By Brian Lafferty

November 11, 2011 (San Diego) – Apparently every generation brings a disaster movie in which an asteroid, meteor, or comet is about to strike the Earth. There was Meteor in 1979. My generation had not one but two such movies in 1998. They were Michael Bay’s Armageddon and Mimi Leder’s Deep Impact. I don’t think I need to tell you which was more popular among my classmates.

By Brian Lafferty

October 14, 2011 (San Diego) – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ended on a famous freeze frame shot. It was right up there with the famous shot of Antoine Doinel looking at the camera to cap Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. The Bolivian army surrounded Butch and Sundance. They emerged from hiding, guns blazing. The movie ended on a freeze frame of the two with the sound of gunfire blasting away.

By Brian Lafferty

September 30, 2011 (San Diego) – There is an old proverb that goes, “Honesty is the best policy.” As a theme it serves Happy, Happy well. It’s refreshing to see a film so honest with everything, including its characters, their relationships with each other, and the situations they encounter. Most importantly, it’s honest with itself.

By Brian Lafferty

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is playing only at midnight tonight and Saturday night at the Ken Cinema.

September 30, 2011 (San Diego) – Although it wasn’t exactly a horror film, John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972) introduced a novel villain that would become a go-to baddie in the years to come. I’m talking about the bloodthirsty backwoods hillbilly, also known as the mountain man. You know the clichés. A bunch of horny young adults get stranded deep in the woods and are terrorized by a few white trash deranged hillbillies.

By Brian Lafferty

May 21, 2011 (San Diego) – Rubber is a portmanteau of the films of Luis Buñuel, David Cronenberg’s Scanners, and the road movie. It requires not only the largest suspension of disbelief but it necessitates putting any attempt at logic back into the furthest reaches of your mind. It is an utterly ridiculous movie but I enjoyed it for exactly that reason.