Featured Movies

Shocker: It's really good! But you know that by now. Joss Whedon finally gets the big project that WORKS on every level that we always knew he had in him. Numerous superheroes come together and interact in a way that doesn't feel contrived, in a story that, amazingly, feels like a STORY and not a marketing concept.

So this is the second on the "Three Mothers" trilogy from our old pal Dario Argento, and is about an old haunted apartment building. The crucial thing to know about this movie--and essential key to enjoyment--is that it makes absolutely no sense, and is just a series of barely-related [but uniformly awesome] horror set pieces.

It's the old, Universal Mummy, with Boris Karloff, and goll-dang is it good. Wicked explorers dig up a grave marked with a warning, and what they get is killed off one by one as Karloff--the reanimated mummy--tries to kill the alluring Helen, have the old egyptian princess possess her, then bring her back to life.

Jack Black stars as a super-nice Texan man who takes up with a rich widow twice his age. Everyone in town hates her, and when Bernie shoots her four times in the back, then leaves her body in the freezer and pretends she's still alive for months, everyone thinks she had it coming and no one wants to prosecute sweet old Bernie.

The Unique CdM Rating System...

...Evaluates a movie's goodness AND badness! OLIVIAS represent GOODNESS, DIVINES represent BADNESS

Scintillating Essay

How bad IS 'John Carter?'

It's the flop of 2012, and it's supposed to be horrendously awful. But exactly HOW bad? Let's ask some of the writers on the IMDb, who were so enraged by the experience they felt compelled to publicly lash out.

Enthralling Videocast

The Birds: Explained!

Here you will encounter my answer to the enduring question about this film: Why do the birds attack? I point out that if you pay attention to the non-attack material, you can see that the bird attacks are the physical manifestation of the mother's rage against rival's for her son's affection.

Readers Respond

It's really interesting to get a gay perspective on some of the movies I know inside and out. You've raised points that as a straight guy I've never noticed before. Then when I watch the movie in question again, I wonder "How the HELL did I miss that???"

-- Andy, England

Two Random Photos