Reviews

This episode probably has the dubious honor of being the installment of The Outer Limits that most often gets misremembered as a Twilight Zone episode. Being one of few installments of the series that doesn't feature aliens, The Premonition instead has a premise that is just as creepy and inexplicable. A reason why it's one of my favorites is because planes are a big part of its story. Jim Darcy (Dewey Martin) is a pilot in the US Air Force assigned to fly the experimental X-15, a real life rocketplane which to this day holds the world record for the fastest speed achieved by a manned aircraft. The plane is taken to its optimal altitude by a large B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber, then released from under the wing and its rocket ignited. During his flight, Jim manages to achieve mach 6 (6 times the speed of sound) or about 4500 miles an hour. The X-15 suddenly yaws down sharply and goes into a dive. Jim's wife Linda crashes her convertible outside the base on a boulder and sees the plane coming in to crash land in the desert. Upon exiting the plane, Jim discovers everything in the world around him is completely frozen, except himself and Linda. She and Jim head back to mission control and discover they have caused some kind of time paradox and trapped themselves 10 seconds into the future, but each second proceeds at an extremely slow rate: about one second every half hour. Even worse, when the two go to check on their young daughter Janie, they find she was riding a tricycle dangerously close to a garage at the instant time was stopped. Jim deduces that when time resumes (whenever that is), Janie will be right in front of a truck inside the garage, which doesn't have its brake on. Because they are technically on a different plane of reality, Jim and his wife are unable to manipulate anything in the "actual" world in order to save their daughter, since nothing can move. When they go back to the control room, they are confronted with a strange being that used to be a person, who says he was in the same situation of being stuck in a time paradox, but he couldn't make it back to the present in time. As a result, he is condemned to this plane of existence for all time. Furthermore, he tells Jim and Linda the same will happen to them if they are not in the exact places they were in at the time of the paradox when time eventually synchronizes itself again. Upon discovering Jim can manipulate items in his crashed plane and Linda's car, he formulates a plan to save Janie; cutting one of the seatbelts and tying one end of it to the truck's front left wheel and the other end around the brake lever. With time set to resume at its normal pace soon, Jim and Linda quickly jump back into the plane and car, respectively, so that time proceeds normally without any anomalies popping up. When the time syncs up, Janie rides her tricycle right in front of the truck, which lurches toward her, but the seatbelt snags on the brake and she is saved. Jim's plane still crashes, but he is able to evacuate it and meet up with Linda. They rush back to where Janie is, and are happy to learn she was not killed by the truck. Linda and Jim both feel like they've been in this exact place before, but can't understand why. While I always liked this episode, ABC apparently did not and by this point, Outer Limits was just about finished. Originally, Don Gordon was supposed to be the main character, but got sick a day before shooting was to start. Martin was brought in to replace him, and he barely had any time to memorize what his character was supposed to say. While shot at an actual air base, the X-15 featured here is a mockup that was loaned to the show. The military is more accomodating then you would expect when it comes to giving out weapons and vehicles for use on television. If you ask for something, they will usually give it to you (even an aircraft carrier). If anything, the inclusion of the X-15 in this promotes the air force, so they happily obliged. Overall, The Premonition is a somewhat heavy handed Outer Limits episode because of the Janie subplot, but I really like the concept of still time acting as another dimension.

Rocky 4 begins with two boxing gloves, one bearing the stars and stripes and the other emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, slamming against each other and exploding. This basically sets the tone for the whole movie, which is over the top and mildly satisfying, but woefully predictable. The story picks up after the end of 3, where heavyweight boxers Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) are now friends. Rocky has been married to his wife Adrian (Talia Shire) for about a decade now and has a son. During a birthday party for his brother in law Paulie, Rocky receives word that Apollo is on the phone and wants to talk to him about something. While in his pool that day, Apollo saw on tv that a towering boxer from the USSR named Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) seeks to challenge the now retired Italian Stallion in order to prove that the Soviet Union has the edge over America in terms of brute force. Apollo is stepping up to the challenge instead, as Rocky wants to focus on his new life and leave his old one behind him. He tries to convince Apollo that his way of thinking is right and that he shouldn't challenge Drago, but Creed is adamant. During a press event, Apollo and Drago's respective teams boil over with hatred for each other, with Drago's wife Ludmilla telling the media her husband is just a fighter and has nothing to prove by coming to america. Apollo is not satisfied until he punches him out in the ring, face to face. The fight takes place on the Las Vegas Strip. It starts out relatively normal with Drago taking his time chasing Creed around the ring, and he even lets Creed land a few hits, which seem to do absolutely nothing. Drago remorselessly strikes back with nightmarish stopping power, pummeling Apollo with such force that it doesn't just make him collapse, it takes his life. Rocky now realizes Drago is no ordinary boxer; he's a monster filled with so many steroids that when he punches, it's like getting hit by a train. There's nothing Rocky can do to save his friend, but he promises to make Drago pay in the only way he knows how. Rocky gives up his championship title to request a match from Drago, which his team agrees to, on the condition that it is held in Russia on Christmas Day. Once Adrian finds out about this, she's deeply upset and knows Rocky might get killed, but he is not going to give up. Rocky, Paulie, and Duke (Apollo's trainer) are flown to the soviet union, where Rocky is provided with a cabin in the Sverdlovsk region. It is always freezing, and he has two KGB agents watching his every move. As Rocky trains by running up mountains and cutting down trees, Drago trains using state of the art equipment with a team of doctors giving him drugs. When the fight finally begins in Moscow, Rocky is (of course) unwelcome by the audience. Drago enters the arena with big banners of Karl Marx behind him while the soviet anthem plays. Unlike his fight against Creed, Drago instantly begins attacking Rocky. Rocky is clobbered in the first 2 rounds, but at the end of the latter he manages to land a lucky punch that cuts Drago's left eye, hampering him. Duke tries to keep Rocky's spirits up by telling him he's proven that Drago isn't unstoppable, and Drago admits to his trainers that Rocky is more like a piece of steel than a human. Over the next dozen or so rounds, Rocky and Drago continue to pummel each other, with neither one willing to give in. Towards the end of the match, the russian crowd actually takes Rocky's side, amazed by his resilience. In between rounds, Drago is yelled at by his manager for being a disgrace to the soviet union, to which Drago responds by grabbing him by the throat and tossing him into the crowd. Drago tells the soviet politburo (overseeing the fight) that he fights for himself alone. In the last round, an exhausted Rocky hits Drago in quick succession a number of times and knocks him over, finally achieving his revenge. He then gives a speech which is translated to the crowd. He says how upon first entering the arena, the crowd didn't like him and he sure as hell didn't like them, but through perseverance against impossible odds, they gained respect for him. He ends the speech by wishing his son, watching on tv back in america, a merry christmas. The politburo begrudgingly stands up and clap for Rocky's victory. While this movie is basically more of the same rehashed Rocky exploits we've seen in the series time and again, I'd be lying if I said I found it boring. The movie epitomizes the vitriol america and the soviets had for each other back then, and in my opinion is shown a little too much. When the crowd in moscow boos Rocky, it's not because they think his reputation isn't deserved, it's just because he's an american. During the press conference with Drago's team, Paulie interjects and says at least his country didn't have to build a wall to keep people in. Even though he's a Swede, Dolph is probably the best actor they could have picked for the role, as he is extremely tall compared to Rocky, though not much taller than Apollo. He's a very robotic character for the most part, basically never smiles, and is only concerned with humiliating Rocky in front of the world. The entire soviet union is in his corner. Perhaps not surprisingly, Dolph actually hurt Stallone badly for real while the film was being made, as one of his blows bounced his heart against his breastbone. Stallone had to be hospitalized for over a week. Additionally, this is the only film of the original 5 not to have Bill Conti as composer, which is disappointing but not that bad a loss when we got Kenny Loggins and Survivor instead. Overall, Rocky 4 basically ended the cold war, but aside from this, it doesn't offer much that has not been seen already in the previous 3 films.

For somebody like me, making a movie that has a war as one of its focal points instantly makes it more interesting. If it weren't for its connection to World War I, I'd say Heroes for Sale is a barely mediocre pre-code movie with a positive message, but it ended up being more enjoyable than I foresaw. The movie begins during the carnage of the First World War. A soldier named Tom Holmes (Richard Barthelmess), along with his friend Roger, son of a banker, are ordered to attack a German machine gun post in order to bring back a prisoner, preferably a high ranking one. However, Roger is too afraid to leave cover while being shot at, so Thomas attacks the germans alone. He is apparently listed as killed in action, but was actually recovered by a german field hospital to recover. Meanwhile, Roger gets the credit for capturing a prisoner instead, and german doctors treat Tom's pain with morphine, which he eventually becomes addicted to. By the time Tom finally gets back to America, Roger offers him a job at his father's bank to hopefully make up for him taking credit for his heroism. Tom is found out to be a drug addict and loses his job, and Roger's dad gets him sent to an asylum. When he gets out in the early 20s, he heads to Chicago and encounters a diner run by an old man and his daughter Mary (Aline MacMahon). After paying her to stay in one of the apartments upstairs, Tom meets Ruth Loring (Loretta Young), who works in a laundry. Tom starts working there with her shortly after. Soon, somebody invents a machine that will automate much of the drying process for the clothes, and the laundry company adopts it for use. Tom is only willing to put up with it if none of the workers are replaced by the machines. Tom marries Ruth, but the lenient president of the laundry company dies. His replacement decides to automate the laundry even further, forcing Tom out of work. Angry at what's happened to them all, the workers storm the plant in order to smash the machines as Tom tries to dissuade them. Cops launch tear gas at the mob, and Ruth is hit in the face with a nightstick, killing her. Tom is arrested for something he didn't do (being an orchestrator of the riot) and sentenced to 5 years manual labor. While incarcerated, people all across America are being fired because of the device he helped finance. By the time his sentence is finished, it's 1932: the height of the Depression. Although he is rich from his creation, he refuses to take credit and instead uses the money to feed the seemingly endless columns of unemployed people coming to Mary's diner to get soup. Because Tom has just got done being in prison, two detectives visit him on suspicion that he's a communist. The whole city is rioting for workers rights, and Tom is forced to leave Chicago. Tom finds himself a bum in one of the worst times in US history, and has to live outside in run down shantytowns. At one of them, he finds Roger, his old friend from the military. Roger is poor now too, since his father apparently stole from the bank for years and then killed himself when he got caught. Even though they are both dirt poor now, Tom knows that it's going to take more than the Depression to kill america. Constantly hounded by the cops, who tell him and Roger they're not supposed to be loitering, Tom keeps moving forward in search of new opportunities, confident things will get better. At the diner, the line of people continues to be fed by Mary and her father, and a plaque dedicated to Tom's selflessness has been put on the wall for all to see. This movie is arguably more important today than it was 90 years ago, since we're seeing incidents like the one depicted in it happen on a wider scale. What would the world be like if all industries were run by computers or AI? Only time will see where this ends up, but I'm fairly certain that most jobs that require manual labor will be performed by machines by the end of the century. Machines do repetitive processes well, and it looks like the human's time for working in this capacity might be coming to an end. While I don't really like the central message that the film tries to push (workers should strive for a classless society where the people themselves are in charge), I was able to look past this because it's a Depression era film about the Depression and it's just nice to see their take on it. These were trying times for all of us, but Tom was right: america did bounce back.

Like many other movies, Asphalt Jungle kind of fulfills the role of that one film from a specific genre you absolutely need to watch if you want to consider yourself a fan of said genre. Being one of the most acclaimed noirs ever made, I had high hopes for this, but as is often the case, I feel things took their sweet time getting moving, and barely any characters were likeable (except one). To see why I think this way, I need to explain the rather confusing story, which also feels way too simple at times. A criminal named Erwin Ridenschneider (Sam Jaffe) is recently let out of prison after a long term and goes to a city in the American Midwest to plot a heist. He wants 50 grand to hire 3 guys: someone who can bust open a safe, a driver, and a tough guy to keep the cops off of them. A bookie arranges a meeting between him and Alonzo Emmerich, a lawyer who lives a luxurious life. After Emmerich learns of the huge amount of money that is expected to result from this, he agrees to find a fence and finance the operation. When Doc leaves, we see Emmerich put his girlfriend Angela (Marilyn Monroe) to bed, who barely looks to be a third of his age. Emmerich tells his detective Bob that he is broke and wants to do this scheme to make up for this. Initially, he sends Bob to threaten a bunch of people who owe his boss money, but he comes up with nothing. Emmerich then persuades Bob to help him backstab the others once the jewels are stolen. Meanwhile, Doc hires Louie Ciavelli as his safecracker, and his friend Gus (a diner owner) to drive the getaway vehicle. Last but certainly not least we have Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), a southerner addicted to gambling as the muscle of the group. Handley tells Doll Conovan, his girlfriend, that he's only participating in this to buy back a farm he lost after a bad year that involved his father and a prized horse dying. When the heist actually commences, Ciavelli hammers through some bricks and deactivates an alarm to get Handley and Doc into the safe room. After the safe is blown open with nitroglycerine, several alarms go off. They continue the operation, but as they try to escape, Handley punches a guard who finds out what's going on. The guard drops his gun, which strikes its hammer on the ground and goes off, wounding Ciavelli. All the perpetrators get away. Gus goes against his wife's wishes to have Ciavelli hospitalized, as his gunshot wound will be reported to the cops. Instead, he hires an experienced but illegal doctor. Concurrently, Doc and Handley show up at Emmerich's to present him with the jewels, but Handley seems to know Bob is planning to doublecross them. When Bob sits down, he holds Handley and Doc at gunpoint. Doc quickly throws the bag of jewels at Bob while Handley quickly draws his own gun and shoots him. Right before getting shot, Bob manages to hit Handley in the side. Doc scolds Emmerich and tells him he better sell the jewels back to the jeweler's insurance. Not a preferable option since they'll only take them for a quarter of what they're worth, but holding onto them at a time like this is too risky. Emmerich disposes of Bob's corpse in a river, and the cops find a list of people who owe Emmerich on the body. Emmerich lies to the cops, seems to get away with it, and then receives word they are planning to question Angela. Emmerich gets Angela to lie for him, saying she was with him for most of last night. The cops wise up and determine Emmerich is definitely guilty so they pay him a visit at Angela's house. They threaten to have Angela arrested for giving Emmerich an alibi, so she admits she lied for him. When Emmerich is given permission to leave the room to call his wife, he shoots himself. Gus is arrested soon after, and when the cops attempt to go after Ciavelli, they find he's already dead. In Doll's apartment, Doc wants to give Handley some of the jewels, which he turns down; returning to Kentucky is his only concern. He and Doll begin to drive back there. Doc gives a taxi driver a large tip so he can be driven all the way to Cleveland, but is discovered by the cops after he gives a girl nickels so she can listen to a jukebox in a diner. Meanwhile, Handley is rapidly losing a lot of blood from his wound and a bewildered Doll needs to take him to a nearby doctor. When the doctor discovers the gunshot wound, he attempts to call the police. When Handley overhears this, he gets up and drives off with Doll, but they don't get much further. Finally back within Kentucky borders, Handley stops the car next to a pasture that has horses grazing in it, as he deliriously talks to himself. As Doll runs after him, Handley collapses and dies, surrounded by the only things that were important to him. While John Huston is no doubt responsible for lots of great films, I honestly think this one is overrated. Basically everyone in it is a criminal looking to betray one another, and it makes sympathizing with them nearly impossible. The only character I pitied was Marilyn's, as she is obviously not very intelligent when it comes to being manipulated. She is really trusting of Emmerich and does whatever he asks of her without a second thought, even if it means lying to authorities. She has to learn the hard way that distancing yourself from bad influences can mean the difference between going to jail or staying free. Marilyn was pretty convincing for the 4 or so minutes of screentime they gave her, but the rest of the cast didn't really do it for me, even Hayden. He's been in dozens of noirs I've seen already, but he's had better outlets for his performances. Overall, Asphalt Jungle is an incredibly bleak film that uses a robbery as a plot device to repeat a moral told time and time again: crime doesn't pay. It feels generic to me, but at least basically every major character is dead by the end.

It doesn't happen much, but sometimes a video game so influential is released that it redefines an entire genre. Halo Combat Evolved not only did this, but started one of the most well known franchises in the world today. I can just refuse to elaborate further, and pull up the insane numbers: over 40 novels, 16 games, 81 million copies sold, and so on. It takes nothing less than a masterpiece to spawn a series this groundbreaking. The very first game, while over 20 years old at this point, still manages to be among the best in the series and one of the finest in the sci-fi shooter genre. While there is no doubt much more to Halo than its plot, it would help to explain what goes on in this enormous game universe which rivals the size of our own. A universe mainly concerned with the player character, an alien alliance trying to destroy humanity, and an ancient ring of unimaginable power.

Halo CE begins in September 2552 on a large spaceship called the Pillar of Autumn. While not shown in game, the ship has just fled from the planet Reach, a human colony world that was just utterly annihilated by the Covenant: a conglomerate of different alien races who are at war with humanity. Captain Jacob Keyes, commanding officer of the Autumn, orders everyone to their battlestations when he is told by Cortana (the ship's female holographic artificial intelligence) that Covenant ships have been following them all the way from Reach. The player assumes the role of John-117. Commonly known by his rank of Master Chief, John is the human race's trump card against the Covenant, being a member of a near mythical batch of supersoldiers known as Spartans. Chief is awoken from sleeping in a cryogenic pod meant to preserve his lifespan just as Covenant boarding groups begin to infiltrate the Autumn, knowing Cortana is onboard. John makes his way to the ship's bridge and is given orders by Captain Keyes to get Cortana off the ship. If the Covenant capture her, they will learn where Earth is and humanity will be doomed. John fights his way through swarms of alien attackers and makes it to a lifeboat, which jettisons from the Autumn and crash lands on a huge ring shaped world called Halo. As Chief attempts to link up with marines who survived in other lifeboats, he fights his way through more Covenant, then receives word that Keyes has been captured by the aliens. He is next tasked with infiltrating the Truth and Reconciliation, a mile long Covenant spaceship that is holding Keyes hostage. After rescuing him, Cortana analyzes Covenant records and learns that they believe Halo is some kind of weapon which controls the fate of the universe. After finding out that Halo has its own control center from which it can be activated, John and Cortana set out to find the Cartographer: a map room that will show them its location. Facing heavy Covenant resistance, they make it to the control center in order to discover Halo's true purpose, but Cortana senses something is wrong. She finds out an ancient race known as Forerunners built it in order to rid the galaxy of something horrible they had encountered, and Keyes is about to unknowingly uncover it. Cortana urges John to rush out of there and find Keyes before it's too late.

Chief arrives at a dimly lit and eerie swamp area, where all the normally staunch Covenant soldiers are fleeing in horror from some unseen enemy. After entering the nearby Forerunner facility, John finds out that the place was made to contain a terrifying adversary: the Flood. The Flood are a highly virulent alien parasite that cause the extinction of other lifeforms by infecting them and absorbing their memories, and were responsible for almost wiping out the Forerunners millenia ago. After fighting his way out of the Flood infested area, John is confronted by 343 Guilty Spark, the Halo ring's monitor. He is a floating, robotic construct built by the Forerunners tasked with looking over Installation 04 (Halo's official name). He wants Chief's assistance with making sure the Flood does not escape the ring, so he teleports him to The Library: an ancient security facility crawling with Flood. It houses the index, which is the key to activating the ring itself. Once the index is in John's possession, he returns to Halo's control room and reunites with Cortana, but she is not happy. John is convinced activating the ring will destroy the Flood, but Cortana exposes the truth; Halo doesn't kill Flood, it kills their food source. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them, and without any other thinking aliens or humans to parasitize, they all die. John asks the monitor if this is true, and he says yes. Spark turns on Chief and wants him to give up Cortana (and the index) so the ring can be fired, but he refuses. As a result, Chief now has to deal with being caught in a 4 way war between himself, the Flood, the Covenant, and Sentinels: flying robots with lasers that are tasked with containing Flood outbreaks.

Cortana tells John they need to destroy Halo in order to prevent Spark from getting his wish and activating it. To do this, John needs to destroy 3 generators that amplify Halo's signal. After this, he is teleported to the Truth and Reconciliation in order to search for Keyes. The ship is now disabled and swarming with Flood forms, who wish to repair the ship, use it to escape Halo, and infect other worlds (possibly Earth). Another 3 way battle ensues onboard the ruined and chaotic hallways of the cruiser, and John discovers the horrible truth upon entering the bridge: Keyes has been taken over by the Flood, who need his knowledge of Earth in order to infect it. John punches through Keyes' decaying skull and retrieves his neural lace, which is required to access the Pillar of Autumn's subsystems. The Covenant sends in special operations teams to deal with the Flood, and Chief must fight them on his way out.

After stealing a flying Covenant vehicle known as a Banshee, he makes his way to the crashed Pillar of Autumn, now infested with Flood. He uploads Cortana into the ship's command interface, and she initiates a countdown timer to destroy the ring by detonating the ship's reactor. However, Spark interrupts the process, so Chief must cause the ship's engine to blow up manually by venturing into the engine room and pulling back the exhaust couplings that lead to a fusion drive core. Once this is accomplished, Chief gets out as fast as he can since the whole place is going to blow soon. He is taken by elevator to a very long corridor that runs along the ship's spine, and drives a Warthog (an armored jeep with a gatling gun on the back) through hordes of Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels. John makes his way to a hangar bay which contains a large Longsword jet fighter. After boarding it, he pushes its engines to their limits and escapes Halo's atmosphere just as it explodes. When Cortana tells him they are the only two who made it off alive and that Halo is finished, John says they're just getting started and removes his helmet, though the view is obscured from the player.

This game is awesome. While the gameplay itself feels a little dated, the story is still as interesting today as it was in 2001. If you like science fiction, it should go without saying that you'll be interested in Halo. Marty O'Donnell absolutely kills it with the soundtrack, and the main theme of this game with the Gregorian choir has become rather iconic. The weapons and vehicles are all fun to use and viable options for the most part, which isn't the case in later games. Ironically, the most useful weapon is the humble pistol, as it fires huge .50 caliber rounds and can headshot enemies, killing them instantly. The alien plasma weapons are battery powered, and must be replaced when they are depleted as humans don't know how to recharge them. Halo CE's story mode is quite fair, and while it is difficult on the highest setting, it's very possible. There are many who can beat the whole game without dying once, as CE contains basically no unpredictable encounters that can kill instantly (almost). Probably the most obnoxious enemies are the handful of Flood forms that spawn with rocket launchers, a feared weapon that can eliminate anything up to a large vehicle in a single shot. All the Covenant races behave differently in combat, but the biggest threat to you are the Elites, as they have the same full body shielding system that you do. If you damage them but give their shields a chance to recharge, you basically just wasted your ammo.

Overall though, beating the campaign on legendary is a rewarding experience and you won't feel cheated if you get killed, as most of the time, it's your fault. While it's been surpassed in many ways by later games, CE still remains a fun game to play online as there are many different game modes and maps to choose from. For me, I will always enjoy how customizable the game is, and to this day people are still making their own mods, weapons and maps for it. There will never be another game like Halo.

Lots of crime movies are so obscure and confusing that they can be pretty arduous to talk about, but because The Argyle Secrets has at least something to do with World War II, I believed I was going to enjoy this. The premise of the film concerns Harry Mitchell (William Gargan), a reporter who is going to interview a columnist named Mr. Pierce. Pierce says he knows where the "Argyle Album" is, which is apparently a list of high ranking American officials during the war who committed treason by working with the Nazis. Before the columnist can make the info public, he suddenly dies from a heart attack. However, foul play is discovered when a scalpel is found in his stomach. Harry then crosses paths with Marla (Marjorie Lord), who seems oblivious to the importance of the dossier at first but is soon shown to be the smartest of the thugs currently after Harry. Marla's thugs beat up Harry, hoping to learn the location of the list, but he doesn't know where, let alone what it is. Marla then realizes she can backstab everyone else and help Harry escape. In a vividly grotesque scene for the late 40s, Marla persuades Harry to choke her so that his escape attempt looks legit. Eventually, Harry comes to the hideout of a guy who owns a salvage business as a front for selling stolen items, and it's revealed he has the dossier. The guy tries to call the cops on Harry, knowing the cops think he's guilty of killing Pierce, but he's shot by Panama, another Argyle obsessive. A brief gunfight ensues between Panama and the salvage salesman, and despite not having a gun, Harry is the only survivor. Harry retrieves it, then is intercepted in a laboratory by one of Marla's henchmen. He is nearly shot to death, but hides from the thug and his companion, only managing to survive because he says he has the Argyle list. The other guy fashions a molotov cocktail and prepares to burn him out of there, thinking he's lying, but he is restrained and choked out by the other goon. Finally, Harry makes his way to the airport, where a police lieutenant questions if he has the Argyle dossier, to which Harry says he doesn't. Little does the cop know, it's in the very suitcase Harry is holding. While this movie wasn't that long or difficult to sit through, there's one major obstacle I just won't accept: Harry is willing to die for a document he never read. There's another part that has Harry coming to an apartment he used to live in, which is now home to an annoying kid who takes violin lessons. I really couldn't help but notice that the movie's story also has an uncanny resemblance to The Maltese Falcon, as a bunch of thugs and detectives who play by their own rules are after some coveted item that is very elusive and powerful. As nondescript as director Cy Enfield's script was, it is sad to know that he was blacklisted during the commie hunt of the late 40s and forced into exile in Britain. Even Orson Welles liked him due to their common interest in magic.

Since noir movies were nearly always about crime, there's only so many types of plots you can write before they start to become boring. In this very average movie, we see many common themes found throughout the genre coming together: somebody being framed for a crime, a girl getting men into trouble, a corrupt cop, the person you least expect being a criminal, etc. It's not one of the worst films I've seen lately, but the lack of originality is quite hard to overlook. The story follows a Vaudeville dancer, Tom Quinn (Don Castle), who is going to be executed for allegedly killing someone after he threw shoes out his window. The rest of the movie is a flashback. Every night in his apartment, Tom waits for his wife Ann (Elyse Knox) to get home from her work at a dance hall. She is usually late, due to a customer she calls Santa Claus tipping her all the time. One night, noisy cats on a fence disturb Tom's sleep, so he throws his only pair of shoes at them. Ann tells him he better look for them before a janitor or somebody discards them. When Tom goes looking for them, they're nowhere to be seen. However, they somehow show up outside his door the next day. Soon, an unrelated incident happens and Tom gets embroiled in it. Otis Wantner, a neighbor who some believe is in possession of a large amount of old money, is murdered. The prints of Tom's shoes are discovered at the scene. Tom's not aware of this event yet, but he just so happens to find a wallet with a large amount of money in it. After waiting several days to see if anyone comes forward to claim it, nothing happens, so Tom decides to start spending the money. He is arrested shortly after by detective Clint Judd, who is the same guy who tips Ann at her job. Tom is found guilty and sentenced to the chair. Desperate, Ann enlists the help of Clint in order to find any clue that can save her husband from execution. After searching the same boarding house as Tom, Clint discovers John Kosloff, a former resident who has also spent a lot of money recently. He is brought in for questioning, and just as it looks like he's the real killer, he reveals he was in the hospital at the end of July, a day before Otis was killed. This timing means it's impossible he killed Otis, and thus John goes free while Tom remains on death row. About an hour before Tom is to be executed, Clint and Ann meet at the dance hall, and he reveals to her that he wants her to marry him. He even went ahead and bought an apartment for her without her knowledge. When Ann makes it clear she doesn't like the idea, Clint sarcastically tosses her one last dollar and leaves. Ann realizes something: it's an old note no longer being circulated, which means Clint is the murderer. Ann pretends to change her mind about the apartment and tells Clint she wants to go see it, but calls the cops beforehand. At the apartment, Ann pieces together Clint's whole scheme about how he killed Otis for the money, framed Tom, and then tried to fight for his innocence so he'd look like a hero in Ann's eyes. Two cops appear and try to arrest Clint, but he pulls a gun on them. The cops gun him down. While this movie was fairly generic and didn't really have anything special going for it, it did interest me pretty much all the way through. No parts of it were really boring, but Ann's sudden revelation at the end made it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief. She just so happens to correctly guess all the scheming Clint did in order to make him look like a killer. The sappy core from which this movie's mediocrity stems from for me is the way it ends. If Ann couldn't find out the truth in time, her husband would have been killed. They could have ended it that way, but how predictable of them to have a pleasant finale. In general, this movie is something of an anomaly, since the concept isn't unique but it didn't feel mundane.

Certain actors, like James Cagney, tended to be typecast as a specific character archetype no matter how varied their filmography was. People always remember him as a tough guy gangster. While I haven't seen a ton of his movies, George Raft is mostly no different. In this film, the type of attitude his was known for doesn't really do him any favors, since he is playing a good guy for once and his acting just feels wooden. The story concerns itself with Johnny (George Raft), a merchant ship captain who discovers another ship out at sea one day, but it's completely abandoned. Searching the vessel, Johnny finds evidence that the captain of the missing crew was his deceased father. The ship is brought back to New Orleans, and Johnny tries to find out what happened to the sailors. He searches various nightclubs until he meets a woman named Paulette (Signe Hasso) who was spotted snooping away from the supposedly empty ship once it docked. Johnny also comes across a former lover of his, Lila (Claire Trevor), whose husband Gusty owns the shipping line that Johnny works for. Gusty is not exactly happily married and is not concerned with the death of Johnny's father. Retrieving the ship's cargo (gold reserves from ww2 era Free France) is his only concern. Although Lilah cheats on her husband by being with Johnny, she knows Johnny has ignored her until this whole ship thing happened, so she also starts going out with Sam Jewell, a cafe owner. Later on, Paulette gets shot at by some unknown assailant outside Sam's cafe, so a taxi driver named Celestial (Hoagy Carmichael) brings her to his relative's house as a safety measure. Johnny tells her he's on her side and only wants to know what happened to his father and the ship. It's revealed that she stowed away on the ship with Johnny's dad's permission, but the ship was raided by pirates who killed the crew and took the gold for themselves. However, the pirates were themselves killed when an unseen attacker got onboard and transferred ownership of the gold to himself. This person is responsible for killing Johnny's father, and although Paulette didn't see his face, he saw hers, which is why he's now hunting her down. Paulette is then found by two thugs and taken to the seaside house of Sam, who tries to kill her by shoving her off a balcony into the ocean, but she escapes. Johnny shows up, rescues Paulette, and then gets on a ship where he is visited by Lilah. She wants him to go with her to a secluded house, which she says contains the gold. Upon arriving, Johnny suspects a trap and draws a gun, thinking Sam is inside. Instead, the door opens to reveal a bloodied Gusty, brandishing a revolver of his own. Gusty tells Johnny he's the one who murdered his father, because Gusty has hated Johnny ever since boyhood for being strict when he was a sailor under Johnny's command. After stating that he lied to Johnny's father about what he was going to use the gold for, Johnny closes in on Gusty, intent on disarming him. Right when he's about to shoot, Gusty is shot dead by his own secretary, who basically runs the whole shipping line for him. Johnny goes back to Celestial's hideout, leaves Lilah behind and instead reunites with Paulette. While this movie has the visuals we typically associate with the noir genre, Raft's inability to show emotion kind of kills the experience. The reason he was popular in the first place is because he was stoic and not really phased by anything, making him an ideal choice for a coldblooded killer. He just doesn't fit this role very well. While Claire Trevor plays the usual noir female who manipulates men and turns them against each other, she's ironically helpful to Raft's ultimate goal, that is changing his mindset from finding the location of the gold to locating his father's killer. While Johnny Angel has a unique premise for a noir in that it focuses on sailors, the generic storyline of trying to find a stash of money, Raft's lack of distinguishing scenes, and the overall complexity of the plot bog it all down for me. I don't mean to be funny when I say it, but this is one time Raft couldn't save himself from sinking.

While I just randomly decided to watch this movie (believing it to be noir), it actually bears a closer resemblance to Safe in Hell, a Humphrey Bogart film about juvenile delinquents I talked about years ago. By some strange coincidence, Convicted Woman also includes an actor familiar to noir movies; one who was just in something I saw earlier this week. The setup to this film is really simple. A girl named Betty Andrews (Rochelle Hudson) is looking for a job in a department store. She gets the job, but for whatever reason, a jealous coworker intentionally misplaces a dress Betty was meant to sell to a customer after taking the customer's money. The woman complains to the manager that she gave a salesperson money and she never received the dress. Adamant this woman was Betty, the latter is called into the manager's office and is found to have 10 bucks (the price of the dress) in her purse. Although she claims she always had that much money in there, she is taken away by the cops for allegedly robbing a customer. Betty's lawyer tries to defend her in court, but ultimately, she is found guilty and sentenced to one year in a facility called Curtiss House of Correction. Betty is especially angry at a reporter named Jim (Glenn Ford) as he showed up right when Betty was arrested and only seems concerned with turning her misfortune into an interesting read. When Betty is taken to prison, she finds a truly horrible place led by a bitter old woman named Mrs. Brackett. Although favoritism is against prison protocols, Brackett has two lackeys named Nita and Georgia, otherwise known as "The Duchess." Right from the beginning, Georgia tries sabotaging Betty's good standing with the prison authorities. During dinner one day, the girls all rise up and protest the slop they are being fed, and Betty has her shoe taken by Georgia, who then hurls it at Brackett. Betty gets blamed anyway and her punishment is to work in the laundry, located in the prison's basement. It is brutally hot, and another inmate named Gracie is visibly ill from being forced to work such long hours at the machines. Betty tells Gracie to go relax while she finishes her work for her. When she's all done, Betty checks on Gracie, only to find she has hanged herself. Brackett and the others try to cover up what happened to Gracie, saying she was sick for a long time, and tell Betty if she says otherwise she will be punished. Betty forms a temporary alliance with Georgia, the latter offering to smuggle her out of the prison in a mattress truck, but as soon as Betty hops in, Georgia informs Brackett about the escape attempt. For such a severe violation, Betty is punished with being put in solitary. However, she managed to send a secret note to Jim during a meeting with him in Brackett's office, in which she tells the truth about Gracie's demise. Jim causes an outrage with the incident, and Brackett is replaced as supervisor with Mary Ellis (Frieda Inescort), Betty's former lawyer. Mary promises to make the prison more hospitable and gets rid of solitary confinement, bad food, and allows the girls to govern themselves. Brackett tells Mary she's forgetting one thing: every woman in here is a criminal. Betty is brought out of solitary and grows to like Mary, and is even elected to represent the girls. Concurrently, Brackett and Georgia scheme to get the former back in command. Georgia finds out that Mary is planning to give ten girls temporary parole to enjoy Thanksgiving and a night out. When Brackett learns of this, she calls her boss, who is enraged at the thought of criminals being let out into the streets without their sentences being done. Georgia arranges to have Betty abducted so she does not make her curfew. Brackett and Georgia both hope this event will show how irresponsible Betty is, and how putting Mary in charge of this place was a mistake. Thanks to a tip from one of the girls, Jim finds out Betty is being held captive at a broken down roadhouse and wrecks the car of her captors. During the distraction, he rescues Betty and they drive back to Curtiss. Georgia is beaten up by one of the other girls after what she did to Betty becomes known, and right when Mary is about to lose her job to Brackett, Betty and Jim burst in. A black-eyed Georgia apologizes for everything she did to Betty, and Jim is given custody of Betty with permission from Mary. This movie was ok. Most of it focuses on how grueling life inside a prison meant for women can be, and shows how girls are usually much nastier than boys when it comes to harassing somebody. I found Georgia to be thoroughly unlikeable as she tries to undercut Betty at every turn. Not only because it pleases her boss, but because it pleases herself. Even in adulthood, it's common to find people who are willing to be best friends with their superiors just to give subordinates a hard time. The movie also brings up an interesting point in that lots of these so called "correctional" facilities are rotten to the core, but people on the outside have no way of knowing that. The only ones who are aware of it are the inmates, and those ruling with iron fists will make sure they are abused as many times as it takes to keep their mouths shut. There isn't really much to this film other than that it was entertaining, and seeing a women's prison isn't something that was at the heart of many old movies.

While Twilight Zone was a show that was known primarily for either fantasy or (more rarely) sci-fi inspired episodes, it did have its fair share of politically oriented installments. You really can't criticize it for taking this path, since (despite what most people believe), the 60s were a hard decade for the US. The episode focuses on one ideology that defined a large part of that decade, even if it's not stated anywhere explicitly: communism. The story begins in an unnamed Central American country, and a dictator named Ramos Clemente (Peter Falk) has just taken control of the government. Based on his beard and military fatigues, Ramos is clearly supposed to represent Fidel Castro. Clemente seizes the country from the previous ruler, General De Cruz, who warns him that he will soon find out why ruling with an iron fist will lead to his own downfall. De Cruz leaves behind his personal mirror, which was given to him by some old woman. He says it has the ability to show the reflections of those who plan to assassinate the current leader, but Clemente thinks this is ridiculous and De Cruz is imprisoned. Soon, Clemente starts using the same tactics that De Cruz did when he was in power, which means executing everyone he thinks is an enemy to either himself or the state. Because of this, his former loyal companions are alienated from him and Clemente sees them plotting to kill him in the mirror, i.e. Holding guns or something like that. He even pushes one of his confidants off a balcony to his death after he sees him holding a pistol in the mirror. Later on, Clemente's policy of killing his rivals causes a stir among his companions, and Clemente orders two other government heads to see how well De Cruz is being guarded. As soon as they leave, he phones the prison and tells them to execute the two guys he just sent over as soon as they arrive. As for the last remaining confidant, Clemente shoots him personally after he sees him offering a supposedly poisoned glass of wine in the mirror. Once all his friends have been disposed of, Clemente falls asleep at his desk, but is awoken by an approaching priest named Father Tomas. Tomas wants Clemente's regime to stop with the constant killing, as he hoped a new leader would signify a departure from De Cruz's policies. Clemente angrily replies that as long as he has enemies, the executions will go on. Tomas tells Clemente that all tyrants think they have accomplished their goal and killed all their adversaries, but there's always one left that they can't see until it's too late. Once he leaves, Clemente looks at the mirror, and sees only himself in it. In frustration, he throws his handgun at it and it breaks. Tomas then hears a gunshot and enters the room again. Clemente lies dead on the floor, killed in a freak accident when his pistol hit the floor and caused it to discharge. Clemente's paranoia was his own worst enemy. Speaking as someone who enjoys history, I still didn't think this episode was that amazing when I first saw it over 3 years ago. Falk delivers a good performance as the imitation of Castro, but there's nothing more to him. The moral about dictators always causing their own destruction is kind of wasted on a show like this, as many brutal leaders did get what they want and only died after executing millions, such as Mao and Stalin. Both these men are still widely venerated in China and Russia, respectively. Ultimately, I feel that the resemblance the main character has to Castro couldn't be more obvious even if there was a giant blinking sign above his head at all times that bore his name. What Serling probably wasn't counting on was the real version living well into the 21st century and finally dying in 2016. Political episodes have been done better by this series.

With movies made by Fritz Lang, I can usually be sure that they're going to be a hit even if I have never heard of them. Aside from directing some of the best films of all time such as M and Metropolis, Lang also ventured into noir territory during the late 40s and 50s as the genre was heavily influenced by expressionism hailing from his home country of Germany. After seeing the cast of this movie, there wasn't much doubt as to how good it was going to be: the leading actors are all noir icons, and the ending takes an unexpected path that appears to be culminating in a different direction right up until it actually happens. The film follows a Korean War veteran named Jeff (Glenn Ford) who goes back to his hometown after the war and resumes his life as a train engineer. He works with Alec, another conductor whose daughter Ellen wants to marry Jeff. Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) is a railyard supervisor who likes hard liquor way too much, and gets fired one day for yelling at his boss. He goes home to discuss this with his much younger wife, Vicki (Gloria Grahame). While she is offering to work so that Carl doesn't have to, he says he didn't marry her so she can take care of him. He wants her to call John Owens, a crucial customer of the railroad who used to employ Vicki's mother. Vicki doesn't want to, but agrees, hoping Carl can get rehired. When she eventually comes back, Carl suspects there's something not right since she was gone for over 5 hours. Carl smacks her around and gets her to admit that she was cheating on him with Owens. Enraged, Carl orders his wife to author a letter directed at Owens which states she will meet him in his sleeping car on a train. Vicki is forced by her husband to knock on Owens' door, and as soon as it opens, Vicki is pushed inside by Carl, the latter proceeding to violently murder Owens with a whittling knife. Once Owens is dead, Carl steals his wallet to make the crime look like something it's not, and takes back the letter he made Vicki write just in case he needs to incriminate her. On the train, Vicki also meets Jeff for the first time, and Carl uses the distraction to slip out unseen. At an inquest, Jeff is being questioned about the murder, which the cops are now swarming all over. He is asked to identify any people he saw on the train that night. When asked if he recognizes Vicki, he lies and says he never saw her before. Right after, he and Vicki begin seeing each other behind Carl's back, and Vicki reveals proof that her husband beats her. Jeff puts aside his affection for Ellen so he can be with Vicki. When he next sees her, she says she lied about the circumstances surrounding the killing. Previously, she said Owens was already dead when she went to see him, but now claims her husband forced her to go with him or else she'd be killed. She also can't tell the cops because the letter acts as Carl's trump card; if she tells anyone, he will show the police what she wrote. Because Carl has been holding the letter over her head, Vicki is desperately trying to find it and destroy it, and Jeff offers to help her. After Carl once again loses his job because he can't stop drinking, things become more frantic for Vicki, since she says Carl plans to sell his house and take her to another state with him. Knowing he's running out of time, Jeff searches for Carl near the bar he frequents and finds him stumbling home, deeply intoxicated. Jeff, holding a big wrench, follows Carl into a railyard and closes the distance on him. However, when Jeff returns to Vicki, he tells her the last thing she wants to hear: he didn't murder her husband. A near hopeless Vicki is sickened at Jeff's choice and also really confused, as he used to be a soldier and no doubt killed people. If he could do it on the battlefield, why not back home? Jeff says only a coward attacks something who can't fight back, and does not care that Vicki apparently loves him, as he is able to tell she's been lying about her past with Owens this whole time. After Vicki tells him if he really loved her he would have killed Carl, a disgusted Jeff pulls out the letter (which he retrieved from Carl but didn't rip up), gives it to Vicki and walks out. The next day, Vicki is trying to leave the town alone, but Carl finds out what she is doing and appears in her cabin. Carl even offers to destroy the letter, but Vicki confidently says he doesn't have it anymore. Vicki admits she loves Jeff and wanted him to kill Carl, but Jeff turned her down in the end so it doesn't really matter. Not willing to let this go, Carl chokes Vicki to death in her cabin, while Jeff, operating the train, is happily unaware of what's going on. This is a good movie, but I would expect nothing less from Lang. I feel slightly disappointed with the ending, as I was expecting Vicki to ruin both Jeff and her husband due to playing two of them at the same time, but Jeff was too smart for her and leaves her to her fate. Broderick is one of the best things about this film, as he plays a thuggish drunk addicted to brutality. He is smarter than he looks since he knows holding onto the letter effectively keeps his wife from escaping him, and that's what she wants most. While I won't really get into this argument, you can probably say this counts as an antiwar movie, as Vicki mistakenly believes Jeff has no qualms with gunning down other humans or beating them to death. Glenn Ford's reasoning is somewhat convincing, since it's a lot easier to kill someone when they're hundreds of yards away with a rifle, but doing it up close to a former coworker is a lot more traumatizing. Either way, Gloria (the manipulator of all), Crawford and Glenn make this movie what it is, and Lang once again shows how it's done when it comes to crime films.

I've been seeing a couple noir movies in the past months that involve kidnapping in some way, and while this was already a pretty taboo subject for a film in this era, this one goes even further and makes the entire plot about it. The movie is pretty confusing but has two good actors, Dennis O'Keefe and Raymond Burr, who do noir better than most in the genre. Before the racketeering and black marketing starts, we see a girl named Paula (Gale Storm) who has arrived in LA trying to locate her sister who's gone missing. Paula's sister had recently had a daughter before her disappearance. A reporter named Mark Sitko (Dennis O'Keefe) offers to help after overhearing Paula's panic inducing situation. As Paula and Mark leave, they run into a private eye named Kerric (Raymond Burr), who tells Mark he has been hired by Paula's father to help look for her sister. Although how he was employed is never explained, Paula later confesses to Mark that her sister ran away because her father was abusive. Later on, Mark gets some horrible news and apparently Mary (Paula's sister) has killed herself with carbon monoxide inside a stolen car, but Paula can't believe this: her sister doesn't know how to drive. Mark's boss, Chief McRae, tells him he will get the cops to help with Paula's case, but only if Mark is able to come up with evidence that there exists a black market for babies in which they are sold and their mothers are killed. While Kerric attempts to shadow Paula, she and Mark arrive at a Salvation Army home where they find Mary was staying. Another woman (who claims to be Mary's friend while she was there) says one day an elderly woman came there and offered to buy Mary's baby, which she refused to agree to. Once Mark has what he thinks is enough evidence, he devises a trap to bait out the baby brokers. The cops set up hidden microphones outside the home of Mrs. Donner (the old woman who owns the organization), Mary's former friend poses as someone who wants to sell her child, and Paula and Mark pretend to be its future adoptive parents. Meanwhile, Kerric meets with Little Guy DeCola, the mobster responsible for killing Paula's sister. Kerric tries to act tough, but is reminded of his place when DeCola says he will have him murdered if he steps out of line or crosses Mrs. Donner's operation. Kerric can't take the heat and calls up Paula. He says he is willing to sell her her sister's baby as long as she gives him 1500 bucks. After getting in a car with him, she is taken to a boarding house where the kid is, although she is told she can't leave for a whole day. As soon as Kerric steps outside, he is violently beaten and taken to Donner and her thugs. Kerric is tortured and burned with matches until he admits that he double crossed Donner's plans and gave Paula Mary's kid. He is then beaten to death, and Donner attempts to cover her tracks. She and her thugs visit the boarding house and force Paula and the baby into a car, which then drives to an under construction country club. Mark pursues them there, shoots Donner's guards to death, and Donner is killed when she attempts to drive away and overturns her car. Paula and the baby are then rescued, and the black market is liquidated. This movie was quite hard to follow, but I was at least glad to see Burr playing a much more active part in the story when compared with the last film I saw him in. He still played the hoodlum with a temper people know him as here, but at least he's not being confined to one room for 80% of the runtime. I really can't think of many other noirs (let alone movies in general) that feature an old woman as the antagonist, although Guilty Bystander with Zachary Scott does have this (and coincidentally also has to do with a kidnapping). For once, Burr is not playing the main villain, which is fine with me. I thought Gale Storm (what a name) was not really the best leading actress they could have picked. She doesn't really have much expression throughout the film. Her sister was killed so she has somewhat of an excuse, but there's probably a reason she wasn't in many noirs. To summarize, Abandoned is a unique movie that fails in some ways most other noirs succeed in, such as not having an old woman as the main villain or involving kidnapping, but I would say it paid off.

Although I have never talked about it in a review before, it should be known that Halo is one of my favorite video game series. This documentary (included on a disc that came with the collector's edition of the second game) goes over Halo 2, its excruciating development process, and how much dedication is needed to make something that millions of people still enjoy 2 decades later. If you haven't played the first game (Halo: Combat Evolved), it is a science fiction military shooter in which the player assumes the role of a genetically enhanced supersoldier known as a Spartan. Spartans wear armor that is energy shielded, meaning they can't be physically hurt until the shield itself is depleted by either bullet based or plasma weapons. There are a bunch of spartans at first, but most of them are killed by an alien conglomerate known as the Covenant in the years leading up to the first game, until only one remains accounted for: Master Chief John-117. As Bungie employee and project lead Joseph Staten puts it, Halo 2 is primarily all the excitement the whole company felt at the end of the first game, but didn't get a chance to express. One of the most difficult parts of making any game is deciding how to implement what you're going to in the set time limit you have until the game needs to be shipped.

Halo 2 was originally supposed to be a much more expansive game, but corners had to be cut when Microsoft was facing Bungie with an imposing deadline of November 2004. Lots of additional features for the game were promised and up to a third of them were left out. The original Halo had basically served as the Xbox's killer app, and thousands of people would purchase one just to play that game. How would they exceed everyone's expectations and elevate the bar across the board for the sequel? For one thing, the point of view of the plot was changed. The first game focused on humanity's perspective, and how the Covenant's religious leaders declared a holy war against the humans for being an affront to their gods, the Forerunners. Much of the technology the Covenant uses is reverse engineered from this ancient race, and the Covenant believe that the enormous ringworlds known as Halos, thousands of miles in diameter, can be activated and make you a god. Only some of this was really part of Halo CE's story, and the alien perspective was never fully explored. To give insight into it, new characters and races of the Covenant were introduced, including the Prophets of Truth, Regret, and Mercy (the religious leaders of the Covenant), as well as The Arbiter, who was the alien commander basically responsible for allowing Master Chief to blow up Halo at the end of the first game. The Arbiter's former title was the commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice, and he was in charge of destroying the human spaceship called the Pillar of Autumn as it fled the planet Reach days before the events of the first game. Reach was totally obliterated and its surface cooked with plasma weapons, but the Autumn escapes and comes across the first Halo ring. The Prophets demote the former shipmaster for his failure to protect Halo and make him an Arbiter, a class of warrior sent on intentionally suicidal missions to hazardous locations. Everyone expects him to die, but over time, the rest of the Covenant see him as a savior.

I'm getting kind of off topic, but it is necessary to understand the changes made to the story to have a better idea of what Bungie tried to do different for the sequel. What most people overlook is how hellish Halo 2's development was. The game was made in a mere 10 months, and in 2003, Bungie needed to come up with at least something impressive to show off for that year's E3 in a hurry. E3 (electronic entertainment expo) was a yearly convention similar to comic con in which all the gaming press, developers, and fans get together for what is essentially a week long carnival, and companies show off what people can expect to see in the coming months in regards to video games. For this E3, Bungie put together a demo that was played by Joe Staten himself in front of a live audience. It showcased new weapons, the ability to have one gun in each hand, new vehicles, and even a vehicle boarding mechanic (jumping on Covenant vehicles and hijacking them). While fans were generally blown away by their first look at Halo 2, Bungie knew the entire thing was all smoke and mirrors. They did not come back from E3 with a playable part of a level. While the demo looked amazing and crisp, this was exactly the problem, as the xbox, in terms of its hardware, couldn't handle what Halo 2 was throwing at it. As the deadline drew closer, Bungie had to make dozens of huge changes to the game, including the removal of various levels, vehicles, guns, and other things. It wasn't easy, and more time would have been appreciated, but fans couldn't wait another year. Probably the most obvious indicator of Halo 2's rushed development is the final game's unforgiving difficulty. Halo always had an established formula: you run around as the ultimate human soldier and shoot at aliens, and later in the game, the Flood (space zombies that infect other races and become collectively more intelligent as a result). In the second game, this playstyle isn't really possible anymore, especially on the hardest setting, known as legendary. Enemies on this setting will literally notice your presence in about two thirds of a second and begin firing with atom splitting precision while only needing about 7 shots to kill you. It nearly eliminates the feeling of being a supersoldier like you were in the first game, and many fans not only consider Halo 2's legendary mode the hardest in the franchise, but also unfair and mentally exhausting. I have beaten the game on this setting and can attest to it. You really need to know it like the back of your hand to be successful. No other game in the series is this punishing, and the reason why is because of the rushed development. Halo CE's difficulty was calibrated and playtested by Bungie before release, ensuring a brutal but fair challenge, while the sequel is a brutally unfair challenge. Due to not having enough time, the developers simply ramped up the lethality of all the enemies, while not actually tweaking how strong they are. Despite their problems and setbacks, Bungie would eventually release Halo 2 on November 9, 2004 to critical acclaim. The game was so popular it was getting news coverage and sold over a million preordered copies before it even came out. Overall, it's an excellent game, but a very frustrating one, and if Bungie had more time, they would have produced one of the best games ever without a doubt (I think they still did).

I first saw this documentary around 2010 when I bought the collector's edition of Halo 2, which was rare even back then. It's a really good look into how a group of hard working programmers, artists, voice actors, musicians, and project leads put together something many take for granted. Every single track in the game's amazing list of music had to be composed and performed by people, and all the incredible lighting effects and visuals had to be designed by artists. Making environments and battlefields that manage to look impressive and wondrous from every angle is such a huge challenge, but I would say they achieved what they wanted. Also, the game was remade for its anniversary in 2014 and the graphics were upgraded even further. While Halo 2 itself might polarize people, this film will no doubt make people respect game designers more, since in order for games to be good, a lot of stressful work is often required.

Recently, I talked about The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, a Twilight Zone installment that has aliens tampering with a suburban neighborhood and sowing chaos and confusion among its inhabitants. This episode of Outer Limits follows a similar premise, except these aliens are much more confident in their methods to pacify humanity and teleport an entire neighborhood to their homeworld. The episode begins with a bunch of people (along with their houses, cars, streets, and everything else around them) being moved to the strange planet of Luminos. The race of beings that live here are trying to conduct an experiment to see whether it's possible to enslave humanity, as Luminoids all have an affliction that gradually immobilizes them as they get older. Ralph Cashman says goodbye to his wife Rhea and leaves for church, but after travelling a while, comes into a strange misty area where he is ambushed by Luminoids. Meanwhile, Dr. Holm and his wife Andrea are arguing about a possible divorce since she wants to disobey her husband's wishes for her to stay at home. Shortly after, Ralph stumbles back to his house and his wife is shocked at his ghastly appearance: he has what looks like sores all over him. After Ralph is taken away in a light beam, Andrea gets in a car with someone infected by the Luminoid disease and is taken to them. Holm goes off in pursuit and meets with what appears to be a council of the aliens. They tell him they still plan to enslave humanity based on the outcome of this study, and if it is a success, all of planet Earth will follow suit. To enforce this, the Luminoids threaten him with their touch, which transmits the affliction they have. Holm demands Andrea to be released, but the Luminoids say they'll give her back when they're ready. Upon returning to his house, Holm is greeted by a strange looking Andrea who has a bright and distorted glow emanating from her, which is used by the Luminoids to sterilize people. As Holm and his wife prepare to go to the town church to tell the rest of the community about the alien's intentions, Andrea examines herself in the mirror and sees a telltale mark near her neck, which she hides from Holm. There's no mistaking it, she now has the Luminoid disease. As Holm arrives at the church, Andrea comes face to face with the infected Ralph outside, banging on the doors to be let in. Once the people inside see him, they are terrified, but then reassured by Holm's testament that this creature is still Ralph. Upon hearing this, Rhea voluntarily touches her husband and infects herself, and Holm tells everyone what must happen. He and everyone around him will never see earth again, but in order to prevent the aliens from getting what they want, they need to give up their desire to go back home and take one last defiant stand. Andrea reveals to Holm what she's been hiding from him, and Holm takes her hand. All the others in the church become infected, and their stance is made clear: dying is better than slavery. With their deaths, the study the Luminoids have been trying to accomplish is deemed infeasible. Their plans to enslave humans are done for. Unlike some other Outer Limits episodes, I feel like this one has an actual moral. I really can't say what it is, but the sense of being in a large community that ultimately sacrifices itself to prevent the aliens from achieving their goal gives a sense of teamwork that wasn't too common in this show. The effects of the Luminoid disease (visible on the skin) haven't really aged well and kind of look like snot just draped over the victim, but like most Outer Limits aliens, the Luminoids themselves have a unique look that can only be described as bipedal rocks. Because they say the disease only really starts to affect them as they age, perhaps the episode is a metaphor for how the old are weighed down with too many responsibilities that prevent them from doing what they want. The elderly Luminoids probably don't regret the things they did in their lives, but the things they didn't do. Overall, I would say that Feasibility Study is probably one of this show's best. It's definitely depressing when you realize the human subjects are destined to die in this inescapable realm, but humanity will not forget their sacrifice.

While Edward G Robinson is always one of my favorite actors, seeing him appear opposite other legends from the golden age of movies brings a new level of depth and enjoyability to an experience. This film has him playing his usual gangster image he was celebrated so much for, but with a sentimental twist. The movie starts during Prohibition, and a kingpin named Joe Krozac (Robinson) has just got back from Europe with his new wife Talya (Rose Stradner). She doesn't know about her husband's dark past. Some brothers named the Kiles have taken over some of Joe's areas while he was away, so he sends people to murder them. All but one are killed. Shortly after, Talya reveals she is going to have a child and Joe is ecstatic. However, the timing couldn't be any worse. Joe is arrested for tax evasion and sent to arguably the worst prison in the whole nation: Alcatraz Island. He must spend an entire decade behind bars and have his son grow up without him. He is visited in prison by Talya, who shows him his newborn son. For Krozac, there's no worse feeling in the world than being mere inches from his kid but not even being able to touch him. Soon, a reporter named Paul (Jimmy Stewart) takes a picture of Talya carrying Joe Krozac Jr and slips a gun into his hand. When the image later shows up in the papers, Talya is enraged and goes to the newspaper responsible, demanding the editor leave her and her son alone. Her request is refused, but Paul feels so bad about it that he resigns and begins to court Talya. The latter divorces Joe so she can be with Paul. Meanwhile, Joe has a grueling ten years in prison, consisting of beatings from other inmates who tease him about his former status, as well as the brutality of the guards. The next time Talya visits him, he notices the kid is absent, and Talya is very irritated looking. When Joe asks where his kid is, she responds he is not going to see him again as he is a bad influence. While Joe is forced to get to the end of his decade long sentence the hard way, Paul and Talya begin a new life with new names and move somewhere they think Joe won't find them. Eventually, the ten years go by and Paul learns that Joe is to be released from prison. When he is, the only thing on his mind is getting his son back and punishing his traitorous wife. Joe is approached by his old partner in crime, Curly, who wants him to take back control of his syndicate. It turns out to be a trap as Joe is beaten severely by numerous gangsters who want to know where he stashed all the money he had made before he was incarcerated. Joe refuses to talk until the gangsters somehow get ahold of his son, now named Paul Jr. Joe gives the thugs the location of the cash, and they go steal it for themselves. Their success proves to be short lived as the cops ambush them and gun them all down, but because Joe wasn't with them, he survives and takes back his kid. Paul Jr tells his father that he doesn't look anything like his father, and keeps referencing cool and resourceful outdoor things Paul taught him to do, greatly angering Joe. All he wants is for his son to believe he's his real father, but it doesn't happen. Joe decides to lead Paul Jr to his house and at long last comes back into the life of Talya. Sensing that it's hopeless trying to get his son to like him as he was raised by a stranger, Joe leaves the house, dejected. He is confronted by Acey, the lone Kile brother whose siblings were murdered by Joe's affiliates. Acey tells Joe that he is planning to tell the papers who Paul Jr's dad really is so his reputation will be destroyed before he enters adulthood, and Acey will shoot Joe to prevent him from interfering. In a final act of defiance, Joe charges at Acey, gets shot, but manages to turn the gun on his enemy and kill him. Joe then collapses and dies, and a medal his son gave him earlier can be seen in his palm. The backside of it reads "for outstanding achievement." This is a pretty sad but also uplifting movie, as Robinson plays one of his most unique roles I've yet seen from him. Most people are only familiar with his gangster persona, and while this film fits into that category, it's only half his character. He shows how a child means the world to a parent, and even though his son refuses to accept him as his true dad, he cares for him anyway. In the end, it gets him killed, and Paul Jr still most likely thinks he was a creepy old stranger, but Joe dies in peace knowing he saved his son from a potentially fatal situation involving gangs. It was strange seeing Jimmy Stewart in a Robinson film, as typically he's playing someone likeable, but taking Robinson's wife from him is unforgivable. No doubt one of the worst aspects of being in prison is not even being able to prevent your partner from cheating on you. Overall, I think this movie is better than most people will say, since it shows a side of Robinson that wasn't displayed in many of his pictures. It's sadder when you realize Robinson's real life son Manny was a chronic drunk who committed suicide.

A few months ago, I took a look at The Big Steal, a late 40s Robert Mitchum noir that did not really impress me. While I am trying to distance myself as far away as possible from it, I couldn't help but notice similarities between that film and this one. Most notably, they both involve him going to (or attempting to go to) Mexico with some girl who gets him into problems. I like this film a lot more since it is easier to understand, but still manages to excite the audience as the cops are right behind the protagonists throughout most of it. The story begins not in the way you would expect because of the type of character Mitchum is playing. A doctor named Jeff Cameron (Mitchum) is tasked with looking after a deranged but attractive woman who has tried to kill herself. Jeff later receives word that she left the hospital under a fake name, but sends him a telegram containing her real one, along with her address. When Jeff shows up to her place, he is surprised to learn she lives in a mansion. After entering the residence of Margo Lannington (Faith Domergue), the latter tells Jeff she tried to commit suicide because she has nothing to make life worth it. Jeff is shocked since she is essentially calling her mansion "nothing." He abandons a date with a nurse named Julie in order to stay by Margo's side. As she and Jeff begin going out with each other, he once again shows up to her mansion and finds an older man, Frederick (Claude Rains), whom he assumes is Margo's father. Jeff wants permission from him to marry Margo, but he reveals Margo is actually his wife. Jeff leaves, dejected, but as he is about to walk out the front yard, he hears Margo scream. Rushing back inside, she tearfully informs Jeff that Frederick violently yanked out one of her earrings. Jeff pushes away Frederick, but the latter grabs a fire poker and brings it down on Jeff's back and head, hard. Jeff gets the upper hand and subdues Frederick against the fireplace, knocking him out. As Jeff goes to the bathroom to try and get water to revive Frederick, he finds out he is dead. Jeff wants to tell the cops, but of course, they'll think he killed him, and both he and Margo know it. Taking advantage of the fact that Jeff got beat on the head and is probably having trouble making rational choices, she persuades him to go away with her to Mexico. They try an airport, but cops are waiting there. Jeff then tries to drive Margo to mexico, but he passes out at the wheel and nearly crashes. Being a doctor, Jeff knows soon how serious his condition is due to how his pupils look: he has a concussion. He tells Margo that soon his limbs will lose sensation and he'll be in a coma about 2 days from now. Jeff has several close encounters with the cops, including one that involves him getting into an accident because he passed out driving again, but manages to evade detection. Eventually in Arizona, Jeff and Margo are taken to the cops, but only because they don't have beards during a Wild West extravaganza. When questioned about what they're doing here, Margo ad-libs that they're going to Mexico to be married, and the police insist they get married here since it's the town's specialty. In their bedroom, Margo breaks a radio after it reveals that she has been getting psychiatric help. Once Margo and Jeff are on the move again, the sheriff recognizes from a picture of Margo that she is a wanted woman and alerts border guards. Just miles from the mexican border, Margo and Jeff realize they don't have enough money to pay the fare, but Margo gives up her diamond bracelet (worth 9000 bucks) to a pawnbroker. She gets ripped off as he only gives her 1k for it, but she's in no position to make demands. After the pawnbroker wises up to the fact that Jeff and Margo are both running from cops, he invites them into a movie theater owned by a corrupt smuggler named Milo, who offers to get them across the border in a truck for 1000 dollars. Margo agrees, but Jeff's condition is rapidly falling apart. By the time the truck is ready, he can't even move the left half of his body. It finally hits him that Margo is nuts and killed Frederick when Jeff stepped out to the bathroom. She also ripped the earring from her own ear to frame him. Margo tries to prevent word of this from getting out by suffocating Jeff with a pillow, then gets in the truck. Unfortunately, Jeff isn't dead and goes after Margo. Barely able to walk, Jeff struggles to the border and sees the truck Margo is stashed in. She tries to run away, but when it becomes apparent Jeff isn't going to back off, she draws a pistol and shoots him. The border patrol shoots back at her, and she dies shortly after. Her last words convince the cops Jeff is innocent, as she killed Frederick herself, and Jeff was too stupid to know what was going on. Jeff is taken to hospital and told he's not going to remain paralyzed. Julie is in the hall waiting to visit him. When compared with the previous Mitchum film I saw, this is a step up in almost every way. The revelation of Margo being insane enough to kill her husband was something I wasn't expecting, although I did suspect she injured herself right before that and blamed Frederick. Mitchum plays an out of character part for someone with his reputation, but it's one of his most determined parts I've yet seen. Even after sustaining crippling damage to his head and nerves, he still walks forward regardless of the peril. I'll definitely have to seek out more movies with Faith in them, since she seems suited for these plot types.

While humanity doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to trying to abstain from war, the point of no return really came at the end of World War II, when people were introduced to atomic weapons. For the first time in history, humans possessed something to destroy their entire species with. This very extensive movie goes over the most important moments of the life of J Robert Oppenheimer: the man who played a pivotal role in the invention of nuclear weapons, and how creating something that harnesses the power of the sun caused him irreversible mental distress. While I don't think Christopher Nolan has ever directed an outright bad movie, Oppenheimer requires a specific mindset to get the most out of and those not interested in ww2 (let alone history) will probably think it's way too slow moving. The last half hour or so exacerbates this, and it does kind of get less interesting past the 2 hour and 30 minute mark, but if you find Cold War history fascinating, you can power through it.

The movie begins in 1926, where a college-aged J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is tormented by feelings of nervousness while studying at the University of Cambridge. His professor, Patrick Blackett, teaches quantum physics, and Robert can't seem to keep his mind on his work, much to the chagrin of his teacher. Fed up with Blackett's attitude towards him, Robert tries to leave an apple injected with cyanide on his desk, but later discards it. Shortly after, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) comes to the college to tell Robert he should be pursuing theoretical physics at Göttingen University. When Robert eventually completes his PhD, he comes face to face with Werner Heisenberg in Switzerland, one of Nazi Germany's most esteemed scientists and the man who, given enough time, might build an atom bomb for Hitler. Oppenheimer expresses his wishes to start transferring knowledge about quantum physics to American students, to which Heisenberg says he is wasting his time; nobody takes physics seriously in america. However, this is exactly the reason Robert wants to do it. While teaching at Berkeley University in California, Robert meets his future wife, Kitty Puening (Emily Blunt), and also has a secondary affair with Jean Tatlock, a communist party member who eventually commits suicide because Robert isn't devoted enough to her. One day, news is brought to Robert as it's discovered nazi scientists have done the impossible and split the atom, creating nuclear fission. He realizes that a huge chain reaction like this can be used for a weapon that would have an unimaginable destructive force. With the Second World War now underway, Robert is visited by american army Colonel Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), who wants Oppenheimer to lead something known as the Manhattan Project: america's top secret program that will eventually result in the A bomb. Groves appoints Robert to direct the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, which is the site where the first nuke will be detonated once it's ready. Oppenheimer and a bunch of other scientists are under a lot of pressure as Heisenberg's research may yet produce a nuclear bomb for the nazis. To counteract this, Robert brings together a team of some of the Western Allies' biggest scientific brains, such as Italian physicist Enrico Fermi (who created the world's first nuclear reactor), Edward Teller, and Hans Bethe. Teller informs Oppenheimer that according to his research, a nuclear explosion can potentially ignite the atmosphere itself in a never ending chain reaction, blowing up the entire world.

After talking to Albert Einstein, Robert is confident the chances of that happening are near zero. Meanwhile, Teller tries to abandon the manhattan project after his plans to make a hydrogen bomb (even more powerful than a nuke) are turned down. By now, it's 1945 and germany has lost the war, leading some scientists to ask whether the nuke is really necessary. Robert argues that it would force the Japanese (who are still fighting) to give up, but is sickened at the prospect of annihilating an entire city with this terrible weapon. He is given a list of potential targets and selects Hiroshima, due to it having a large presence of military industry. Using Uranium that has been processed in nuclear reactors located in Washington State, the first nuke, codenamed Little Boy, is soon ready for deployment, and the new President Harry Truman orders its use as soon as the military is ready. A second weapon, codenamed Fat Man, utilizes Plutonium, a manmade radioactive element that is even more powerful. Because america had no idea whether these bombs actually worked, a device would need to be tested. A third bomb (known as the gadget) is hoisted to the top of a metal tower at los alamos. Early in the morning of July 16th, 1945, the nuclear age began. In a blinding flash, Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists realize they finally have the means to defeat japan, but are terrified at the implications it has for the world. When japan refuses to surrender after Hiroshima is nuked, Truman orders the second bomb to be dropped on Nagasaki, causing massive destruction. While the american public thinks Robert is a hero for his contributions to this war ending device, he is haunted by what he has developed. He is invited to the White House to tell the president and his Secretary of State James Byrnes about the bomb. When Oppenheimer tells Truman he feels like he has blood on his hands, the president accuses him of being weak and tells him to leave.

Robert soon becomes an advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission, an organization that controls nuclear policy and development, but his position is threatened by people accusing him of being a communist. Teller's idea for a hydrogen bomb is looked at as being potentially useful in the midst of the cold war. The AEC's leader Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) doesn't like Oppenheimer since he advocated for working together with the USSR after the latter exploded their first nuke in 1949. Strauss also thinks Robert said something offensive about him during a talk he had with Einstein, after the latter snubs Strauss. In the mid 50s, a jealous Strauss organizes a hearing before a board that intends to revoke Oppenheimer's Q clearance and deny him a position on the AEC. Robert's past regarding his feelings on communism are brought up, and people (including Teller and Groves) testify against him. Kitty shows up and tries to clear her husband's name and says he's not a communist and has full loyalty to america, which only results in a pyrrhic victory for Robert: he is not suspected of being disloyal anymore, but his clearance is taken away, meaning he can no longer easily sway american policy on nukes. Oppenheimer later gets his revenge on Strauss when at the end of the decade, a Senate hearing for Secretary of Commerce reveals that Strauss set up Oppenheimer's fall from grace. Strauss is declined his nomination, and LBJ gives Oppenheimer an award 4 years later. It is later shown that during Robert's 1947 conversation with Einstein, the latter never insulted or brought up Strass at all. Rather, Robert voices his concerns about starting a chain reaction that will destroy Earth, not with a sudden atomic explosion, but by making all powerful countries want to have access to them.

Usually with very long and popular movies like this, I tend to write about them way too late in my opinion. When this came out, I was hesitant to watch it since they might have butchered the historical accuracy in order to keep the attention spans of modern audiences, and by the time I was ready to share my comments on it, I felt everything had already been said. That's not to say the film is inaccurate. They really went above and beyond here. Einstein and Oppenheimer were actually friends, but Nolan no doubt made up that conversation between the two of them, just as how many people who write history invent talks between famous figures in order to tell an interesting story. I was a bit let down at the lack of what happens in Chicago, as Oppenheimer only goes there once and very briefly in the film to meet with Fermi. Just like the movie The Beginning or the End (also on Oppenheimer) which I saw about 2 years ago, his colleagues refer to him as "Oppie" in this film too, much to my dismay. In general though, Oppenheimer's excellent soundtrack, visuals, portrayal of historical figures, and retelling of events that led to the most dreadful weapon ever seen should please most who like to read and watch things about history, especially ww2.

The ability of a movie to captivate an audience is what defines their worth as entertainment, and no film can deliver an unforgettable experience like this one. Widely considered one the most classic monster movies to ever exist, The Creeping Terror basically reinvented the genre and was so influential it continues to inspire new directors to take notes from it decades later. To get to the root of this greatness, we have to examine the story. The plot starts with a deputy sheriff named Martin (Vic Savage) driving with his wife Brett on the road late at night. They meet Martin's uncle, Ben and report to a site where they have been told a plane crashed. Once there, they discover an alien spaceship. Ben crawls underneath the spacecraft, gaining access to the inside. He finds a large, alien creature resembling a slug, which screeches at him. Martin calls for assistance from the military. Colonel Caldwell is soon on the scene with a unit of soldiers. Two men go under the craft just as Ben did and find the creature, noting that it seems to be strapped to the wall. The colonel consults Dr. Bradford, who apparently knows more about space emissions than anyone on Earth, to learn more about the creature and the ship. After receiving a piece of the ship's hull, Bradford finds out it's made of some kind of unknown metallic alloy that humanity can't reproduce. Even after intense study, its atomic layout is a mystery. A second creature goes forth from the crashed ship and devours numerous people in a rural area, including a girl in a bikini, a man fishing with his grandson, a housewife putting clothes out to dry, people at a picnic who try beating it back with guitars, and even numerous people at a dance party. Later, the monster makes its way to an area where people take their lovers for privacy during intimate moments. It flips over a car, kills some more people, and then Caldwell and Bradford show up. Caldwell orders the troops to shoot at the monster, but Bradford wants it taken alive to further scientific research. The soldiers run out of ammo, and despite their best efforts, cannot outpace the slug and get devoured. Caldwell disregards Bradford's wishes and tosses a grenade at the creature, blowing it to pieces. Bradford picks up a chunk of the monster's mangled tissue, and makes his way back to the crash site. For absolutely no reason, an explosion occurs once he climbs inside. The blast fatally wounds Brandford, but the craft and its tough alloy instruments aren't damaged. Unfortunately, the blast also weakened the restraints holding back the second creature, allowing it to escape. As the monster prepares to eat Bradford, Martin's police cruiser shows up and rams into it. Martin explains to Bradford a worrying discovery: the creatures are biologically engineered lifeforms that are designed to eat humans in order to find out their weaknesses and communicate their findings back to their home planet. Martin hurries into the ship and tries his best to destroy the ship's transmitter by hitting it with his pistol, but whoever designed it did their job well. The information the creatures collected is sent into space, and Martin tells Bradford. The dying scientist says space is so vast that their homeworld might not even be a thing anymore, so there is no point being concerned over it. Only God knows for certain. After reading all this, is it any wonder why this movie is so critically acclaimed? Everything about it, the acting, music, pacing are all first rate. The screeching of the slug monster is loud and serves to keep people awake so they don't miss any parts of the riveting story. Thankfully, it continues ceaselessly any time the monster is onscreen, so you have plenty of time to appreciate it. Vic Savage, who plays Martin, also directed. He really delivers because he originally intended to produce a better looking costume for the monster in the film. Don't ask me how it's possible to improve on what's already perfect, but some lowlife actually stole the costume days before filming was to start. Because of this, Vic had to improvise and put together one of the most terrifying aliens ever put on film to compensate. Despite the final monster not being as cool, it really shows the determination of all involved and how they were able to make everything fall into place at the last moment. It takes real talent to accomplish things like this in a time crunch. Overall, there really isn't anything negative I can say about The Creeping Terror, and it gives Citizen Kane a run for its money. I think everyone should see it at some point, and as for those who dislike it, their opinions are best disregarded since they are doing nothing but embarrassing themselves.