Who wants to write about Terminator again anyway? It’s one of the first movies people mention when the topic of AI. comes up, and that’s fair, but it’s also a little bit lazy. There’s a lot of movies about artificial intelligence out there. More than you probably suspect. Certainly, more than I would have ever guessed. And to be honest, I don’t think Skynet or whatever is going to be the thing that does us in. I do worry there’s […]

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It seems reasonable to want to do something special for the 100th consecutive edition of Make the Case, which is nearly as old as Cultured Vultures itself at this point (give or take a couple years). I’ve been wanting to rank every Coen Brothers movie from worst to best for a while now. The 100th edition of the column just seems like a good opportunity to dive into two of my favorite filmmakers of all time: Joel and Ethan Coen. […]

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It’s nice that, as a Godzilla fan, two things have happened to me in this decade. I’ve been able to see no less than two Godzilla classics on the big screen, playing on U.S. screens for the first time. I’ve also been able to write professionally and on several occasions about the character and his iconic, almost peerless franchise persisting for over 60 years. These movies mean a lot to me, and I owe a significant debt of this appreciation […]

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When David Warner died on July 24th, 2022, just five days shy of what would have been his 81st birthday, I finally fired up the 2018 Disney effort Mary Poppins Returns. The movie was mostly crap, but I watched it mostly for the fact that David Warner was in it. The 1962 original featured Reginald Owen in the role of a lunatic naval officer who lives next door to the Banks family and fires a cannon from his roof twice […]

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My relationship with movie franchises seems to get weirder, even self-contradictory, as time goes on. I’m not opposed on principle to sequels, or reboots/remakes for that matter. My feelings about franchises in particular varies from one series to the next. Some franchises are so deeply entrenched in my good graces, or are simply respecting unique/minimal expectations, it’s almost impossible for me to get sick of them. Others have a much shorter lifespan. I’ll just say I don’t mind revisiting characters […]

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I’m not the first one to take a closer look at the IMDb Bottom 100, but it’s too fascinating and weird a list to ignore. The Internet Movie Database has been around for decades at this point. I’ve been using it for research or news for at least 25 years. IMDb also has some sway with their rating system. High ratings have been touted for movies and TV in the past, and our culture as a whole generally forgets that […]

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Somehow, across nearly 100 columns, we’ve never really explored unusual cinematic love stories. Or at least my definition of movies with weird love stories. This is another category with a number of different interpretations, as well as dozens of possible titles to recommend. So as always, this is just a quick study on my particular answer to what I personally like with movies in which an unusual love story is the centerpiece of the narrative. We can talk about movies […]

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I’m generally someone who’s content with the ending of a movie. Yet, like most of you, I’m also curious more often than not when there’s one or more alternate endings for a movie. For me personally it’s rare that a movie’s alternate conclusion becomes a more appropriate fit than what was ultimately chosen for release. To be fair, alternate endings are often experienced in the abstract, meaning we don’t watch them with the movie itself. We have to make that […]

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Classic noir holds a natural place in my heart. Films featuring directors like Robert Siodmak and Jacques Tourneur, or actors such as Veronica Lake, Robert Mitchum, Sterling Hayden, or Gloria Grahame. Neo-noir found its footing in the 70s and 80s, combining traits of the noir genre with more modern attitudes and ideas about the state of the world. Dark, dangerous stories of betrayal, desperation, and often love swirled with a certain singular madness are always going to have a place […]

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The bad news: I’m moving to Florida in a few months. The good news: At long, glorious last I’ll be living in the state where classics of cinema like Scarface, Jack-O, and Two Thousand Maniacs! were filmed. Florida is one of those states that seemingly works well as a representation of America as a whole. This is because a lot of weird, quintessentially American things happen there, most of which run the gamut from bizarre to hideous. Strange things can […]

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Well, it’s September. Among other things, this means that if you’re able to do so, you’ve probably gone on vacation. Or at least something that you have decided technically fits the parameters of a vacation. Many don’t even have that luxury. If that’s you, then maybe you’re going to have a unique appreciation of this month’s Make the Case pulling focus on movies about terrible vacations and dreadful, even dangerous getaways. As a writer, my own concept of a vacation […]

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Trying something a little different this month at Make the Case, with the column expanding from 5 movies to 7. We’ll see how it goes. We may just jump back and forth between different numbers that suit me. Who can say. The world is madness. Are kids today, or the youths as I think they’re still probably called by someone, somewhere, getting that good and weird stuff in their movie diets? It probably doesn’t matter, but there does seem to […]

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Well, everyone, we did it. I finally get to rank a film series that has been a meaningful part of my life for as long as anything else I associate with the best of what movies mean to me. This has been a long time coming for Make the Case. I’ve wanted to rank these films for a while now, beginning with the 1979 success of The Muppet Movie. Well-liked movies in my childhood, the Muppet films have in adulthood […]

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You can add photography to the long list of things I wish I was good at without having to put any actual effort into it. In other words, I’ve always had an interest, but it’s ultimately just fine with me to live vicariously through others. Supporting and appreciating living (and some dead) photographers is the obvious path for that. Movies that feature the art or necessity of photography in some way, or even movies about or crucially involving photographers can […]

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In March, I looked at the concept of redemption in movies. Five films was never going to be even close to covering the subject to my satisfaction, let alone in full. If any subject deserves a second part, a first for this column, it would be this particular theme. When I write a Make the Case column, I begin by making up a list of twenty or thirty movies that might fit the theme in mind. I’ll look at IMDB […]

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