And so, we come to the last of these columns before we come to an end next week. I hope you've enjoyed them over the years and if you care to follow me elsewhere for the sheer silly nonsense I do on social media, you can find me on Facebook (as Joseph J. Finn) and on Bluesky as well. Now on to the thrift stores!
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Let's start with the (presumably) classy; A New Kind Of Love (1963) is a Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman vehicle written and directed by Melville Shavelson, an old-school comedy writer who I'm pretty unfamiliar with. It doesn't appear to have gotten particularly good reviews but hey, Woodward and Newman!
A New Kind Of Love is available for rent and for sale at the usual places.
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On to the schlock! Q: The Winged Serpent is the most simple of premises. Someone accidentally brings Quetzalcoatl to New York and he takes up residence, swooping down on unsuspecting New Yorkers who are already dealing with ritual murders by a neo-Aztec cult. You have David Carradine and Richard Roundtree as police detectives dealing with the murders, you have Candy Clark kind of wandering around this kind of wonderfully silly movie....
And then Michael Moriarty shows up, playing a small-time, disheveled crook who might know where Q's nest is and is willing to lead the cops there for money. Everyone else in this movie is playing it kind of goofy, but Moriarty goes full Method here and it's weird but somehow perfect. The movie is absolutely worth seeing for him.
Q is streaming pretty much everywhere; Tubi, Shudder, Peacock, AMC+, Crackle, it's very widely available.
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Finally, let's talk Robert Wise and the sheer weirdness of his career:
- The Sound Of Music (Oscar win for Best Director)
- West Side Story (another win)
- The Day The Earth Stood Still
- Edited Citizen Kane
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
And then, for my money, his absolute masterpiece, The Haunting. Adapted from Shirley Jackson's amazing novel, The Haunting Of Hill House, this came out 60 years ago this year (literally, on September 18th). It's a masterpiece of tone and use of great black & white photography of growing madness among a group staying in one of the great examples of a Bad Place; Hill House has been there for a hundred years and bad things keep happening there, to the point where the house might be alive with all the sad terror that has happened here. I'm a little surprised that I didn't have a copy of this and it's an absolute watch for this weekend.
The Haunting is available for rent and purchase at the usual places.
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Thank you, again, all you readers. Be excellent to each other.
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