Thirty Horror Films For October 2025. Film Twelve. Mr. Vampire II (1986)
Ricky Lau's Hong Kong Comedy Horror film Mr. Vampire II is sillier than the first but ultimately fun. More movies should reference hopping vampire lore.
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Brief Film Journeys: Crossing Delancey (1988)
Joan Micklin Silver's breezy "hit" comedy relies more on the societal expectations for human connection than the fairy tale "will they, won't they" of the average rom com.
Yasujiro Ozu Film One: Good Morning (1959)
I had never seen a Yasujiro Ozu film, including his oft-mentioned classic, Tokyo Story (1953), when I watched this movie a couple of years ago. I started with Good Morning (1959) because I figured a comedy would be a good place to start and felt the premise of Tokyo Story to be somewhat daunting. It made me excited to see more examples of his famous "pillow shots," where Ozu cuts away from the narrative to focus on a landscape, an empty room, or a household item, and build his world. This interest in Ozu's framing was only a starting point because now I plan on watching his entire filmography for narrative as well as cinematography and everything else that makes his mise-en-scene and ideas so enjoyable. I will write about fifteen of them for the blog and rank them. One of his later comedies, Good Morning examines how two young boys challenge their parents' rules because they want them to buy a television to watch Sumo matches. As with most of Ozu's ouevre, t...
Conan, Andy, and Me: Remembering Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien first aired on September 13, 1993. I'm not sure when I first tuned in, but it must have been shortly after that, and it hooked me immediately. It appealed to me in ways David Letterman and Jay Leno did not. The dynamic between Andy Richter, Max Weinberg, and Conan, along with the strange skits that felt more like the odd, hallucinatory sketches from The Kids in the Hall than those of his late-night rivals, sucked me in. I raved about it to my friends who were much more interested in David Letterman. Leno was not cool to many of us because his jokes never felt like they were for us. Letterman was hipper because of his biting satire and relatability, while the newcomer Conan was tentative and unsure of himself as a host. His self-deprecating jabs and vulnerability gave him a different type of comedic edge that appealed to the underdog and the also-ran. I started taping my favorite skits and showing them to friends. I have hours of VHS tape of Conan...