toobtalk

Watching Stuff With Our Brains Turned On

  • House: Not the Doctor Show, the Haunted Kind

    House: Not the Doctor Show, the Haunted Kind

    When I first saw House, around the time it came out on home video or HBO in the late 80s, I don’t remember thinking of it as a horror-comedy. Part of the reason for that is that I saw House II first which is more of a comedy with horror elements in it. Putting the two side […]

    Read More >>

  • The Woman In Black (2012): A classic ghost story with a twist

    The Woman In Black (2012): A classic ghost story with a twist

    I like ghost stories. Ghost stories aren’t always “monster movies” or the kind of horror that makes you jump out of your seat. A good ghost story will leave your skin crawling long after you’ve finished it. A great ghost story will leave you questioning reality at least a little. Sure, there may be a […]

    Read More >>

  • Frankenstein (1931)

    Frankenstein (1931)

    Thanks to my father’s love of the monster movies of his youth, I grew up watching horror films. It started with the old Universal Pictures movies that were shown sporadically on channel 13, the PBS station out of NYC. One of the first I remember seeing, the lights dim in the living room, was the […]

    Read More >>

  • Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru

    Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru

    Anyone who’s spent even half as much time watching TV at odd hours in the late 80s through the 90s will recognize Tony Robbins immediately. His infomercials were ubiquitous in those wee hours and, as he became better known, ads for his books and seminars would seep into various other viewing hours. He’d show up, […]

    Read More >>

  • Man of Steel: Not My Superman

    Man of Steel: Not My Superman

    When Man of Steel was first announced, I wasn’t as excited as I wanted to be. I’d already been burned a bit by Superman Returns (which, in my opinion, told a bad story and wasted some really solid actors), not to mention Superman IV (the last of the Christopher Reeve films). They weren’t going to spin-off from Smallville, which, […]

    Read More >>

  • Now You See Me: Illusion and Magic

    Now You See Me: Illusion and Magic

    I’ve always been a interested in stage magic. Every since I saw my first bit of slight of hand when I was a kid, I wanted to know more about it. That made me a wee bit annoying for, say, local magicians playing birthday parties and community events. Especially once I figured out how some […]

    Read More >>

  • Adventureland – Quirky and Awkward as Expected

    Adventureland – Quirky and Awkward as Expected

    Adventureland has been on my list to see since it came out. It always seemed exactly like the kind of movie I love and, well, it is. It’s the kind of film I relate to probably a bit more than I should. It’s not a screwball comedy or, really, even a standard rom-com. It doesn’t quite […]

    Read More >>

  • The Truman Show: Prescient and Hopeful

    The Truman Show: Prescient and Hopeful

    When The Truman Show came out in 1998, “reality TV” as we know it today was just barely a thing. MTV had aired the first season of The Real World in 1992, the original Dutch version of Big Brother hit the airwaves in 1997. The “king” of all reality shows, Survivor, wouldn’t air until two years later, in 2000. In […]

    Read More >>

  • Hair: You Know Some of the Songs and None of the Plot

    Hair: You Know Some of the Songs and None of the Plot

    Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bit of a fan of the classic American Musical. That cuts off around the mid-60s, a little after West Side Story. Anything after that I likely haven’t had a lot of exposure to (which is one of the oversights I’m trying to fix lately). The stage version of Hair […]

    Read More >>

  • Transformers: The Movie – Accidental Impact

    Transformers: The Movie – Accidental Impact

    Two of the main cartoons, comic book series, and toy lines of my childhood were G.I. Joe and Transformers. I started the G.I. Joe comic with issue #6 and Transformers with “Issue 1 of a 4-issue limited series” (which then ran for 80 issues). When Transformers: The Movie hit screens in 1986, I was excited. I saw it and I loved […]

    Read More >>