JR

@Illeanarama Connecticut In The Movies was such a handy gift this year. Thank you for the thought and work put into it!

Christmas trend. Going #hatonahat like Billy Bob Thornton (no earring-make it your own) How bout you?

youtube.com/watch?v=3SUmUn… Here's the full clip. (The Italian horror film often cited as the worst of the "Video Nasties" is an extreme example of accepting evil in this sense. It explicitly tried to justify its existence and its cruelty on the fact that Vietnam happened.)

Intriguing comment on a traumatized national psyche, reflected in movies:

Before the 70s, ghostly justice was mainly seen in Japanese films based on traditional Kaidan. Gordon Lightfoot's "old time movie about a ghost from a wishing well" is meant as poetry, but I'm not sure if any movies in english as-of '69 had this scenario, other than A&Costello.

Echoing The House of Seven Gables, the foundation of the house is often cursed by some misdealing. You wouldn't recommend it as a haunted house movie, but Parasite is arguably one of the best, falling squarely into this pattern of a curse brought on by injustice.

Until the 60s, Hollywood ghost stories tended to be light, though occasionally macabre, comedies like Blithe Spirit, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, The Time of Their Lives, and I Married a Witch.

This was the most chilling and memorable local ghost story growing up. "Crazy" wasn't the word that was handed down, but modern perspective suggests a ton of revision. I like how the owner of the house tears up over the portrait he tracked down.. as a Mother's Day present.

Reminds me of this study from a few years ago: nerdist.com/article/scarie… I enjoyed Sinister but it definitely operated more in terms of stress than frisson.

At five or so, my mom let me watch the beginning of this and the bullied kid falling on the pumpkin was already a little traumatic, and I had seen enough.😂 Recently I had the same experience as Kael, that Halloween, "keeps you nervous and jumpy rather than pleasurably excited."

@baileylikemovie Woody Allen is so cancelled no-one remembers to mention him here

Who’s the horniest director

@SullyCNBC The idea that any sort of preannouncement is respectful to shareholders has to go. (Especially "white glove" industry conference bombs) The date on the calendar in a month is there for a reason

Many years ago, I naively thought there might be a hedging bias to high tax candidates in betting markets. No no no. Instead, something adjacent to yellow journalism and paying a little to paint the tape seems like a more-than-marginal behavior.

If becoming a more ideological version of Citizen Kane sounds cool, Frank Capra is here to argue for a more civilized way to spend money. (While talking about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in '82)

Amazing that social media hasn't mustered more analysis of what happened here. The episode was less scary than the opening of HR Pufnstuf. Parents seemed bothered by other elements, and at least one letter mentioned how merely *changing* stories supposedly disturbed the children.

That sounds dry, but I'd picture it playing out like The Bad Lieutenant, an escalating, overstimulated crisis, brought on by something like giving Star Wars a bad review.

For all the speculation on The Movie Critic and its inspirations, I can't escape the simple idea of Forrest Gump in reverse, a Waldo Lydecker-type, from Laura: