“You’re an individual, and you know something? That makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep makin’ people nervous your whole life.”
July 10, 1996
HARRIET THE SPY is a theatrical motion picture offering from Nickelodeon, television’s foremost purveyors of double dares and super-sloppiness. It does in fact include green slime splashing on the face of an outraged mother, plus its heroine being covered in blue paint. But what you may not guess about this movie is that it’s extremely artful. The slime is a brief instance, not a set piece, and the paint is striking imagery in a heartbreaking sequence when the titular Harriet M. Welsch (Michelle Trachtenberg, The Adventures of Pete & Pete) tries to hold her head high while the entire sixth grade turns against her. 
This is a really special movie that balances on overall feeling of quirkiness with an impressively naturalistic performance from the young lead. It paints a beautiful portrait of a city inhabited by different cultures and eccentrics and artists, while treating messy childhood emotions seriously. It’s about kids (and people in general) being curious about the world, following their passions, being their authentic selves, but trying not to mess up their friendships. I think it’s one of the great children’s movies of the era, though nobody else seemed to think so at the time. (read the rest of this shit…)
June 24, 2005
I really liked LAND OF THE DEAD at the time, and for a while after. But when I last watched it in 2017, having bought the Scream Factory special edition, I wasn’t as into it. I was hoping that would change this time, but I’m sorry to report that LAND OF THE DEAD just doesn’t do as much for me these days. And that’s a shame because it has plenty of cool ideas, and its central theme of the powerful living in luxury locked safely away from most of the world (including the people who actually do all the work they got rich off of) is somehow even more relevant now than it was then. 
Hollywood George Romero is not my favorite George Romero, but he’s the most underrated one. With THE DARK HALF (1993, but shot in ’90 and ’91) he’s still filming in Pennsylvania (portraying Stephen King’s Castle Rock, Maine), but funded by Orion, with enough of a budget ($15 million) for Academy Award winning movie star lead Timothy Hutton (
You know, MUNICH is almost the movie I was hoping SYRIANA would be. SYRIANA has alot to say about the complicated way the world works, but it doesn’t get you excited about it. You’re probaly not gonna be sitting on the edge of your seat. More likely you’ll be scratching your chin saying, “Interesting, interesting.” I’d rather see a movie that can be complex and political without sacrificing in the awesome department. A good balance of substance and badass. And that’s what this is.
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
