At The Movies with Bryan, the Wannabe Filmmaker

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon was my first introduction to the world famous sleuth; I was in 8th grade at the time and out of sheer boredom (it was 2 AM on a Friday night) I popped in my dad’s video copy (COLORIZED) in the VCR, and I have been hooked ever since. Whenever there was a Sherlock Holmes movie on television, I had to watch it.  However, the Rathbone-Bruce films weren't enough to quench my thirst, so I eventually turned to the Arthur Conan Doyle short stories; I bought "The Classic Illustrated Sherlock Holmes" and absolutely ate it up. What’s amazing about Doyle’s character is how he has transcended time; Sherlock Holmes is just as relevant now as he was in Victorian London. The TV show Sherlock was not the first adaptation to transpose Doyle’s creation to a modern day setting; the Universal series did the same thing in the 1940s by setting it against the backdrop of World War II. In the early films, Holmes was often pitted against Nazi agents. In T

The Lost World was the pre-cursor to King Kong and the grandfather of the modern day blockbuster; many of today’s special effects extravaganzas follow its template, a slim framework to hang its special effects on.   The special effects in The Lost World are dated, but they are charming in their crudity, and are certainly the best parts in the film. The non effects scenes are rather unremarkable, but passable. The Lost World suffers from two major flaws: 1)       The Love Triangle. The character of Paula White (the appealing Bessie Love) was not in Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel and was created specifically to provide the character of Edward Malone (Lloyd Hughes) with a love interest.   This in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it takes an awkward turn for the worst with the introduction of famed hunter Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone), who also vies for Paula’s affection.   The problem is that this love triangle is a complete mismatch in Edward’s favor, Paula doesn’t return

Vincent Price is one of the few screen actors that was able to make a completely loathsome character likable.  Take House of Wax, for instance. Price stars as Henry Jarrod, a mad sculptor that murders people (that resemble historical figures), covers their bodies with wax, and then puts them on display at his wax museum.  He is the kind of character that audiences love to hate! Yet, we don’t hate Henry Jarrod, rather we find him sympathetic; he maybe the kindest villain ever to grace the silver screen.   When the meddlesome Sue Allen is taken aback by how much his Joan of Arc sculpture resembles her recently deceased friend Cathy, Jarrod tries to put her mind ease by telling her he modeled his Joan of Arc after a picture of Cathy  he saw in the newspaper. Does she buy the explanation? NO! Her nonstop snooping (((SPOILERS))) eventually leads to poor Jarrod’s untimely demise. I remember watching House of Wax for the first time with my friend Joe and we kept getting annoyed at how

There have been so many dreadful horrors that it was almost impossible for to just settle on ten. However, after thinking about it for a few days (I have no life), I narrowed my list down to these ten titles. There are many of bad horror films I have yet to see, so this list could easily change in the future. 10) Halloween II (2009) Dir: Rob Zombie. Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Taylor Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris, Sheri Moon Zombie, Margot Kidder, Mary Birdsong, Bea Grant. Running Time:  105 min. I absolutely loathed Rob Zombie's remake of Hallween, the only reason it isn't on my top 10 list is because Halloween II is infinitely worse. Slasher films aren't exactly high works of art, but even the bottom feeders tend to have at least one character you an empathize with...... not so with Halloween II. For instance, I enjoy the first four entries in Friday the 13th series, largely because the characters are at least fun too watch. Sure, the

Is there a cooler actor in the history of cinema than Vincent Price? The answer is no! Vincent Price had the magical ability to transform the most putrid of scripts into something watchable; his presence alone often elevated many of the films he starred in.  He was a fun actor to watch and one never got the impression that he simply phoned in his performance, regardless of the material.  The Bat is not a Vincent Price vehicle, despite his top billing. He is relegated to the thankless red herring role of Dr. Malcolm Wells; a character that we are constantly lead to believe is the villain of the title. There's a lot of damning evidence against him, which means that he cannot possibly be The Bat. The Bat was the third adaptation of the 1920 Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, and it is by far the weakest out of the three. The play was adapted twice by Roland West in 1926 (as The Bat) and 1930 (as The Bat Whispers) .  The first version is probably the

Even if you have never seen any of his films, you probably have heard of the name Lon Chaney. He left his stamp on the cinema starring in the definitive version of The Phantom of the Opera (sorry Gerald Butler fans). With the exception of The Hunchback of Notre Dame most of his films are fairly unknown to the average movie goer. This is due in large part to the fact that they are extremely hard to find; both The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame managed to fall into the public domain, hence they have been readily available in stores across the country. I first saw The Phantom of the Opera on PBS when I was a kid. Despite the poor quality of the print, it was still a rather powerful experience. Not even a bad print could ruin the unmasking scene. I like it so much that I bought it on VHS, which was of even worse quality than the PBS print.  More importantly, it turned me into a life long Lon Chaney fan. When my family got a satellite dish in the 90s, one of the pe