The Movie Journal: May 2026

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I watched 47 movies in May. 38 of them were new to me. 20 of them were made before I was born. The theme for the month was Mysteries in May but I dropped that pretty quick.

Early in the month I went to make a post – I think a review of some mystery I’d just watched. It took me a long while to write it. The right words wouldn’t come. I came to it in fits and starts. I’d write a paragraph and then go do something else. Took me a couple of days to get it all down, and even then it wasn’t quite right. Then I lost it. I accidentally deleted the post, and it was gone.

That was disheartening. The post itself wasn’t that important. It wasn’t for Cinema Sentries or anything. Just a silly review on a silly site. But it was mine, and it was lost. I’m pretty perpetually on that edge, teetering between chucking this site into the sea or keeping it up because it’s fun, and that kind of threw me overboard for a bit.

Right around that time I saw the news that Google was completely changing how they do search by relying almost entirely on AI and no longer linking to sites like they’ve always done. That would kill what little search traffic I get.

I stopped writing for a bit and decided to watch whatever I wanted to watch without concern over this month’s theme. Obviously, I decided to keep writing.I’m not sure what I’d do with myself without this blog, but the theme never came back. I might be done with themes. At least until October rolls around again. I like the idea of themes, but they are difficult to keep up with.

Anyway, that’s why I didn’t watch a lot of mysteries.

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In the most watched actors race, Spencer Tracy bumps up into second place with six films watched. Marcel Bozzufi, Robert Ryan, and Lino Ventura enter into the list, all tied for fourth place alongside Elisabeth Sladen, Mads Mikkelsen, and Lalla Ward. Lino and Marcel both come from my recent reviews of some French thrillers.  I hope to see Lino some more this year as he’s become one of my favorites.

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In the most watched directors category, Raoul Walsh, John Sturges, and Jacques Tourneur all launched themselves into second place with three films each. Tourneur has three films on the Criterion Channel as part of their director’s series, and I jumped right into those.

Here’s the entire list. What did you watch last month?

Vertigo For A Killer (1970) ***1/2
I Love Boosters (2026) ****
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) ****
The Big Hit (1998) **
Cleopatra Jones (1973) ***1/2
McQ (1974) ***1/2
Berlin Express (1948) ***1/2
Whistle (2025) **1/2
Birds of Prey (1968) ****
Dark Shadows (1944) **1/2
Follow Me Quietly (1949) ***1/2
House of Strangers (1949) ***
The Blue Lamp (1950) ***1/2
When Worlds Collide (1951) ***1/2
Bad Boys (1995) ***
Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead (1983) ****
God’s Pocket (2014) ***
The Marseille Contract (1974) ***1/2
Bewitched (1981) **
Best Wishes to All (2023) ***
The Angry River (1971) ****
Kill Me Again (1989) ****
Desk Set (1957) ****
Spaceballs (1987) ***
The Sheep Detectives (2026) ***1/2
Civil War (2024) ****
Homicide (1991) ****
Doctor Who: Enlightenment (1983) ****
The Crazies (1973) ***1/2
They Will Kill You (2026) ****
The Punisher: One Last Kill (2026) ***
Rider on the Rain (1970) ****
Anaconda (1997) ***
Deep Blue Sea (1999) ***
Doctor Who: The Brain of Morbius (1976) ****
Bend of the River (1952) ****
Born to Kill (1947) ***
Twins of Evil (1971) ***1/2
Eye of the Devil (1966) ***
Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr. (2021) ***
Clerks (1994) **
Persuasion (1995) ****
Point Break (1991) ****
Against All Odds (1984) ***
Out of the Past (1947) ****1/2
Drop (2025) ***1/2
Down River (2025) **1/2

My Life in Music: The Smashing Pumpkins, Tulsa 1994

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The Smashing Pumpkins were hugely important to me as I was coming of age. MTV put “Cherub Rock” the first single from their newest album at the time, Siamese Dream, on heavy rotation. That got me to buy the album, and soon after I purchased their debut album, Gish. I loved them both. They contained some of the first music that I took really seriously. I listened to them over and over. I studied the different parts of the songs. I can remember taking my two stereo speakers, placing them around my head, and then listening to the music while lying on my floor with the lights out – the music swirling around my ears.

When I learned the Pumpkins were coming to Tulsa, I was so excited. I’d never been to a rock concert before. It is possible my parents took me to something when I was younger. My mother went to a lot of concerts in the 1960s, including pop bands like Herman’s Hermits and even The Doors. She used to catch Neil Diamond every time he came to town, but adulthood, responsibilities, and three kids kept her away from music for the most part while I was growing up.  I don’t think my dad was ever much for live music.

I think the only concerts I’d really been to were gospel groups. I remember seeing a group called Acapella in the very venue I’d be seeing The Smashing Pumpkins. That was part of the Soul Winning Workshop the Churches of Christ put on every year. We didn’t believe in instrumental music with our worship songs, so a cappella music was where it was at.

Anyway, the Pumpkins were playing at the Expo Square in Tulsa, which is one of those pavilion-type arenas with a big open area in the middle and stands circling around it.  The type of place you could hold a soccer match or a hockey event, but being Oklahoma, I think it was often used for rodeos and cow competitions. For my concert, the stage was set up on one side with the rest of the floor open to the audience. We had tickets in the stands. Front row, not too terribly far from the stage.

I was with my friend Dustin and someone else. Probably his friend Kris. I was so excited. 

For some reason on the floor, up near the stage, they had set these big concrete barriers. The type of thing you see on the highway when they are doing construction. They were just randomly set out for the first fifteen feet or so beyond the state. At the time I figured they were there to keep people from stage diving or moshing (do people still do that at concerts?). That seemed terribly stupid, as people were still going to do that, and now they were likely going to hurt themselves bashing into concrete. 

Security seemed awfully tight as well. There were a lot of guards standing around. I remember several fans up in the stands periodically trying to jump down to the floor. They’d run toward the stage, inevitably being caught by security and sent back up.  I remember one kid kept jumping down near us, getting caught each time. At about his fourth attempt, he was escorted out of the venue. 

A band called Red Red Meat opened for them. I’d never heard of them. I remember liking them, which was probably more of a product of having never been to a rock concert before and being overwhelmed by the entire scene. Still, I do remember wishing they’d hurry up and let the Pumpkins play.

When they did finish their set, they played The Wizard of Oz without sound on a big screen behind the stage. I thought that was cool for some reason. I thought everything was cool. This was all so new to me. I was just terribly excited to be there.

The band finally came on, and they rocked. I don’t remember much about the actual music except that it was awesome, and I could feel D’Arcy’s bass thumping inside my chest.  I don’t remember what songs they played. It felt like they played every song I knew, which would have been every song off of Gish and Siamese Dream.

But it is all fuzzy except for how wonderful it all was. I remember Billy Corgan being in good spirits. And then came the encore. I knew about encores from movies and TV shows, but I really thought they were something special. I didn’t realize every band always comes back. So I stood there clapping and shouting, hoping with all of my heart they would come play another song.  

It took them a while, but they did come back. I remember Corgan apologizing that it took them so long but that there was some old episode of Star Trek playing on the TV in the dressing rooms, and they got caught up in it. They played another song or two and then were gone for good. I stood there for a little bit hoping they’d come back again, but the lights came up and the crowd dispersed. 

The show was over, but that feeling lasted forever.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Beyond the Door III (1989)

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Beyond the Door (1974) was an Italian horror film that basically rips off The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. The Italians were good at that. They’d take a popular American film and remake it without giving credit for the original story and make a few bucks. Rinse, repeat.

The Americans are good at it too. Beyond the Door was quite successful. So in 1977, when Mario Bava directed a supernatural film called Shock, when it came to American theaters, they renamed it Beyond the Door II. More than a decade later, the Italians made a completely unrelated (to either film) supernatural horror flick, and some crude individual dubbed it Beyond the Door III.

It is surprisingly good.

A group of American students travels to Yugoslavia to witness a sacred ritual that is only performed once every 100 years.  They are told it is a Passion Play, but also that it takes place from the time before Christ. Which should have probably been their first red flag.

They are met in Yugoslavia by Professor Andromolek (Bo Svenson), who seems very nice.  We quickly learn he is not so nice when he receives a telegram for Beverly Putnic (Mary Kohnert), one of the students (and our main protagonist), informing them that her mother has died in a tragic accident, and he rips it up without telling her.

He puts them on a boat, and they travel to the middle of nowhere, where they get off, walk through the woods, and come upon a small village full of strange people in Eastern European peasant garb who just stare at them menacingly.

Without further ado, they put the kids to bed. Everybody but Beverly is asked to sleep in a single cabin, but Beverly is taken on her own to a special place. They give her a white nightgown and probably drug her, for once she’s asleep an old hag checks to ensure she’s a virgin (gross!).

In the morning they set fire to the other student’s cabin.  All but one escape with their lives. Beverly awakens from her slumber, and they take off running. All but two of them jump on a train rolling down the tracks.  One girl misses it, and a chivalrous dude jumps off to be with her (hurting his leg in the process.)

The train is full of more strange-looking characters who are utterly unhelpful. And then things get really weird. There is a supernatural force that causes all sorts of blood-soaked harm. This is a film that isn’t afraid to let its freaky gore flag fly. It has some terrific kills with some gooey practical effects.

The train is apparently unstoppable. Sometimes the magic flips the rail switch, and it will just run straight into the ground and keep on going (making great use of some very cool miniatures.) Interspersed with these scenes are some cuts to some presumably Yugoslavian government workers who seem to be monitoring the train’s movements.  They presumably speak in Slavic, definitely not English, and AMC+ did not provide English subtitles. I assume they were just freaking out about the runaway train, but who knows?

The cinematography by Adolfo Bartoli is surprisingly great.  This film looks amazing. There are lots of scenes at night and in the dark, but it is so well lit you can see everything beautifully. This is especially true during the numerous scenes lit by fire. Seriously, this film has no reason to look this good.

It has no reason to be this good. I mean, the plot is rather silly, and the acting isn’t great. But for a little low-budget sort-of (but not really) final part of a horror trilogy, Beyond the Door III is well worth watching.

Grateful Dead – Dicks Picks, Vol. 1 – Tampa, FL (12/19/73)

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I find myself fascinated by Dick’s Picks and why he chose the shows he chose. I’m especially fascinated by This first one. It must have been both a wonderful opportunity and immensely stressful. You’ve got the keys to the vault; you can release any show you like. But which one do you choose? It must have felt important to him. Like that first pick would define who he was as a Deadhead. And if it failed, there wouldn’t be any more picks. He might lose his job. That’s a lot riding on one single show.

Dick was clearly a big fan of 1970s Dead. Almost all of his picks come from that decade. I wonder if he looked at the chronology of the releases that had come out by that point. There was Live/Dead from 1969 and Europe 72. Bear’s Choice came from 1970, and then you’ve got a release from 1974 (Steal Your Face) and another from 1975 (One From the Vault). Did he figure he needed to fill in that 1973 gap? Or did he think about something from the legendary May 1977 shows?

Who the heck knows? I tried to do a little research on this Pick, but the Internet sucks now, and I was unable to come up with much. 1973 is a colossal year for the Grateful Dead, so it certainly makes sense he’d choose a show from here.

The band members each had veto power over Dick’s choices. My understanding is Phil was especially difficult to please, so it’s possible Dick had several other shows in mind but, for one reason or another, was given a “no” for them. They also say that Phil demanded his solo be edited out of “The Other One” for some reason.

Unlike other Dick’s Picks, this is not the complete show, and the songs have been widely rearranged. Most of the first set is missing, and parts of the second set have been moved about onto the first disc. To a degree, I understand this and don’t really have a complaint about it. To have put the entire show out would have taken at least three CDs, probably four. That’s a lot of additional cost to produce. Narrowing it down to discs seems much more manageable. Especially at this point when they didn’t know how well these things would sell.

I’m old enough to remember the days of CD trading. Figuring out how to fit the music onto discs was always a challenge. First sets could usually easily fit on one desk, but second sets, with their massive jams, often ran over. But you didn’t want to cut up those massive jams either. Or all those songs that ran right into each other and got a “>” notation on the j-cards. Sometimes if there was extra room on the first disc, a song or two from the middle of the second set, or even the encore, might be thrown onto it. That beat having only one or two songs on a single disc or tape.

I’m less enthused about Phil’s bass solo getting cut out. That seems downright rude.

It is fascinating too seeing what did make the final cut. Why is “Big Railroad Blues” included and not “Dire Wolf”? Why did they keep “Around and Around” and lose “Jack Straw?” I certainly would have nixed the Chuck Berry cover.

But whatever, this shouldn’t be a what’s wrong with this release? post (I imagine Dick got more than a mouthful of that from Deadheads at the time). Let’s talk about what is here.

“Here Comes Sunshine” is actually the tenth song of the first set, but it starts our CD out here. It is a phenomenal version and makes it worth the price of admission alone. It is also a great example of what I love about the Grateful Dead.

I have to make an embarassing admission here. I don’t generally like it when the Dead jams a song deep into the cosmos. There is a point when their biggest jams leave all semblance of a song, and things get wonky. Those moments are often filled with dissonant notes, and extended noodles and I tend to start tuning it out or pressing the skip button.

I love the Dead’s improvisational jam style, but sometimes they go a little too far for my tastes. “Here Comes Sunshine” is the perfect blend. They start with the song, which is a good one. It has a wonderful, slightly odd rhythm to it, some great harmonies, and some classic opaque Robert Hunter lyrics. The song had just been released on their Wake of the Flood album in October of 1973, so it was relatively new, though they had been regularly playing it live since February of that year.

But after a couple of verses, they start to jam on it. At first the bones of the song are still there. Jerry is soloing all over the place, and Keith Godcheaux is getting down on the keyboards. But the rhythm section is still keeping the beat, but they are playing with it. They are adding in some extra notes. Slowly the song stretches and stretches until it no longer sounds like “Here Comes Sunshine.” I bet if you started playing it here and asked an average fan to name the song they wouldn’t be able to.

But it still sounds like what most people would consider to be music. It still sounds like a song. It has a nice beat, and my feet keep tapping, and I’m shaking my bones to it. I love these moments. I love feeling the band slip into something new and exciting, but not feeling like I need to plug my ears.

It is an all-time version of the song.

Now let’s move onto “Playing in the Band.” It officially closed the first set, and ended the first disc on this album. It is a song that often finished the first set, and it became a powerhouse jamming launchpad. Often the band will drive it headlong into the deepest, darkest parts of space. They don’t quite go that far in this version. I’d say they leave the stratosphere, but don’t venture much farther out. Not even to the moon.

Like “Here Comes Sunshine” they definitely break the confines of the song and stretch it into something else. They get close to completely breaking it, venturing into me pressing that skip button. But before my finger gets there, they bring it back down. There is plenty of good stuff here, but I’d argue it slips just slightly out of “great” territory for me.

The “Jam>The Other One>Jam” that sits right in the middle of the second disc does fall into that skip territory for me. It’s just a little too much for my tastes.

Weirdly, the band skips the “Across the Lazy River” section at the end of “Mississippi Half-Step” but it is otherwise a very good – if rather mellow and slinky – version. “Weather Report Suite” is also quite good with some excellent slide work from Mr. Garcia.

The rest ranges from quite good to fine. Nothing is bad. As I said, 1973 was a great year for the Dead, and they are firing on all cylinders. This does seem like a slightly mellow show. That’s actually borne out on the full tapes with all the songs. It is a very fine show, but probably not the one I would have picked if I were Dick. Not even if all I had was 1973 to choose from.

But it makes for a great start to this series, and obviously it did well enough to continue these releases, and for that we can all be happy.

Here’s the track list for Dicks Picks, Vol. 1

Disc one

Here Comes Sunshine
Big River
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
Weather Report Suite
Big Railroad Blues
Playing in the Band

Disc two

He’s Gone
Truckin’
Nobody’s Fault but Mine
Jam
The Other One
Jam
Stella Blue
Around and Around

And here’s the full setlist:

Set 1:
Promised Land
Sugaree
Mexicali Blues
Sugar Shack
Dire Wolf
Black Throated Wind
Candyman
Jack Straw
Big Railroad Blues
Big River
Here Comes Sunshine
El Paso
Ramble On Rose
Playin’ In The Band

Set 2:
Mississippi Half-Step
Me And Bobby McGee
WRS Prelude
WRS Part 1
Let It Grow
He’s Gone
Truckin’
Nobody’s Fault But Mine
The Other One
Stella Blue
Around And Around

Encore:
Casey Jones

Picking on the Grateful Dead: The Dicks Picks Series

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Dick Latvala was the original Deadhead. He first heard them play at the Trips Festival in 1966 and remained a massive fan until his death in 1999. He was one of the earliest tapers and collectors and reportedly he amassed one of the biggest collections of Dead tapes in the world. In the early 1980s he started working for the Dead’s organization, just odd jobs mainly. It sounds like he basically just started hanging around, and eventually they put him to work.

The Dead had been recording their concerts from the earliest days, but they weren’t particularly organized with them. Dick changed that. He convinced the band that those recordings were a treasure trove and they needed to be organized and safely stored. This led to the creation of the infamous vault.

Dick’s management of the vault and his enthusiastic desire for more officially released live albums led to the Dick’s Picks series. The band was no stranger to live albums, having released Live/Dead in 1969 and a double album covering their legendary tour of Europe in 1972, plus several others. Those had been professional recordings on multitrack tapes. They were good and edited, mastered, and on at least one occasion, overdubbed.

The Dick’s Picks series would be pulled from two-track tapes, and took a warts and-all approach to the music. No edits, no overdubs, and if there was a flaw on the tape, that’s what you got. Most volumes included one entire show, though some contained complete second sets of two different shows, and others might just be highlight reels.

The band had the final say which caused some delays in the releases in the early days but eventually they seemed to just let Dick do what he wanted.

Between 1993 and 2006, they released 36 volumes in the Dick’s Picks series. Over half of them were released after Latvala’s death in 1993. After Dick’s death an actual archivist, David Lemiux, became keeper of the vault and he began a similar series, appropriately called Dave’s Picks, in 2012.

I thought it would be fun to listen to and then review each of the 36 Dick’s Picks. This will become the page I’ll link to all of those reviews. I hope you enjoy it.

PS that cover image is of the first Dicks Picks I ever bought. I remember it being a rip-roaring classic. I can’t wait to revisit it and talk about it.

Vol. 1 – Tampa, FL (12/19/73)

More Music, Please

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this blog. I know you all are probably tired of me whining about how I no longer get very many visitors, so I’ll spare you that this time. I will say that Google recently announced it is completely changing the way they do search. Gone will be the days when you searched for something and you got a series of links to websites that would likely provide you the information you were looking for.  Now it is all going to be AI chatbots, which is both dystopian and depressing. It will also kill the biggest way visitors come to the site.

But I’m not going to complain. What I am going to do is talk more about music. There is a realization that I spent over a decade providing music on this site, and that is all. Then out of the blue, I switched things up and started talking about music. Then I killed the music completely.

I’m sure many of you were like, WTF? Who cares about movies? I want music! Now, I will still not be providing music downloads on this site in any public way. But I would like to talk about it. I figure I’ll write some reviews of officially released live albums. I’ve been thinking about doing a series on the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks releases for a while now, so that seems like a good place to start. And maybe I’ll review some unofficially released music.  That sounds fun.

I do realize that I’ve gotten pretty good at reviewing movies, but I’ve not done a lot of music reviews. Certainly not in a long while. I haven’t worked that muscle in a long time. It has gotten flabby. Movies are easy. You can talk about story and plot. You can dive into a movie’s themes and talk about what the camera is doing. Or how scary, or funny it is. I know a little technical information about movies, and can impart that information. But I’m not a musician. I know nothing about the technical parts of a song.

There isn’t a plot to a song either. Not usually anyhow, and I’m not really a lyrics guy anyway. I dig on the melody and what the instruments are doing and pay little attention to the words. Music is about how it makes me feel, and that is hard to describe. It is very difficult to write down in something resembling a review.

This will be doubly hard when talking about live albums and bootlegs. Those songs won’t be new. They will have appeared on studio albums and played in concerts many times. So I’ll have to concentrate on the music.  That will be a challenge.

But a fun one, I think.  

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Charade is the Pick of the Week

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I love Charade. I mean, it has Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, which is enough on its own to make me love it. But then add in Walter Matthau, and I’m all in. It is the perfect movie to watch on a boring Sunday afternoon or to take to the in-laws and watch it over family gatherings. Criterion is putting it out on UHD and it has become my pick of the week. See me talk about it and other interesting things coming out this week by clicking here.

We Bury the Dead (2025)

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I love me a good zombie movie. We Bury the Dead is a very good, if not particularly original, zombie movie. Daisy Ridley stars as a woman who goes to Australia, where some kind of massive bioweapon was released, killing almost everyone but leaving a few in a zombie-like state. She’s there to help with the cleanup but also to find her husband, who she hopes is still alive (even if he is a zombie). It is a pretty slow-moving film, but I dug it. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

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I feel like every time I talk about silent films, I note that I still struggle with watching them. I guess it is an evergreen statement because I keep watching them, and I keep having a difficult time with them. The Thief of Bagdad is a classic filled with stunning visuals and a spectacle-filled story. But I’d be lying if I didn’t have to keep focusing my attention on it because my mind kept wandering off. Still, it is a great movie, and you can read my review here.