Category: Reviews

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Blazing Saddles

{Audio returns next week.} Hatred is, unfortunately, nothing new. There are people even today who have built their lives, fortunes and reputations around rhetoric that perpetuates ignorance and blind intolerance. From the Spanish Inquisition to the Nazis, the Crusades to Mao’s Great Leap Forward, sooner or later somebody somewhere is going to react in a… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Blazing Saddles

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Shutter Island

{No audio this week, still adjusting to the new work schedule.} I’m sure that most of the people reading this review have at least one dog-eared copy of a paperback novel lying around somewhere. Let me ask you something: why have you read that book more than once? I’m willing to hazard a guess. Even… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Shutter Island

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/bad_lieutenant.mp3] In 1992, vocal independent director Abel Ferrara teamed up with Harvey Keitel to make Bad Lieutenant, the story of an abusive and sleazy cop of the NYPD charged with solving the case of a raped nun. While he was self-indulgent, scandalous and even downright cruel, there existed a glimmer of humanity in the man… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Druids

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/druids.mp3] There are a great many cautionary tales that carry the message “Be careful what you wish for.” Some of the most potent come from our own history. For example, never allow yourself to be dared to do something you normally do with compensation for free, just ‘for the fun of it.’ It isn’t fun… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Druids

Book Review: Dream Park

Writers need to read almost as much as they need to write. It’s how we discover things we want to do, avoid, improve upon and revisit. It also pays to re-read things we’ve previously read, as life experiences and evolving styles might give us new appreciation for something half-remembered or cast an old favorite in… Continue reading Book Review: Dream Park

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Airplane!

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/airplane.mp3] The year was 1980. It was a time when volcanos erupted, disco was dying, empires struck back and an actor became President of the United States. Comedy, satire and parody were nothing new to the people of this time, but when Airplane! premiered, it not only delivered the screwiest of screwball pictures to date,… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Airplane!

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Naked Gun

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/naked_gun.mp3] The parody is hardly a new form of artistic expression. People have been making fun of things other people do since time immemorial. I’m sure there are some cave drawings that, in context, are downright hilarious. For a few years the premiere comedy team for cinematic parody were David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Naked Gun

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! RoboCop

{Audio pending} Capitalism is, in its current form, a very Darwinian way of life. Only the wealthy survive, and if you want to make it you need to cleave yourself to someone with pockets much deeper than yours in exchange for the means to keep on living. Lately the cleaving has been to large corporations… Continue reading IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! RoboCop