Steve Stebbing

Okay, this is a weird one out of the blue, everybody, but October was a stressful month beyond the awesome Vancouver International Film Festival. Afterwards, my usual spooky time of the year, a personal favorite, consisted of packing up my entire existence and moving across town for the remaining three weeks of the month, including the close to the over 3,500 titles in my collection. Twenty-four boxes by the way. Anyways, enough rambling. What I’ve tried to do was make a list of all the cool things I’ve received in October and give you my thoughts on each of them, having held them in my hot little hand.

Promising Young Woman 4K – Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past. Dressed to kill, at night, Cassie frequents the local bars and nightclubs, pretending to be dead drunk, utterly helpless and vulnerable. And, every week, lethally beautiful Cassie is on the prowl for all sorts of nocturnal predators and other wolves in sheep’s clothing, who are unaware that, sometimes, the hunter can become the prey. Then, Ryan, a kindly and caring old classmate who is the bee’s knees, enters the picture, and just like that, Cassie wants out. However, everybody knows that breaking bad habits is easier said than done. Could Ryan be the one?

Review: I know I’ve brought this one before but it has a Carey Mulligan performance that demands to be seen and it is now re-released in the all-glorious 4K format. The feature debut of Killing Eve creator Emerald Fennell, this film is a gutshot to every toxic dude on this planet and it may be uncomfortable at times, but it is all necessary. This film’s narrative is caustic, searing and totally unrelenting but has the ability to be sardonically funny and then slap you hard with its seriousness. Very quickly into this movie, I knew I was watching a really special film and it kept getting better.

Elizabeth 4K – Elizabeth Tudor becomes queen of a divided and dangerous England in 1558. She is roundly perceived as weak by threats from within and abroad, and she is strongly advised to marry by counsel William Cecil. But she will be married only to her country. Intelligent and cautious, she must choose where to place her trust: with her shrewd secretary Walsingham, a master of espionage, or her secret lover, Sir Robert Dudley.

Review: Cate Blanchett roared into our lives with this beautifully shot film at a time when I was just getting my foothold in taking in great cinema. If I had my film eyes at the time this one came out in 1998, I would have had it as a favourite of the year but now I can appreciate it in some pristine 4K and also appreciate its fantastic sound design as well. It’s notable that this came from writer Michael Hirst who would go on to royal-related drama with the series The Tudors.

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts – Returning to the action and spectacle that have captured moviegoers around the world, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on the ’90s globetrotting adventure with the Autobots and introduce a whole new faction of Transformers – the Maximals – to join them as allies in the existing battle for earth. Directed by Steven Caple Jr. and starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback.

Review: The pathway after Michael Bay departed this Transformers franchise as a director has been surprisingly bright as Bumblebee was a fun movie and this 90s set prequel brings that same energy as well plus has the best performance from Pete Davidson I’ve seen so far. It should be mentioned that this is in a voice-over role but he and lead star Anthony Ramos have a great repore and it’s also really great to hear Ron Perlman’s booming voice in the role of Optimus Primal, leader of the Maximals. This is definitely a dig for us 90s cartoon fans who dug into Beast Wars every week but the film has great pacing, solid characters and, above all, action that you actually see and make sense of on the screen. Bay should take notes on that.

The Boogeyman – High school student Sadie Harper and her younger sister Sawyer are reeling from the recent death of their mother and aren’t getting much support from their father, Will, a therapist who is dealing with his own pain. When a desperate patient unexpectedly shows up at their home seeking help, he leaves behind a terrifying supernatural entity that preys on families and feeds on the suffering of its victims.

Review: As a big Stephen King fan, the author who really got me reading books avidly, I love that they tackled this short story, one that I felt was an easy transition to the big screen. It comes from the writing duo of Beck and Woods, mostly known for the A Quiet Place movies but coming from the sci-fi action of 65, and the big studio debut for Rob Savage who found genre popularity with his Shudder streamer Host during the pandemic. As far as good and creepy scares go, this one is pretty solid in that department and while it won’t knock you out of your socks like a film with this title should, they paid attention to character and plot along the way.

Creepy Crawly – The film tells the story of a young woman who has just returned from a foreign country. She has to stay at a hotel to quarantine, but then suddenly comes across a monster that can change its shape in a variety of ways, according to the individual that this monster possesses. The concept of the story was inspired by the story of Battambang which was told during the reign of King Rama V.

Review: Well Go USA is a huge treasure trove for me, releasing so many different genre films from around the world which include a lot of killer martial arts films. It also has the odd creature feature here and there, exactly what this Thai horror is, but I have to say that I wish the focused more on the thrills than the largely cheesy character interactions. That said, if you like chills that are off the beaten path of Hollywood, you can’t really go wrong with this film, it really satisfies and makes you long for the practical effects of the 80s and 90s.

Rosemary’s Baby 4K – Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into an apartment in an opulent but gothic building in Manhattan. Their landlord, Edward “Hutch” Hutchins, attempts to dissuade them: the building has an unsavoury history. They discover that their neighbours are a very friendly elderly couple, Roman and Minnie Castevet, and Guy starts spending a great deal of time with them. Soon, strange things start to happen: a young woman Rosemary meets in the laundry room seems to commit suicide, Rosemary has strange dreams and hears strange noises, and Guy becomes remote and distant. Then Rosemary gets pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbours have special plans for her child.

Review: This is the perfect month for Roman Polanski’s incredible devil worship film to get revamped in a 4K edition, even if it’s not a boosted piece of the Criterion Collection like it’s supposed to be. This movie holds up as a great thriller, even fifty five years after its original release. Mia Farrow plays the innocent descent into occult victim so well and the surrounding players of John Cassavettes, Ruth Gordon and Ralph Bellamy add so much more to the mystery. I know it’s not morally right to praise Polanski but this is real landmark filmmaking here that cannot be reproduced.

Angel Face – When Mrs. Tremayne is mysteriously poisoned with gas, ambulance driver Frank Jessup meets her refined but sensuous stepdaughter Diane, who quickly pursues and infuriates him. Under Diane’s seductive influence, Frank is soon the Tremayne chauffeur; but he begins to suspect danger under her surface sweetness. When he shows signs of pulling away, Diane schemes to get him in so deep he’ll never get out.

Review: This is definitely a special film and an early 50s classic with two towering lead performances from Robert Mitchum, in a year he released four films, and Jean Simmons, three years after her first Academy Award nomination. It comes from director Otto Preminger, a giant of his time and the man behind Anatomy Of A Murder and Stalag 17 to name a couple, but it was a bumpy ride in making it as he butted heads with Mitchum many times over his directorial process and even tried to get the star fired by producer Howard Hughes. They say that a troubled and angry set sometimes churns out a great production and this may be an example.

Caged! – Marie Allen is a 19-year-old innocent who is sent to the State penitentiary after becoming involved in a robbery staged by her now-dead husband. She is two months pregnant and finds herself in the company of both petty and hardened criminals. With the help of a few inmates, she quickly learns the inmate pecking order and takes the advice of the kind prison Superintendent, Ruth Benton, to follow the rules and aim to get parole at the end of her first year. Her biggest obstacle is the matron in charge of her section, Evelyn Harper, an evil, sadistic overseer who goes out of her way to make everyone miserable. When her mother refuses to take care of her newborn, it goes into State care, and when Marie is refused parole, she hardens and is destined to a life of crime.

Review: Nominated for three Academy Awards in a year that was dominated by All About Eve, Samson And Delilah and Sunset Boulevard, Caged was a film that would get buried in the awards season of 1951 but it is a bonafide noir classic these days and it’s great to see this new Warner Archive edition. It is an early “women in prison” film that predates the sleaze that would hit this specific genre in the seventies and eighties but it was even taboo at the time it was made. It was so shunned by Hollywood in the fifties that Bette Davis turned down starring in it, telling Warners she wasn’t interested in making “a dyke movie.” Davis did get nominated for Eve that year so who knows if she made the right choice but, yikes, what a reason!

The Damned Don’t Cry! – A land surveyor discovers the body of a notorious gangster out in the Palm Springs desert, setting off a police investigation that turns up one very surprising fact. The gangster was somehow connected to the New York socialite, Lorna Hansen Forbes. Where is she? The last place they would think to look is near an oil field in the modest home of two old folks. It seems the mysterious Miss Forbes has a secret past; these poor old folks are her parents. In a flashback, we learn that Miss Forbes was once Ethel Whitehead, a poor wife who wanted something more out of life and abandoned her husband to get it. A new career selling cigars in an office lobby leads to something better: modelling dresses. That leads to her meeting a meek accountant. And he becomes the first rung on her ladder to success, which means climbing down into the underworld and meeting rich gangsters, who are able to give her everything she has ever wanted – or thought she did.

Review: One of the scariest leading ladies of the Golden Age of Hollywood has to be Joan Crawford, an actress of formidable stature. This film noir is a great example of that iconic nature as she plays a strong woman trying to rise up the ranks of a man’s world, something that was a hair’s breadth away from impossible in the fifties. Loosely based upon the life of sharp-tongued moll Virginia Hill and her secretive relationship with gangster Bugsy Siegel, this was a discovery in Crawford’s career that really made me appreciate her range and it must have meant a lot ot her as well as she would reprise the role in a radio production a year later.

Videodrome 4K – The president of Civic TV Channel 83, Max Renn, is always looking for new cheap and erotic movies for his station. When his employee, Harlan, decodes a pirate video broadcast showing torture, murder, and mutilation called “Videodrome,” Max becomes obsessed to get this series for his channel. He contacts his supplier, Masha, and asks her to find the party responsible for the transmission. A couple of days later, Masha says that “Videodrome” is a real snuff movie. Max’s sadomasochistic girlfriend Nicki Brand decides to travel to Pittsburgh, where the show is based, to audition. Max investigates further, and through a video by the media prophet Brian O’Blivion, he learns that TV screens are the retina of the mind’s eye, being part of the brain, and “Videodrome” transmissions create a brain tumour in the viewer, changing the reality through video hallucination.

Review: My experience with this Cronenberg classic is a long one and something that I documented on my horror podcast Tremble but the gist of it is that I watched it at too young of an age on Showcase and now, as an adult, I love it with all my heart. I know how messed up that is but this is the master of body horror operating on an almost operatic level and totally deserving of its place in the Criterion Collection. This 4K is a revamp of the film and its special features and looks absolutely pristine. A gem in anyone’s collection if I say so myself.

A Bronx Tale 4K – Calogero Anello is a nine-year-old child living in the Bronx – notorious for gangster bars, racist people and an aggressive nature. Calogero witnesses a shooting in the street involving local big-shot gangster Sonny, but refuses to betray him to the police. Sonny grows fond of the boy and begins to teach him how things are conducted on the streets. Calogero’s father is a working man who wants his child to grow up and make his money honestly and does not want him to mix with Sonny. Despite his father’s disapproval, for eight years Calogero continues to see Sonny and receives a ‘street’ education from him. Despite being a gangster, Sonny loves Calogero and teaches him that being a gangster is too risky and dangerous. However, Calogero misinterprets Sonny’s message and still gets involved with his friends in racism and fights. Things get worse when he falls in love with a black girl. This story is about a Bronx where a child grows up with two educations, one from school and one from the street. As the child grows closer to a gangster, he begins to grow away from his family.

Review: This new 4K anniversary edition in the thirtieth year of its existence was an opportunity for me to re-evaluate a Robert De Niro-directed mob story on an adult level. Written by co-star Chazz Palmenteri and shot by Bobby D in his debut behind the camera, you can really tell that he took all the teachings of the many legendary film sets he had been on, like Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma and more, and used it to craft his own vision of a crime story. As a deeply personal story for Chazz, one taken from his real life, this is the crowning piece of his career and I may be late to the party but I have the utmost appreciation for this movie now.

The Last Voyage Of The Demeter – Based on a single chapter, the Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula, the story is set aboard the Russian schooner Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – twenty-four unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. The film will detail the strange events that befell the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a terrifying presence on board the ship. When it finally arrived near Whitby Harbour, it was derelict. There was no trace of the crew.

Review: The second Dracula film of 2023 hit Blu-ray this month, although this one is very different from the modern comedy horror of Renfield from a couple of months ago. With the stylistic eye of Troll Hunter writer and director André Øvredal, This is an above-mediocre low-key chiller here, featuring cinematography from Clint Eastwood’s usual guy, Tom Stern, and a score from the great Bear McCreary. Øvredal described this movie as basically Alien on a ship in 1897but the source material is one small chapter in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and I do say that it feels really stretched at times to make a two-hour feature window. It is an enjoyable watch but nothing that will stand the test of time.

Shortcomings – Ben, a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he’s not managing an arthouse movie theatre as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.

Review:  The writing and directing debut of Randall Park, this film is a total win with a great script and smart and funny characters framed by great performances from Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola and Ally Maki. Meta in a lot of its delivery, the interesting thing about the film is that it leads with a pretty unlikable character but one that is very unassuming of his lesser traits. This counteracts Min’s onscreen likability as I always have enjoyed his work, especially on The Umbrella Academy.

Rabbit Hole: Season 1 – Nothing is what it seems when John Weir, master of corporate espionage, finds himself at the center of a shadowy conspiracy. After uncovering a dangerous plot by powerful forces with the ability to control populations and subvert democracy, Weir is framed for murder and put on the run, trying to figure out who and what is real in a reality turned upside down. As a man who deals in mistrust and deception, can John Weir trust a team of unlikely allies to outwit an enemy with deep ties to his past and who’s bent on using our own data against us? John Weir must navigate a world of surveillance, misinformation and manipulation to uncover the man at the center of the plot and stop him before it’s too late.

Review: Put Keifer Sutherland in any action series and you’ve got my butt in a seat for sure and this one follows through on the promise to be as explosive as 24 was. Within the first few scenes of the first episode, it seems to be the story of a tech-heavy espionage organization run by Keifer’s character until the last scene of the show sends it all into intriguing uncertainty. Needless to say, I’ve loved the whole ride so far and am really hoping that season two comes sooner than later.

Dangerous When Wet – The health-conscious, dairy-farming Higgins family begins each day with an invigorating swim. One day, travelling health-tonic salesman, Windy Weebe, comes to town and suggests they could swim the English Channel. Sponsored by “Liquapep” and coached by Windy, the family arrived in Europe. There it is decided that daughter Katie is the only one strong enough to enter the contest. But while she should be focused on the difficult and risky task ahead, Katie is pursued by dashing Frenchman, André Lanet… This comedic musical is well remembered for the scene when Katie dreams she is swimming with cartoon characters Tom & Jerry!

Review: The childhood favorite film of legendary film critic Gene Siskel has now arrived on blu-ray and I find this one really interesting as it is an early blend of live action and animation with the inclusion of the beloved Tom and Jerry characters. This isn’t the first time though as Jerry appeared with Gene Kelly a decade earlier in Anchors Aweigh but it’s still pretty notable and cost the studio a lot of money. The underwater sequences in which Esther Williams speaks to Tom and Jerry, Joseph Barbera animated pink bubbles coming from her mouth, which was an effect that cost $50,000 just for that. I can’t imagine what the full animation total was and, of course, you have to adjust that for inflation. Crazy.

The Old Man And The Sea – Now an old man, a lifelong fisherman sets out to sea to ply his trade as he has done all of his life. He’s not had much good fortune of late and has gone almost three months without a major catch while others are catching one or even two large marlins every week. Many of the locals make fun of him and some say he’s too old now to be fishing but he still loves what he does and is encouraged by a young boy who loves him and has faith in him. On this day he hooks the fish of a lifetime, a marlin that is larger than his skiff. As it slowly pulls him out to sea, the old man reminisces about his past, his successes and the high points of his life. When he does finally manage to land the fish he has to fight off sharks who are feeding on it as he tries to return to his Cuban village.

Review: Spencer Tracy doing one of Ernest Hemingway’s most famous stories on the big screen? You know that’s a big classic and it actually earned the legendary actor his sixth Academy Award nomination, although he would lose to David Niven for Seperate Tables. The film would earn three Oscar nods total and ended up walking away with the statue for Best Music but should be more notable as Hemingway was actually very involved in its production and can be seen sitting in the cafe in the final scene wearing a tan baseball cap and conversing with other fishermen in his onscreen debut. At under an hour and a half, this film still plays beautifully and Tracy was a giant among men in many ways.

Padre Pio – In this powerful drama directed by acclaimed filmmaker Abel Ferrara, a young priest, Padre Pio (Shia LaBeouf), begins his ministry at a remote Capuchin monastery in Italy’s San Giovanni Rotondo. WWI has ended and Italian soldiers – broken but victorious – are returning to the impoverished village ruled by wealthy landowners. As events surrounding the first free election in Italy threaten to tear the village apart, Padre Pio struggles with his own personal demons, ultimately emerging from his spiritual anguish to become one of Catholicism’s most venerated figures.

Review: I was immediately fascinated by this film as it has legendary writer and director Abel Ferrara teaming with eccentric bad boy character actor Shia Lebeouf, a departure from his usual leading man, Willem Dafoe. Again, Shia went deep for this one as he converted to Catholicism because of the role and went as far as to only sleep in the real bed that the character he plays slept in. Unfortunately, the film itself is a bit of a dry slog, more so than Ferrera’s usual work, including the almost biopic Tommasso. It also feels like two very different movies moving at the same time and I think Abel might have had a hard time reigning Lebeouf in because his performance can get downright odd and distracting at times.

Ride On – Washed-up stuntman Luo can barely make ends meet let alone take care of his beloved stunt horse, Red Hare. Luo reluctantly seeks help from his estranged daughter and her lawyer boyfriend when notified that the horse may be auctioned off to cover his debts. Unexpectedly, Luo and Red Hare become an overnight media sensation when their real-life fight with debt collectors goes viral. And Luo gets a second chance to choose between his stunt career and his family.

Review: I’ve had a love for Jackie Chan on the big screen since I saw Rumble In The Bronx in theatres in the 90s and then dug into all of his past Hong Kong flicks like the Police Story trilogy and Drunken Master so I was on board with this one as soon as I saw Well Go USA had sent it. This film has Jackie leaning into his true age, finally, but the great action and stunts tower over the lacklustre and mediocre story and character work that leaves it as a pretty forgettable watch. I don’t know what will of course correct this once-great action actor but this isn’t it.

Before Night Falls – Episodic look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), from his childhood in Oriente province to his death in New York City. He joins Castro’s rebels. By 1964, he was in Havana. He meets the wealthy Pepe, an early lover; a love-hate relationship lasts for years. Openly gay behavior is a way to spite the government. His writing and homosexuality get him into trouble: he spends two years in prison, writing letters for other inmates and smuggling out a novel. He befriends Lázaro Gomes Garriles, with whom he lives stateless and in poverty in Manhattan after leaving Cuba in the Mariel boat-lift. When asked why he writes, he replies cheerfully, “Revenge.”

Review: Another fascinating biopic to follow up his debut film Basquiat, Julian Schnabel has a filmmaking craft that is unlike any others and his first film and this Javier Bardem-led film show that style in its beginning steps. Well deserving of his Best Actor Academy Award nomination, which he lost to Russell Crowe for Gladiator, this might be one of the best performances from Bardem, in a career that has had so many, and a memorable one from Johnny Depp who plays the evolving role of Lieutenant Victor who also lives an alternative lifestyle in drag as Bon Bon. This is cinema gold here and I’m grateful to Warner Archive for bringing it to the next level of blu-ray.

Land Of The Pharaohs – In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins) is obsessed with acquiring gold and plans to take it all with him into the “second life”. To this end, he enlists the aid of Vashtar (James Robertson Justice), an architect whose people are enslaved in Egypt. The deal: build a robbery-proof tomb and the enslaved people will be freed. During the years that the pyramid is being built, Cyprian Princess Nellifer (Dame Joan Collins) becomes the Pharaoh’s second wife, and she plots to prevent Khufu from taking his treasure with him when he dies, as well as helping him make the journey early.

Review: Directed by Golden Hollywood legend Howard Hawks, co-written by William Faulkner and starring Joan Collins, its crazy to believe that this would be the first big-budget flop in Hawks’ storied career but it was enough to break the director and stunt him from 1955 to 1959 when he made Rio Bravo and we all know the success that film was. Looking at the film now, it really shows the spectacle of the time and the huge undertaking it really must have been. It also feels a bit ahead of its time as well as sex is really a selling point of this historical piece alongside its intrigue. A really cool discovery in an era that always feels new to me.

Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm 4K – Batman is framed for the murder of Chuckie Sol setting off a chain reaction of events that forces Bruce Wayne to confront his past in ways that may put The Dark Knight’s future in jeopardy forever. When Bruce’s old love Andrea Beaumont returns to Gotham City, things start to unravel for The Batman and soon he becomes Gotham Police’s primary target, convinced Batman’s guilty of mysterious murders committed by a figure known only as The Phantasm. This is truly Batman’s most desperate hour.

Review: This might be the greatest Batman movie ever made and to some degree, the fight isn’t even close. Kevin Conroy is the voice of both Bruce Wayne and the Caped Crusader whenever I read the comics and this 4K restoration left me with a warm nostalgic hug that lingered for hours after I rewatched the film for the first time in decades. A fitting story for the World’s Greatest Detective and probably one of my favourite villains to appear in a Batman story, Phantasm, this is now a prized possession in my collection and I don’t mean that with even a little bit of hyperbole.

The Youtube Effect – The story of YouTube is both inspirational and cautionary; the video-sharing website appeared in 2005 and quickly grew to become one of the most ubiquitous and powerful media platforms in the world. It is impossible to overstate its impact on global culture by providing easy and immediate access to news, entertainment media and other vital forms of information. It has, however, helped radicalize some of its viewers with right-wing propaganda and other dangerous forms of media. The story of YouTube is the great dilemma of our times; the technology revolution has made our lives easier and more enriched, while also presenting dangers and challenges that make the world a more perilous place. And at this extraordinary moment in history, it is the story of how we got here and where we’re going.

Review: Lots of people, especially my age, know Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston, one-half of the time travelling duo Bill and Ted, alongside his counterpart, Keanu Reeves. People really need to get on the ball with him though as he is a phenomenal documentarian as his BlockChain film was fascinating and engrossing and now he’s taken focus of YouTube in all of its glory through the good and bad. The film is ambitious in its scope and manages to deliver everything it sets out to and blows my mind with everything I didn’t know about the website that has drawn us in for almost two decades now.