screen. At one point, there was a purposeful car crash that I saw coming a mile away, and the driver of the car that was struck should have also known what was literally coming from a mile away. The story tries to get metaphysical with the introduction of a mother wolf and her cubs that gets sillier as it goes along. The locations are used to their fullest extent, and are beautiful to look at. Lopez has some nice scenes, but her character is busy being off-putting and secretive, and her lack of emotion renders her performance stilted. Paez is pretty good as the twelve year old whose life is suddenly upended, but I found Hardwick's role bizarre. I'm beginning to think Cruise started out as two characters- the special agent whose life the Mother saves, and the helpy helperton who befriends Zoe's new family to keep an eye on her. Although villains, Bernal and Fiennes are barely here. With some name and gender switching, this could have served as a weak James Bond entry, or any other action film with an infinitely wealthy, special-ops protagonist who must go into isolation and await the standard army of villains to attack. The very final scene could have made a darker statement about the preceding two hours, but instead we get the warm fuzzies.
I went in cold to "The Mother," having no idea about its existence until it popped up on a streaming service. The film feels longer than under two hours, and it took me two days to complete. There is a lot about "The Mother" that should have worked.
Stats:
(2023) 115 min. (4/10)
-Directed by Niki Caro
-Screenplay by Misha Green and Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig, Story by Misha Green
-Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal, Lucy Paez, Omari Hardwick, Edie Falco, Paul Raci, Jesse Garcia, Yvonne Senat Jones, Michael Karl Richards, Link Baker, Mayumi Yoshida, Ryan Cowie
(R)- Strong physical violence, strong gun violence, gore, profanity, adult situations, drug abuse, alcohol and tobacco use
Media Viewed: Streaming
Lopez is the title character, a perfect-shot military assassin who gets caught between two ruthless arms dealers- Adrian (Joseph Fiennes) and Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal) in a confusing guns-and-love triangle. She ends up pregnant, and gives birth to a girl who is immediately put up for adoption. Because of the danger to her daughter, Lopez must go on the run, using sympathetic FBI agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick) as her eyes and ears on her daughter's upbringing. Bad guys come back into The Mother's life in a big way after the-now twelve year old daughter Zoe's (Lucy Paez) whereabouts are discovered, and The Mother must spring into The Action.
Caro directs the film with confidence. There are long, complicated action sequences, and the cast is athletic and ready. A few too many overhead drone shots to be sure, but given the right screenplay, Caro could have directed set-pieces that enhanced the story and added to the suspense. This screenplay is not the right screenplay. I found myself wondering out loud what the writers were thinking. The characters onscreen weren't thinking, I could be an elite assassin, too, up against this bunch of henchmen. Every action film cliche ever concocted seems to have found its way onto the screen. At one point, there was a purposeful car crash that I saw coming a mile away, and the driver of the car that was struck should have also known what was literally coming from a mile away. The story tries to get metaphysical with the introduction of a mother wolf and her cubs that gets sillier as it goes along. The locations are used to their fullest extent, and are beautiful to look at. Lopez has some nice scenes, but her character is busy being off-putting and secretive, and her lack of emotion renders her performance stilted. Paez is pretty good as the twelve year old whose life is suddenly upended, but I found Hardwick's role bizarre. I'm beginning to think Cruise started out as two characters- the special agent whose life the Mother saves, and the helpy helperton who befriends Zoe's new family to keep an eye on her. Although villains, Bernal and Fiennes are barely here. With some name and gender switching, this could have served as a weak James Bond entry, or any other action film with an infinitely wealthy, special-ops protagonist who must go into isolation and await the standard army of villains to attack. The very final scene could have made a darker statement about the preceding two hours, but instead we get the warm fuzzies.
I went in cold to "The Mother," having no idea about its existence until it popped up on a streaming service. The film feels longer than under two hours, and it took me two days to complete. There is a lot about "The Mother" that should have worked.
Stats:
(2023) 115 min. (4/10)
-Directed by Niki Caro
-Screenplay by Misha Green and Andrea Berloff and Peter Craig, Story by Misha Green
-Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal, Lucy Paez, Omari Hardwick, Edie Falco, Paul Raci, Jesse Garcia, Yvonne Senat Jones, Michael Karl Richards, Link Baker, Mayumi Yoshida, Ryan Cowie
(R)- Strong physical violence, strong gun violence, gore, profanity, adult situations, drug abuse, alcohol and tobacco use
Media Viewed: Streaming
The Tomb of Nosferatu (2023)
Arthur Dark of the fantastic YouTube channel "Hollywood Graveyard" takes another stab at turning the cemetery video tour on its head, and comes up with a fun idea.
Arthur (Arthur Dark) and Helen (Lauren Foulk credited as Lauren Ashley) tour Europe, visiting the graves of the director and cast of 1922's "Nosferatu," as well as the film's locations. While in a graveyard, Helen is possessed by an entity who has ties to the film, and Arthur must rescue her.
The film is a strange combination of horror and documentary, but the fun comes from Dark and Foulk's scenes being shot silent film-style, as the original "Nosferatu" was shot by F.W. Murnau. Dark and Nathan D. Lee have fun with the medium without calling attention to themselves in deference to both the original film and the visits to the cemeteries and the film's locations. The film is not bloody or horrific in the least, and Dark brings the same respect he shows on "Hollywood Graveyard" to this project. Giuseppe Vasapolli's music is beyond perfect, just like his theme on the YouTube channel, and this clocks in at a brisk thirty-six minutes.
I liked this a little better than Dark's "The Graves of Edgar Allan Poe & The Women Who Haunted Him," and I think it would interest any fan of horror, German film, and film history.
Stats:
(2023) 36 min. (7/10)
-Written and Directed by Arthur Dark & Nathan D. Lee
-Cast: Arthur Dark, Lauren Foulk, Matthew Toronto, Susie Schwab, Karie Bible, Max Schreck, Greta Schroder, Gustav von Wangenheim
-(US: NR)- Mild adult situations
Arthur (Arthur Dark) and Helen (Lauren Foulk credited as Lauren Ashley) tour Europe, visiting the graves of the director and cast of 1922's "Nosferatu," as well as the film's locations. While in a graveyard, Helen is possessed by an entity who has ties to the film, and Arthur must rescue her.
The film is a strange combination of horror and documentary, but the fun comes from Dark and Foulk's scenes being shot silent film-style, as the original "Nosferatu" was shot by F.W. Murnau. Dark and Nathan D. Lee have fun with the medium without calling attention to themselves in deference to both the original film and the visits to the cemeteries and the film's locations. The film is not bloody or horrific in the least, and Dark brings the same respect he shows on "Hollywood Graveyard" to this project. Giuseppe Vasapolli's music is beyond perfect, just like his theme on the YouTube channel, and this clocks in at a brisk thirty-six minutes.
I liked this a little better than Dark's "The Graves of Edgar Allan Poe & The Women Who Haunted Him," and I think it would interest any fan of horror, German film, and film history.
Stats:
(2023) 36 min. (7/10)
-Written and Directed by Arthur Dark & Nathan D. Lee
-Cast: Arthur Dark, Lauren Foulk, Matthew Toronto, Susie Schwab, Karie Bible, Max Schreck, Greta Schroder, Gustav von Wangenheim
-(US: NR)- Mild adult situations
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
The "Evil Dead" franchise continues with this gory prequel, showing how things began and how we eventually ended up out in a cabin in the woods.
Semi-estranged sisters, pregnant Beth (Lily Sullivan) and mom Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), are reunited in Los Angeles on the same night that an earthquake shakes Ellie's gorgeous but dilapidated high rise apartment building that is due to be torn down. Ellie's kids- climate warrior Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), aspiring DJ Danny (Morgan Davies, and young Kassie (Nell Fisher) discover an abandoned bank vault in the basement of the building, and Danny unwisely grabs some old vinyl and a strange book from the now unsealed vault. Danny plays the recordings, the book does some odd things on its own, and literally all Hell breaks loose.
From the opening attack, and a very memorable title sequence, writer/director Lee Cronin starts things off with a bang and never lets up. There is no exposition, no "let me get this straight..." dialogue, the broken family and the audience are thrown into the melee and left to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, this is sometimes a detriment, as Cronin can't keep all the plates spinning at once. A couple of scenes suck all the tension out of the film, and it takes a little while to pull the viewer back in. This is a modern horror film, so stupid decisions and predictable plot points abound. The cast, unfamiliar to me, is top notch. Sullivan and Sutherland stand out, and are bolstered by a capable supporting cast. Stephen McKeon's musical score is a triumph, and Cronin doesn't feel the need to resort to jump scares. The art direction and set decoration were Oscar nomination-worthy. This was shot in New Zealand, which gives the film a nice, off-kilter feel.
It was nice to watch a franchise film where I didn't have to "do homework" by viewing hours of preceding films and television episodes to get caught up. The positives barely outweigh the negatives, and I am warning anyone who might want to watch this- "Evil Dead Rise" is one of the goriest mainstream films I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot.
Stats:
(2023) 96 min. (6/10)
-Written and Directed by Lee Cronin
-Cast: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, Jayden Daniels, Mark Mitchinson, Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anne-Maree Thomas, Noah Paul, Tai Wano, Bruce Campbell
-(US:R)-(UK:18)-(Au:R18+)- Very strong physical violence, strong gun violence, very strong violence involving children, extreme gore, profanity, some sexual references, very strong adult situations, tobacco use
Semi-estranged sisters, pregnant Beth (Lily Sullivan) and mom Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), are reunited in Los Angeles on the same night that an earthquake shakes Ellie's gorgeous but dilapidated high rise apartment building that is due to be torn down. Ellie's kids- climate warrior Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), aspiring DJ Danny (Morgan Davies, and young Kassie (Nell Fisher) discover an abandoned bank vault in the basement of the building, and Danny unwisely grabs some old vinyl and a strange book from the now unsealed vault. Danny plays the recordings, the book does some odd things on its own, and literally all Hell breaks loose.
From the opening attack, and a very memorable title sequence, writer/director Lee Cronin starts things off with a bang and never lets up. There is no exposition, no "let me get this straight..." dialogue, the broken family and the audience are thrown into the melee and left to fend for themselves. Unfortunately, this is sometimes a detriment, as Cronin can't keep all the plates spinning at once. A couple of scenes suck all the tension out of the film, and it takes a little while to pull the viewer back in. This is a modern horror film, so stupid decisions and predictable plot points abound. The cast, unfamiliar to me, is top notch. Sullivan and Sutherland stand out, and are bolstered by a capable supporting cast. Stephen McKeon's musical score is a triumph, and Cronin doesn't feel the need to resort to jump scares. The art direction and set decoration were Oscar nomination-worthy. This was shot in New Zealand, which gives the film a nice, off-kilter feel.
It was nice to watch a franchise film where I didn't have to "do homework" by viewing hours of preceding films and television episodes to get caught up. The positives barely outweigh the negatives, and I am warning anyone who might want to watch this- "Evil Dead Rise" is one of the goriest mainstream films I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot.
Stats:
(2023) 96 min. (6/10)
-Written and Directed by Lee Cronin
-Cast: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, Jayden Daniels, Mark Mitchinson, Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anne-Maree Thomas, Noah Paul, Tai Wano, Bruce Campbell
-(US:R)-(UK:18)-(Au:R18+)- Very strong physical violence, strong gun violence, very strong violence involving children, extreme gore, profanity, some sexual references, very strong adult situations, tobacco use
Saturday, February 14, 2026
ARTICLE INDEX
Articles by Charles T. Tatum, Jr.:
- "A Brief History of Sims, North Dakota"
- "Is This Necessary?: A Thought on Stoicism and Christianity"
- "Oscar Denied: The 1977 Best Picture Academy Award"
- "Oscar Denied: The 1996 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Four Comedies and a Funeral"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: The Fundamental Four T's"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: I See U"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: It All Begins with 'A'"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Laa-Dee-Documentaries"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: The Malevolent Seven"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Oh, I Got Your Variety Right Here"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Variety Is the Spice of Life"
- "The Best Horror Films of the 1980's (as of 2003)"
- "The Worst Horror Films of the 1980's (as of 2003)"
- "A Brief History of Sims, North Dakota"
- "Is This Necessary?: A Thought on Stoicism and Christianity"
- "Oscar Denied: The 1977 Best Picture Academy Award"
- "Oscar Denied: The 1996 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Four Comedies and a Funeral"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: The Fundamental Four T's"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: I See U"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: It All Begins with 'A'"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Laa-Dee-Documentaries"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: The Malevolent Seven"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Oh, I Got Your Variety Right Here"
- "The Video Store Grab 'n' Run: Variety Is the Spice of Life"
- "The Best Horror Films of the 1980's (as of 2003)"
- "The Worst Horror Films of the 1980's (as of 2003)"
Is This Necessary?: A Thought on Stoicism and Christianity by Charles T. Tatum, Jr.
This article was an offshoot of a review I wrote after reading How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious by Fritz Ridenour. It started as notes in a deep-read notebook, and then took on a life of its own:
“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top— credit for the good deed or a favor in return?”- Marcus Aurelius
“If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.”- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
"For the Christian, every trial, every problem can be a useful experience to build his faith, his confidence, his hope, his happiness...if he faces it by relying on the Holy Spirit."- Fritz Ridenour, How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious
It was by chance that I read the three quotations above on the same day, and thought through a connection between them. Not only is "is this necessary?" a profound question to ask yourself, but you must pause to remember to ask it, instead of chalking up a decision to chance or whimsy. Asking over a simple choice makes harder decisions easier to discern and understand. You might still make a "bad" decision, but you'll be able to justify your decision-making process to others (and yourself) who question or disagree. You might understand why they felt they were right, or you can explain why an unpopular decision worked. I want to do better in keeping the "is this necessary?" question in my head, especially concerning helping support my family and better self-care, but also in my quest to build my faith.
"Vacations are necessary, relaxing and free time are necessary, replacing my broken stove is necessary- right?" I agree. One person's necessity may be different from another, but be careful in assuming the eight hours you spend on your phone or in front of your television, while ignoring your family, is necessary. Calling everything you do necessary, as long as you aren't sinning, is a dangerous habit. Deciding to rant online about your obnoxious neighbor may not be necessary, the question doesn't just apply to physical things in our lives. Instead of watching the newest Hollywood fan service reboot, remake, and/or reimagining (I'll argue the necessity of that all day long), maybe play with your kids, read a book, or go for a walk? Pray? Read your Bible? When I'm alone in the house with children in school, and my son is napping (also a necessity!), I'll shut off the TV or computer, put the phone down (but not on silent in case a school needs to get ahold of me), and sit. I'm trying to teach myself to meditate, but as of now, I can feel the stress leave me by listening to the quiet around me for a few minutes. I am also trying to go for more walks on a whim instead of a hardcore scheduling ritual that I beat myself up over if it's raining outside, I hurt, or my baby son is overtired and wants to be held. Is getting mad at myself over a stagnant weight loss effort, or the weather, necessary? No, but standing on our porch and watching the rain fall is necessary to me. Cutting down on distractions also tends to cut down on getting distracted. I don't watch any sports anymore. We have one streaming service we never look at, no cable, and no satellite television. We own a thousand movies on disc and digital, I have a few hundred books I want to read, and the only television station we watch consistently is MeTV over the air, and some programming on YouTube. We literally pay zero dollars for television content, and trust me, the calm we feel about that alone is immeasurable- plus with three kids under the age of seven, who has the time?
Ridenour says challenges teach patience, and patience strengthens character- turn life's trials into something positive. Combine this thought with Marcus Aurelius'- how many of our challenges are due to us not asking "is this necessary?" We can work through our challenges with God's help, we shouldn't stop praying and try to handle troubles on our own, but we can use our knowledge of God's love for us to help answer the question. We wouldn't need to ask "is this necessary?" if the situation involves sin. We have been given a great gift that we don't deserve because of God's grace, so questioning whether we should commit a sin shouldn't require analysis or a second thought. Have God help you when you're undecided or troubled- "is this necessary?"- let Him show you that yes or no, He loves you and wants to help, especially when you subconsciously know the answer.
“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top— credit for the good deed or a favor in return?”- Marcus Aurelius
“If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.”- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
"For the Christian, every trial, every problem can be a useful experience to build his faith, his confidence, his hope, his happiness...if he faces it by relying on the Holy Spirit."- Fritz Ridenour, How to Be a Christian Without Being Religious
It was by chance that I read the three quotations above on the same day, and thought through a connection between them. Not only is "is this necessary?" a profound question to ask yourself, but you must pause to remember to ask it, instead of chalking up a decision to chance or whimsy. Asking over a simple choice makes harder decisions easier to discern and understand. You might still make a "bad" decision, but you'll be able to justify your decision-making process to others (and yourself) who question or disagree. You might understand why they felt they were right, or you can explain why an unpopular decision worked. I want to do better in keeping the "is this necessary?" question in my head, especially concerning helping support my family and better self-care, but also in my quest to build my faith.
"Vacations are necessary, relaxing and free time are necessary, replacing my broken stove is necessary- right?" I agree. One person's necessity may be different from another, but be careful in assuming the eight hours you spend on your phone or in front of your television, while ignoring your family, is necessary. Calling everything you do necessary, as long as you aren't sinning, is a dangerous habit. Deciding to rant online about your obnoxious neighbor may not be necessary, the question doesn't just apply to physical things in our lives. Instead of watching the newest Hollywood fan service reboot, remake, and/or reimagining (I'll argue the necessity of that all day long), maybe play with your kids, read a book, or go for a walk? Pray? Read your Bible? When I'm alone in the house with children in school, and my son is napping (also a necessity!), I'll shut off the TV or computer, put the phone down (but not on silent in case a school needs to get ahold of me), and sit. I'm trying to teach myself to meditate, but as of now, I can feel the stress leave me by listening to the quiet around me for a few minutes. I am also trying to go for more walks on a whim instead of a hardcore scheduling ritual that I beat myself up over if it's raining outside, I hurt, or my baby son is overtired and wants to be held. Is getting mad at myself over a stagnant weight loss effort, or the weather, necessary? No, but standing on our porch and watching the rain fall is necessary to me. Cutting down on distractions also tends to cut down on getting distracted. I don't watch any sports anymore. We have one streaming service we never look at, no cable, and no satellite television. We own a thousand movies on disc and digital, I have a few hundred books I want to read, and the only television station we watch consistently is MeTV over the air, and some programming on YouTube. We literally pay zero dollars for television content, and trust me, the calm we feel about that alone is immeasurable- plus with three kids under the age of seven, who has the time?
Ridenour says challenges teach patience, and patience strengthens character- turn life's trials into something positive. Combine this thought with Marcus Aurelius'- how many of our challenges are due to us not asking "is this necessary?" We can work through our challenges with God's help, we shouldn't stop praying and try to handle troubles on our own, but we can use our knowledge of God's love for us to help answer the question. We wouldn't need to ask "is this necessary?" if the situation involves sin. We have been given a great gift that we don't deserve because of God's grace, so questioning whether we should commit a sin shouldn't require analysis or a second thought. Have God help you when you're undecided or troubled- "is this necessary?"- let Him show you that yes or no, He loves you and wants to help, especially when you subconsciously know the answer.
A Brief History of Sims, North Dakota by Charles T. Tatum, Jr.
Before 1878, the Northern Pacific surveyors made their way west from Mandan, North Dakota and discovered a valley now known as Sims Valley. A thick vein of coal was discovered in 1878 when the NPRR was extending their road bed. Thanks to the coal, clay, and ample running spring water that did not freeze in the winter, a station was built. Trains could now take on water all year round. In 1879, the railroad tracks reached the new stop.
Sims wnet through a few names at first. Baby Mine and Bly's Mine were considered, as was Carbon, named for a new brick plant. Sims was named after George V. Sims, chief clerk in the executive office of the railroad in New York, on July 5, 1879. It is also reported that the town was named for a Captain W.H. Sims, a northern Missouri River boat captain. 1879 also saw the opening of the N.P. Coal Company by Charles W. Thompson.
Charles William Thompson was a native of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and the son of an Army general. He went to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and attended the U.S. Military Academy, before becoming a civil engineer for the South Pacific Railway. Thompson was a colonel in the National Guard Dakota, and fought in the Indian Wars.
The mines grew until there were seven in operation. A post office was established on May 2, 1883, with Theodore Shenkenberg serving as postmaster. The same year, the NPRR platted the townsite. Thompson also opened the first store in May, and organized a bank in July with himself as president and Shenkenberg as cashier. The bank was constructed but never opened. In 1884, the output from the coal mine was about 100 tons a day, taken from five different veins.
The coal company built a $15,000 hotel, which was opened to the public as the Oakes House. It was the largest hotel west of Fargo, according to some. Thompson was then the general manager of the coal company.
Charles W. Thompson also opened a brick yard in Sims. The Carbon Pressed Brick and Lime Company had Thompson as president, W.A. Dows as vice president, and J.H. Hansel as secretary and treasurer. Thompson had the contract to build the first state capitol building. Sims brick went into many local buildings, and the Morton County Courthouse in Mandan. It is said that Sims lost the county seat designation to Mandan by just one vote.
Also in 1884, the community organized the Sims Skandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation. The members built a parsonage and held services in the top story, and the minister and his family lived on the main floor. The members got the needed materials to construct their church from an abandoned building in Sims. The church was also said to be the oldest Lutheran church west of the Missouri River.
As Sims was growing, the railroad would send in work gangs of over a hundred people. They would dig ovens in the surrounding hills, and the smell of baked bread woul be evident for miles. Since Sims was the main shipping point west of Mandan, there was a 21-pen stockyard west of the depot. Herds from as far away as South Dakota were driven there for delivery to Chicago or St. Paul.
At its peak, the town was over a mile long. Two additions, Balasta and Ramstown, were added to the town. Sims boasted saloons, a brick schoolhouse, three stores, a lumber yard, two real estate offices, and a Presbyterian church. A fortress was dug out on top of the Anderson hill for protection against Native Americans. The coal mines and brick yard employed over 500 people, with Sims' population being well over a thousand at this time.
The old central part of the state capitol in Bismarck was faced with brick from Sims. It was light colored, and considered very attractive. Unfortunately, the surface began to crumble. The clay from Sims had specks of lime, which slacked and left holes in the brick. The $30,000 brick plant was abandoned. Hard coal was discovered in Montana, so the railroad decided to close the Sims mines in favor of the new hard coal. Speculators not interested in settling moved on as well.
Charles W. Thompson ended up in Washington state in 1890. He became president of Washington Cooperative Mining Syndicate, and Montezuma Mining Company. He owned several valuable copper, gold, and silver properties in Pierce County, Washington. He made his home in Tacoma, Washington and later died.
Sims, North Dakota died as well. In 1906, the population was 300. In 1910, Sims could claim just 86. On October 31, 1947, the post office was discontinued and the mail was routed to Almont. The town continued with a few businesses until December of 1947 when a railroad line change took place. A new line went from New Salem to Glen Ullin, cutting off Sims, Almont, and Curlew. The railroad tracks were taken up a year later. In 1975, Sims had a population of one, and it disappeared from most state atlases and road maps.
--Charles T. Tatum, Jr.
SOURCES:
Almont Golden Jubilee 1906-1956, Almont, ND: 1956.
Crawford, Lewis F., History of North Dakota, Vol. 1, Chicago and New York: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1931.
Fristad, Paula, Historical Mandan and Morton County: Early Days to 1970, Mandan, ND: 1970.
Gallagher, John S., and Patera, Alan H., North Dakota Post Offices 1850-1982, Burtonsville, MD: The Depot, 1982.
Peterson, Marion Plath, ed., Morton Prairie Roots, Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Co., 1975.
"Thompson, Charles William," Who Was Who in America, Vol. 1: 1897-1942, Chicago: Marquis Publications, 1968.
Tostevin, Sarah, ed., "Mantani" A History of Mandan- Morton County including Fort McKeen and Fort Abraham Lincoln 1738 to 1964, Mandan, ND: 1964.
Copyright Charles T. Tatum, Jr.
Sims wnet through a few names at first. Baby Mine and Bly's Mine were considered, as was Carbon, named for a new brick plant. Sims was named after George V. Sims, chief clerk in the executive office of the railroad in New York, on July 5, 1879. It is also reported that the town was named for a Captain W.H. Sims, a northern Missouri River boat captain. 1879 also saw the opening of the N.P. Coal Company by Charles W. Thompson.
Charles William Thompson was a native of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and the son of an Army general. He went to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and attended the U.S. Military Academy, before becoming a civil engineer for the South Pacific Railway. Thompson was a colonel in the National Guard Dakota, and fought in the Indian Wars.
The mines grew until there were seven in operation. A post office was established on May 2, 1883, with Theodore Shenkenberg serving as postmaster. The same year, the NPRR platted the townsite. Thompson also opened the first store in May, and organized a bank in July with himself as president and Shenkenberg as cashier. The bank was constructed but never opened. In 1884, the output from the coal mine was about 100 tons a day, taken from five different veins.
The coal company built a $15,000 hotel, which was opened to the public as the Oakes House. It was the largest hotel west of Fargo, according to some. Thompson was then the general manager of the coal company.
Charles W. Thompson also opened a brick yard in Sims. The Carbon Pressed Brick and Lime Company had Thompson as president, W.A. Dows as vice president, and J.H. Hansel as secretary and treasurer. Thompson had the contract to build the first state capitol building. Sims brick went into many local buildings, and the Morton County Courthouse in Mandan. It is said that Sims lost the county seat designation to Mandan by just one vote.
Also in 1884, the community organized the Sims Skandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Congregation. The members built a parsonage and held services in the top story, and the minister and his family lived on the main floor. The members got the needed materials to construct their church from an abandoned building in Sims. The church was also said to be the oldest Lutheran church west of the Missouri River.
As Sims was growing, the railroad would send in work gangs of over a hundred people. They would dig ovens in the surrounding hills, and the smell of baked bread woul be evident for miles. Since Sims was the main shipping point west of Mandan, there was a 21-pen stockyard west of the depot. Herds from as far away as South Dakota were driven there for delivery to Chicago or St. Paul.
At its peak, the town was over a mile long. Two additions, Balasta and Ramstown, were added to the town. Sims boasted saloons, a brick schoolhouse, three stores, a lumber yard, two real estate offices, and a Presbyterian church. A fortress was dug out on top of the Anderson hill for protection against Native Americans. The coal mines and brick yard employed over 500 people, with Sims' population being well over a thousand at this time.
The old central part of the state capitol in Bismarck was faced with brick from Sims. It was light colored, and considered very attractive. Unfortunately, the surface began to crumble. The clay from Sims had specks of lime, which slacked and left holes in the brick. The $30,000 brick plant was abandoned. Hard coal was discovered in Montana, so the railroad decided to close the Sims mines in favor of the new hard coal. Speculators not interested in settling moved on as well.
Charles W. Thompson ended up in Washington state in 1890. He became president of Washington Cooperative Mining Syndicate, and Montezuma Mining Company. He owned several valuable copper, gold, and silver properties in Pierce County, Washington. He made his home in Tacoma, Washington and later died.
Sims, North Dakota died as well. In 1906, the population was 300. In 1910, Sims could claim just 86. On October 31, 1947, the post office was discontinued and the mail was routed to Almont. The town continued with a few businesses until December of 1947 when a railroad line change took place. A new line went from New Salem to Glen Ullin, cutting off Sims, Almont, and Curlew. The railroad tracks were taken up a year later. In 1975, Sims had a population of one, and it disappeared from most state atlases and road maps.
--Charles T. Tatum, Jr.
SOURCES:
Almont Golden Jubilee 1906-1956, Almont, ND: 1956.
Crawford, Lewis F., History of North Dakota, Vol. 1, Chicago and New York: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1931.
Fristad, Paula, Historical Mandan and Morton County: Early Days to 1970, Mandan, ND: 1970.
Gallagher, John S., and Patera, Alan H., North Dakota Post Offices 1850-1982, Burtonsville, MD: The Depot, 1982.
Peterson, Marion Plath, ed., Morton Prairie Roots, Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Co., 1975.
"Thompson, Charles William," Who Was Who in America, Vol. 1: 1897-1942, Chicago: Marquis Publications, 1968.
Tostevin, Sarah, ed., "Mantani" A History of Mandan- Morton County including Fort McKeen and Fort Abraham Lincoln 1738 to 1964, Mandan, ND: 1964.
Copyright Charles T. Tatum, Jr.
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