It’s like the producers said to Herzog: OK, just do something about a junkie police lieutenant and other than that, go nuts. Somehow it turned out to be deeply faithful to the spirit of the original, yet completely original and wildly entertaining in its own right. Such a unique pair of movies. Can’t think of anything…

Is the long crane shot at the beginning of Touch of Evil or the heavy use of the then-new Steadicam technology in The Shining just as pointless? It seems like it, or at least it seems to me like any artistic justification of those would be just as legitimate as any justification for Birdman being filmed in one take.

I’m not a fan of Inarritu other than Birdman and The Revenant, but I had no idea that he was worthy of such vitriol. What exactly was the problem with Birdman? That it’s not as profound as it thinks it is? That Keaton’s character is a way for Inarritu to proclaim to the world that he’s an underappreciated genius?…

Does anyone know what happened to the respectable writers they used to have here pre-Kinja, like Ignatiy Vishnevetsky? I’d like to think he earned his tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, and is now happily settled in Vermont, teaching English at a community college or something like that.

So basically these things haven’t improved one bit since The 7th Guest almost 30 years ago?

Yeah, I was almost going to see it based on the mention here, but I’ve learned to double check any recommendations against IMDB ratings. Maybe those are sometimes bombed by marketers or trolls, but if there are thousands of apparently real people saying a movie rates a 4.9, then forget it.

I would classify it as sci-fi rather than horror, but yes it’s fantastic. Think of something like a really good, really creepy Twilight Zone episode.

Yeah, I check in once every five years or so to see if anything he’s doing has even a hint of that early-mid 90's magic, but it never does.

Really? Granted, the bar is pretty damn low, but for me it’s a strong contender for second best of the franchise after Hellbound. I guess my favorite aspect of the series is the fairly interesting mythology, and it’s central to Hellraiser 2022 as I was pleased to discover. Of course it’s not really scary, and I…

Well sure, but for some reason I was assuming that even a reboot can’t simply pretend that the main character didn’t die in the previous film. I guess I’m probably wrong about that.

So is there any remotely plausible theory about how they are going to bring Bond back after quite literally obliterating him? The end credits of No Time to Die do say “James Bond will return” rather than “007 will return” or nothing at all.

I would add that at one point, the commentariat here was the smartest, funniest on the entire internet, at least on a website devoted to pop culture. I think this had a lot to do with the fact that originally the AV Club attracted the readership of The Onion, with which it was closely associated. I wouldn’t claim that…

His comments about samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth in Indian religions) made me think about Inland Empire.  Samsara really is what IE is all about, isn’t it?

I guess I don’t see the connection between that very reasonable idea and the idea that there is something wrong with the state of filmmaking in general. Maybe the biggest budget studio movies these days tend to be cookie cutter products to a greater extent than they were in the 70s, but at the same time, aren’t we…

Great list. I would add that, as far as body anxiety goes, there is something particularly unsettling to me about the idea of a breakdown in the physical boundaries between human bodies. I’m thinking about —for lack of a better term— living blobs that are formed from melded individual people. Society, Slither, and the …

Does Resurrections really look cheap by today’s standards? I guess I don’t know because I don’t watch much of anything anymore, but I thought it looked fine.

Agreed, the meditation moment is very resonant, almost startlingly so. It’s similar to the point in Obi-Wan’s fight with Vader in A New Hope when he allows himself to be struck down, but Qui-Gon’s meditation I think is better at conveying the depths of the Jedi way as a spiritual discipline. Even in a brief moment invo…

Funny. I was just going to comment above and say Cigarette Burns was the first one I saw, so I thought “Wow, this Masters of Horror thing looks like it might be decent.” I then proceeded to waste my time with the other two dozen worthless entries in the series. You’ve been warned.

Ahhh yes. I can tell you right where I was in the summer of ‘93. I was inside, a pasty-faced, scrawny teenager playing X-Wing until my right index finger bled on that old CH Flighstick. I distinctly remember spending an entire day on the final Death Star level just kind of flying around that endless bleak, gray…

Yeah, the bulletproof vest one is what came to mind for me, even though I’ve never actually seen it. Has anyone seen it, or is it just an urban legend? In any case, that most assuredly crosses some kind of line.

I think the only other one that truly seems to cross some kind of line is the one where he puts the (fake)…