"There ain't any jail of steel or stone that can hold a body prisoner as tight as one built of old age ... and lack of money."

If I Had A million is a rare kind of film for 1932. The industry was barely out of the silent era, and stories needed to be tight and usually short. Short was the word of the day for this film. It became the first feature film to be released as an anthology with plenty of A-list stars and several directors, each taking on their own little piece of the pie. It was a rather brilliant idea for the time, but sadly this style of filmmaking wouldn't really start to catch on until the 1970's, starting almost exclusively with horror films and later creating its own little niche genre in mainstream filmmaking. It's still somewhat popular today with directors like Wes Anderson embarrassing certain elements of the format. It was a brave choice that wasn't quite rewarding enough to see the format flourish ... yet. This is the perfect film for all of you with short attention spans who want to get a taste of the films of the period. It's a nice collection of stars from the period, to be sure. KL Studios adds this awkward little gem on Blu-ray, and I must insist that you give it a try. You just might have a great time with it all.

"I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot!"

Often it seems some films were made to collect a mantle-full of awards. For some it's the Oscars they covet. For others it might be a Golden Globe award or even a People's Choice Award. As a member of two critics’ guilds, I have to make these assessments every year. I know how important these accolades can be for a film and the people who created it. But there's one award that films (almost) never set out to obtain. Still it can provide endurance for a film and help new audiences to embrace it. I'm talking about those Golden Turkey awards, and few films ever made deserve the Golden Turkey than 1953's Robot Monster. When you hear folks talk about how monstrous that movie is ... they're not talking about the creature itself. They're talking about the film. The movie has recently been restored and is looking better than it ever did in a theater. Now that restoration is available on Blu-ray both in a standard format and its original 3-D presentation. They even included a pair of those old red and blue glasses so you can experience the film just like they did back in the 1950's. It's pure schlock, and it's never looked better. William Castle was the king of the gimmick horror/sci-fi film, but in 1953 Robot Monster would have given him a run for his money. For just a minute or two, Robot Monster was the best of the worst and the worst of the best. Now it's your turn to check it out.

In 2017 What the Waters Left Behind made some waves as a horror film that came out of Argentina.  It was shot on a pretty low budget, but it seems it was successful enough to warrant a sequel. I actually stumbled across What the Waters Left Behind on a streaming service one late night when I couldn’t sleep. The film is pretty much made for late-night viewing; it has a fun midnight movie vibe. The first film follows a group of documentary filmmakers that are traveling to the town of Epecuen that was wiped out in the 80’s, and the filmmakers want to check out the ruins of the town. What follows is a fun Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets The Hills Have Eyes romp filled with plenty of gore and the terrible demise of this film crew that wandered where they didn’t belong. Now it is five years later, and we have the sequel What the Waters Left Behind: Scars.  This was unexpected, but just what did I think about this Latin-flavored bloodfest? Well, it’s pretty much what I expected, and that’s a good thing.

This time around instead of a documentary film crew we are getting to follow The Ravens, a rock band that is winding up their tour with a last gig in a small bar and an even smaller fan base. The band is ready to head home after the gig, but the drummer has other plans when he hooks up with a local girl who promises them a place to stay if they give her a ride home.  She just happens to live in Epecuen.

"Who's ready for contact poker?"

The first season of Your Honor was very much a contact sport. The first 20 minutes was some of the most compelling television I've ever seen. Bryan Cranston started us off as the titular judge Michael Desiato. He's known as a tough but fair judge. He's got a pretty good life until his son makes a fatal mistake and sets the series on its course. Adam has an early morning accident where he runs down another teen and leaves him for dead. Michael's first reaction is of course for Adam to turn himself in to the police. But at the station he learns the victim was the son of the local mob boss, Jimmy Baxter, played ruthlessly by Michael Stuhlberg. Michael knows that if Jimmy finds out who killed his son, he'll kill Adam. So the first season covers his elaborate plan to cover up the crime. That meant asking his childhood friend, local politician Charlie Figaro, to help get rid of the car. Fortunately, Charlie is played by the great Isiah Whitlock, Jr. You know him as Councilman Clay Davis from The Wire and he was underused in the first season. Even more fortunate for us is that he has a much bigger role here in Season 2. That cover-up ended up unintentionally framing a young black kid. So it's the black kid's family that gets taken out in explosive force by the Baxter family. Jimmy finds out anyway and is forced to fix a trial for another Baxter child in order to save Adam's life. It ends up not working out, as Adam gets killed by the surviving teen of the Jones family, and a war between The Baxters and the drug family that calls itself Devine is the result. Michael ends up in prison, and now you're up to speed.

Not sure if this film will go down in history for any real significant impact. However, there is one important gem to take away from this film: this is the movie where the king of cool found his queen. That’s right, The Experts is the movie in which John Travolta met Kelly Preston, and the rest, I suppose, is history, as the two went on to have a nearly thirty-year marriage until her tragic death in 2020. In the film, it is quite fitting that the two served as each other’s love interests, despite some clear geopolitical differences. I’d say that is putting it mildly given that Preston is a Russian sleeper agent and Travolta is the unwitting American who is teaching her to pass for American. That is the premise of the film, as Travolta along with Arye Gross of House 2: The Second Story fame are couple of club-goers and aspiring club owners who unknowingly are recruited to teach modern ways to the outdated town of Russian sleeper agents under the auspices of opening a nightclub. The film gives Bill and Ted vibes, which is ironic given that the film predates Bill and Ted by at least two years. However, the film feels more silly than entertaining.

I’m sure it has to do with me living in a modern time, but I struggled at times to put myself in the time period that the film depicted. Such as the language and the hairdos were very hard to take seriously. That said, Travolta and the king of cool persona that he cultivated during this time period was something to admire. Even here, he has charm and charisma. I’m not sure he has enough to convince a Russian agent to renounce their allegiances, but I won’t put it out of the realm of possibly. Travolta, for me, was very much the focal point of the film. Yes, the film is depicted as a buddy movie, but Gross, while decent enough, wasn’t the one that your eyes went to when they were on screen.  This is clearly a Travolta movie, and he is without question and justifiably the draw for it.