Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey: Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield. With Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Natasha Rose Mills, Amber Doig-Thorne. After Christopher Robin abandons them for college, Pooh and Piglet embark on a bloody rampage as they search for a new source of food. As far as public domain horror parodies go, this one isn’t too bad, my only complaint is that the creatures of the 100 Acre Wood are obviously just people in some pretty terrible masks, gloves, and body suits. The actual premise works for me on multiple levels, but I honestly would have taken that premise in a different...
Fallout: Created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner. With Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins, Moises Arias. In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits. About as perfect of a video game adaptation that could be possibly made, I think it helps that the universe lends itself to unique settings and characters for each vault that opens on it’s own schedule, so while they were able to accurately capture the humor and visual style of the games, they were also free to create their...
lots of dead kids in this one, along with scary spiders!
The Terminal Man: Directed by Mike Hodges. With George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat. Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response to his brain. The concept here is a great one but the implementation is more “talk about the cool stuff” instead of letting the cool stuff happen on screen. I actually had to time one of the scenes, when they’re implanting a chip into the guy’s head because I thought it had looped somehow, but...
11 Minutes: With Jonathan Smith, Dee Jay Silver, Kelly Pollard, Jason Aldean. Through emotional first-hand accounts and never-before-seen archival footage, this documentary immerses viewers inside the largest mass shooting in our country’s history, at what was supposed to be a festival celebrating country music. This is both one of the most difficult documentaries to watch, but also one of the most maddening, with all the real terror of the night hidden and censored, only the hallways scenes at the hospital were really showing the full depths of the insanity, the rest of it feels like a sanitized and nearly bloodless...
3 Body Problem: Created by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo. With Jovan Adepo, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Jess Hong. A fateful decision made in 1960s China reverberates in the present, where a group of scientists partner with a detective to confront an existential planetary threat. A fun hard science fiction series that doesn’t stay very jovial for very long and gets right into the hard truths portion fast enough to turn off those that don’t enjoy such things but kept my attention the entire time. I’ve heard so much about the book that I was expecting something much more...
Voodoo Passion: Directed by Jesús Franco. With Vicky Adams, Ada Tauler, Karine Gambier, Jack Taylor. Susan comes to Haiti to be with her husband. His naked sister asks her, if she’s ever made love to a woman. Susan dreams vividly of nudity, Voodoo rituals and killing. Otherwide known as “Call of the Blonde Goddess”, I was sucked in by this fantastic poster and the movie itself ended up being about what i thought it was going to be, with barely any clothing and a fair bit of weird white curiosity of a black religion with all the accouchements that comes...
Something the Lord Made: Directed by Joseph Sargent. With Cliff McMullen, Yasiin Bey, Luray Cooper, Alan Rickman. A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas. Another entry in the “I saw a scene on TikTok that looked interesting, so I watched the whole movie” and it turns out that Alan Rickman and Mos Def were both great actors at the time this movie was made, it was well written, and didn’t present the men as unstoppable saviors of humanity, but instead as fallible people that had their ups and downs. Buy On Amazon!
Archive: Directed by Gavin Rothery. With Theo James, Stacy Martin, Rhona Mitra, Peter Ferdinando. 2038: George Almore is working on a true human-equivalent AI. His latest prototype is almost ready. This sensitive phase is also the riskiest. Especially as he has a goal that must be hidden at all costs. Feels low budget, but is much more clever than I initially thought with some well laid out foreshadowing that I noticed, but was bamboozeled into thinking was referring to something else. Also, the robots are all absolutely adorable and I wish I had one in my life. Sorta, they do...
In which I fight my neighbors for parking in my yard.
