Bite Me, Tony

Cult Movie #10: Bing. Bang. BOOM! So, where to even begin? Boom! is a movie that exists entirely within its own mythos of camp, glamor and unchecked ego.  "Artsy-fartsy ballyhoo," complained one film critic.  "A pretentious and self-indulgent mess...almost unwatchable," chimed in another.  "An opulent trainwreck" , wrote yet another,  "an objectively bad movie...one of the worst films ever made."  These quotes are representative of reviews from contemporary film critics who, armed with hatchets and poison-tipped pens, greeted the film's 1968 release with universal ridicule and derision. Based on Tennessee William's Broadway flop, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore , the movie rights had already been acquired by Universal Pictures before the play's final curtain came down, surely a move that begs the question:  What were they thinking? In 1968 Tennessee Williams had long reigned as one of America's premiere playwrights...

The Crying Game With the dog days of summer upon us and C laying low with the flu (or cold or sinus infection), we have been largely confined to our condo since returning from New York  two weeks  ago. For the first time in recent history there are 3--count 'em 3 !--movies playing in movie theaters that I actually want to see but our attendance at this time seems unlikely. Oh well, that's the way it goes. They don't call it the dog days of summer for nothin'. On the plus side, the Barnes and Noble/Criterion Collection was having one of their biannual sales and I couldn't resist picking out a few discs to add to my own library.  My first choice was  The Crying Game , a movie I hadn't seen since it was released back in 1992. I've aged a day since then but there is a shocking reveal a little past the movie's midpoint--I didn't forget that! --but I shall refrain from discussing it just in case there is a movie lover on earth who doesn't already kn...