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F This Movie! — TV & Film
F This Movie!

Movie love for movie lovers.

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Fifty Before '50: THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) Sep 01, 2026
Show notes

by JB
Film critic Dave Kehr labeled it, “the film you cannot show without apology,” and it sometimes seems that modern film history just wants us to forget all about it.
For the first few years of my teaching career in the mid-1980s, I screened D.W. Griffith’s seminal tale of the Deep South and the Confederacy, The Birth of a Nation, in my Film Studies class because I wanted my students to see firsthand where most film grammar had come from. I remember screening The Birth of a Nation one August day when the temperature in my unairconditioned classroom rose to 102 degrees. Clearly, this violated the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause in our Constitution. Maybe I was engaging in “method teaching,” trying to capture for my students the oppressive heat of a real Carolina plantation.
Between the film’s cumbersome length and its reprehensible, racist message, I soon found other ways to teach the same material.THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Part One: The War Phil Stoneman (Elmer Clifton) visits family friends The Camerons in South Carolina and falls in love with their daughter Margaret (Miriam Cooper). Phil shows Margaret’s brother Ben (Henry Walthall) a picture of his sister Elsie (Lillian Gish). Ben is instantly smitten. Unfortunately, all of this love business must take a back seat to the Civil War, which inconveniently starts during Phil’s visit. Both young men enlist in their respective armies. Both men see their younger brothers killed in combat.
Ben Cameron leads the final charge at the Siege of Petersburg and acquires the nickname "the Little Colonel." Ben is wounded, captured, and taken to a Union military hospital in Washington, D.C. There, he learns that he will be hanged. Ben’s mother (Josephine Crowell) arranges a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln (Joseph Henabery) and pleads for her son’s life. Lincoln pardons Ben, but is soon assassinated at Ford’s Theater. Phil and Elsie Stoneman are in the audience that night and witness the horrible event. In the wake of Lincoln’s death, Elsie’s father, US Representative Austin Stoneman (Ralph Lewis) and other radical Republicans vow to punish the South.Part Two: Reconstruction
Stoneman and his mixed-race assistant Silas Lynch (George Siegmann), travel to South Carolina to observe Reconstruction. Lynch is elected lieutenant governor, newly freed blacks stuff the ballot box, and white people are denied the right to vote. The South Carolina legislature is now mostly black. Of course, none of this ever happened, although Austin Stoneman is loosely based on Thaddeus Stevens.
Ben fights back by forming the Klan. Yes, THAT Klan. Elsie breaks up with him. Ben’s sister, Flora Cameron (Mae Marsh) is followed by Gus (Walter Long), a newly freed slave. Gus asks Flora to marry him. Frightened, she runs into the woods and winds up on a high, dangerous outcropping. Flora tells Gus not to come any closer. Gus comes closer; Flora leaps to her death. While hiding out in a saloon, Gus starts shooting people. The Klan hunts down Gus, tries him, finds him guilty, kills him, and delivers his corpse to Silas Lynch's house. Of course, none of this ever happened.After discovering Gus's murder, Lynch orders a crackdown on the Klan. He also secures the passing of legislation allowing mixed race marriages. Flora’s father, Dr. Cameron, is arrested for possessing a Klan uniform. Phil Stoneman and some of the doctor’s faithful black servants spring him from jail. The group escapes with Cameron’s daughter and Phil’s intended, Margaret. Their wagon breaks down, and they find a small cabin in the woods in which to hide. Two former Union soldiers agree to hide them. Of course, none of this ever happened. The point of the narrative seems to be that the North and South needed to take up arms against invading hordes of newly-free renegade Negroes. This is not history; it’s a racist’s paranoid fantasy.
Elsie, learning of Dr. Cameron's arrest, visits Lynch to plead for his life. Lynch tries to force Elsie to marry him. Stoneman reveals himself a hypocrite when he becomes infuriated that the mixed-race Lynch means to marry his daughter. Elsie gets the attention of undercover Klansman spies and cries out for help. When the news reaches Ben, he goes to rescue Elsie. The Klan gather with Ben leading them. They ride triumphantly into town and take control of it. Lynch is captured. Meanwhile, a crazed, black militia attacks the cabin in the woods where the Camerons are hiding. The clansmen save them. The Klan force the freed slaves to give up their arms. Margaret Cameron marries Phil Stoneman, and Elsie Stoneman marries Ben Cameron. Of course, none of this ever happened. Because the film contains reenactments of real, historical events (The Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination) did Griffith’s first audiences assume the rest was true too?Jane Addams, American social reformer and the founder of Hull House, was among the first to see the film and voiced her immediate reaction in an interview published by the New York Post on March 13, 1915, just ten days after the film was released. "One of the most unfortunate things about this film is that it appeals to race prejudice upon the basis of conditions of half a century ago, which have nothing to do with the facts we have to consider today. Even then it does not tell the whole truth. It is claimed that the play is historical, but history is easy to misuse.”
A few cursory words about the artistry of The Birth of a Nation: the man who virtually invented "movie grammar" was a virulent racist. Griffith and Thomas Dixon (who wrote the book The Clansmen, upon which the film is based) present a history that is so grotesquely wrong and simplistic, it could be an ugly cartoon. We know that this is not history, we know that it is not the truth, we know it is the worst kind of propaganda... and yet Griffith’s skill with the nascent tools of filmmaking sweeps us along and the film continually whispers for us to “just go with our emotions.”
Because Griffith was such a genius at directing actors, framing shots, planning out sequences, and editing them for maximum effect, the finished film is a strange amalgam of beautiful technique and reprehensible intent. The film is historic in other ways as well. It’s the first American feature film to run over 12 reels, it was shown in legitimate theaters with a top price of $2.50 (back when the average movie admission was fifteen cents), it was the first American film to arrive at theaters with a printed score the orchestra was expected to play, and it was the highest grossing American film of all time until Gone with The Wind was released in 1939. The film’s release also revived the Ku Klux Klan in the South. They used the film as a recruiting tool.
Why has the film simply not been buried somewhere and forgotten? That’s a legitimate question. In “The Worst Thing About Birth of a Nation Is How Good It Is,” published in The New Yorker in 2013, Richard Brody argues, “The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love. And it’s that very conflict that renders the film all the more despicable, the experience of the film more of a torment [....]
“Throughout the film, Griffith’s pro-Confederacy feelings are grossly apparent; yet his depiction of events—his representation of reality as he understands it—involves the inclusion of much that departs from his intentions. The very essence of his realism is open frames, complex staging, and multiple planes of action, all of which suggest far more than Griffith’s [reprehensible title cards] and his stunted politics would themselves allow. For instance, a scene of slave-owners and their Northern guests amiably passing by cotton fields while slaves toil in the background presents, as if in a documentary, the obvious connection between the white Southerners’ gracious ways and the hard, enforced work of slaves that makes it possible.”
Roger Ebert weighed in on the film in his book The Great Movies II, writing, “Certainly, The Birth of a Nation (1915) presents a challenge for modern audiences. Unaccustomed to silent films and uninterested in film history, they find it quaint and not to their taste. Those evolved enough to understand what they are looking at find the early wartime scenes brilliant, but cringe during the postwar and Reconstruction scenes, which are racist in the ham-handed way of an old minstrel show or a vile comic pamphlet [....] The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."
For many years, I attended a delightful little movie convention called WonderFest over Memorial Day Weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. I started out driving there, but eventually discovered that flying was cheaper—the hotel even ran a free shuttle to and from the airport, so I never had to rent a car.Then, in 2014, two things happened. I discovered that D.W. Griffith was buried in a public cemetery in Louisville, then friend of the site Heath Holland decided to join me and drive up to WonderFest from Alabama. I now had access to an automobile! Heath was nice enough to drive me to the cemetery. (I remember him saying he would “love to take me to the cemetery” again in a few years. Oh, Heath!) We visited Griffith’s grave. It is impressive. Kentucky has placed a historical marker between it and the street, explaining who Griffith was to the uninitiated.I have visited D.W. Griffith’s grave. I felt like I was making a pilgrimage of sorts. I hope that does not make me racist. Can we ever truly separate the art from the artist? Is it conditional and, if so, what are those conditions? I recognize that as a motion picture pioneer, Griffith had no peer. But as a man, Griffith was a confused, bigoted, boorish dolt. The Birth of a Nation teaches us that two things can be true at the same time.

Fifty Before '50: THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) Sep 01, 2026
Show notes

by JB
Film critic Dave Kehr labeled it, “the film you cannot show without apology,” and it sometimes seems that modern film history just wants us to forget all about it.
For the first few years of my teaching career in the mid-1980s, I screened D.W. Griffith’s seminal tale of the Deep South and the Confederacy, The Birth of a Nation, in my Film Studies class because I wanted my students to see firsthand where most film grammar had come from. I remember screening The Birth of a Nation one August day when the temperature in my unairconditioned classroom rose to 102 degrees. Clearly, this violated the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause in our Constitution. Maybe I was engaging in “method teaching,” trying to capture for my students the oppressive heat of a real Carolina plantation.
Between the film’s cumbersome length and its reprehensible, racist message, I soon found other ways to teach the same material.THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Part One: The War Phil Stoneman (Elmer Clifton) visits family friends The Camerons in South Carolina and falls in love with their daughter Margaret (Miriam Cooper). Phil shows Margaret’s brother Ben (Henry Walthall) a picture of his sister Elsie (Lillian Gish). Ben is instantly smitten. Unfortunately, all of this love business must take a back seat to the Civil War, which inconveniently starts during Phil’s visit. Both young men enlist in their respective armies. Both men see their younger brothers killed in combat.
Ben Cameron leads the final charge at the Siege of Petersburg and acquires the nickname "the Little Colonel." Ben is wounded, captured, and taken to a Union military hospital in Washington, D.C. There, he learns that he will be hanged. Ben’s mother (Josephine Crowell) arranges a meeting with President Abraham Lincoln (Joseph Henabery) and pleads for her son’s life. Lincoln pardons Ben, but is soon assassinated at Ford’s Theater. Phil and Elsie Stoneman are in the audience that night and witness the horrible event. In the wake of Lincoln’s death, Elsie’s father, US Representative Austin Stoneman (Ralph Lewis) and other radical Republicans vow to punish the South.Part Two: Reconstruction
Stoneman and his mixed-race assistant Silas Lynch (George Siegmann), travel to South Carolina to observe Reconstruction. Lynch is elected lieutenant governor, newly freed blacks stuff the ballot box, and white people are denied the right to vote. The South Carolina legislature is now mostly black. Of course, none of this ever happened, although Austin Stoneman is loosely based on Thaddeus Stevens.
Ben fights back by forming the Klan. Yes, THAT Klan. Elsie breaks up with him. Ben’s sister, Flora Cameron (Mae Marsh) is followed by Gus (Walter Long), a newly freed slave. Gus asks Flora to marry him. Frightened, she runs into the woods and winds up on a high, dangerous outcropping. Flora tells Gus not to come any closer. Gus comes closer; Flora leaps to her death. While hiding out in a saloon, Gus starts shooting people. The Klan hunts down Gus, tries him, finds him guilty, kills him, and delivers his corpse to Silas Lynch's house. Of course, none of this ever happened.After discovering Gus's murder, Lynch orders a crackdown on the Klan. He also secures the passing of legislation allowing mixed race marriages. Flora’s father, Dr. Cameron, is arrested for possessing a Klan uniform. Phil Stoneman and some of the doctor’s faithful black servants spring him from jail. The group escapes with Cameron’s daughter and Phil’s intended, Margaret. Their wagon breaks down, and they find a small cabin in the woods in which to hide. Two former Union soldiers agree to hide them. Of course, none of this ever happened. The point of the narrative seems to be that the North and South needed to take up arms against invading hordes of newly-free renegade Negroes. This is not history; it’s a racist’s paranoid fantasy.
Elsie, learning of Dr. Cameron's arrest, visits Lynch to plead for his life. Lynch tries to force Elsie to marry him. Stoneman reveals himself a hypocrite when he becomes infuriated that the mixed-race Lynch means to marry his daughter. Elsie gets the attention of undercover Klansman spies and cries out for help. When the news reaches Ben, he goes to rescue Elsie. The Klan gather with Ben leading them. They ride triumphantly into town and take control of it. Lynch is captured. Meanwhile, a crazed, black militia attacks the cabin in the woods where the Camerons are hiding. The clansmen save them. The Klan force the freed slaves to give up their arms. Margaret Cameron marries Phil Stoneman, and Elsie Stoneman marries Ben Cameron. Of course, none of this ever happened. Because the film contains reenactments of real, historical events (The Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination) did Griffith’s first audiences assume the rest was true too?Jane Addams, American social reformer and the founder of Hull House, was among the first to see the film and voiced her immediate reaction in an interview published by the New York Post on March 13, 1915, just ten days after the film was released. "One of the most unfortunate things about this film is that it appeals to race prejudice upon the basis of conditions of half a century ago, which have nothing to do with the facts we have to consider today. Even then it does not tell the whole truth. It is claimed that the play is historical, but history is easy to misuse.”
A few cursory words about the artistry of The Birth of a Nation: the man who virtually invented "movie grammar" was a virulent racist. Griffith and Thomas Dixon (who wrote the book The Clansmen, upon which the film is based) present a history that is so grotesquely wrong and simplistic, it could be an ugly cartoon. We know that this is not history, we know that it is not the truth, we know it is the worst kind of propaganda... and yet Griffith’s skill with the nascent tools of filmmaking sweeps us along and the film continually whispers for us to “just go with our emotions.”
Because Griffith was such a genius at directing actors, framing shots, planning out sequences, and editing them for maximum effect, the finished film is a strange amalgam of beautiful technique and reprehensible intent. The film is historic in other ways as well. It’s the first American feature film to run over 12 reels, it was shown in legitimate theaters with a top price of $2.50 (back when the average movie admission was fifteen cents), it was the first American film to arrive at theaters with a printed score the orchestra was expected to play, and it was the highest grossing American film of all time until Gone with The Wind was released in 1939. The film’s release also revived the Ku Klux Klan in the South. They used the film as a recruiting tool.
Why has the film simply not been buried somewhere and forgotten? That’s a legitimate question. In “The Worst Thing About Birth of a Nation Is How Good It Is,” published in The New Yorker in 2013, Richard Brody argues, “The merits of its grand and enduring aesthetic make it impossible to ignore and, despite its disgusting content, also make it hard not to love. And it’s that very conflict that renders the film all the more despicable, the experience of the film more of a torment [....]
“Throughout the film, Griffith’s pro-Confederacy feelings are grossly apparent; yet his depiction of events—his representation of reality as he understands it—involves the inclusion of much that departs from his intentions. The very essence of his realism is open frames, complex staging, and multiple planes of action, all of which suggest far more than Griffith’s [reprehensible title cards] and his stunted politics would themselves allow. For instance, a scene of slave-owners and their Northern guests amiably passing by cotton fields while slaves toil in the background presents, as if in a documentary, the obvious connection between the white Southerners’ gracious ways and the hard, enforced work of slaves that makes it possible.”
Roger Ebert weighed in on the film in his book The Great Movies II, writing, “Certainly, The Birth of a Nation (1915) presents a challenge for modern audiences. Unaccustomed to silent films and uninterested in film history, they find it quaint and not to their taste. Those evolved enough to understand what they are looking at find the early wartime scenes brilliant, but cringe during the postwar and Reconstruction scenes, which are racist in the ham-handed way of an old minstrel show or a vile comic pamphlet [....] The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."
For many years, I attended a delightful little movie convention called WonderFest over Memorial Day Weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. I started out driving there, but eventually discovered that flying was cheaper—the hotel even ran a free shuttle to and from the airport, so I never had to rent a car.Then, in 2014, two things happened. I discovered that D.W. Griffith was buried in a public cemetery in Louisville, then friend of the site Heath Holland decided to join me and drive up to WonderFest from Alabama. I now had access to an automobile! Heath was nice enough to drive me to the cemetery. (I remember him saying he would “love to take me to the cemetery” again in a few years. Oh, Heath!) We visited Griffith’s grave. It is impressive. Kentucky has placed a historical marker between it and the street, explaining who Griffith was to the uninitiated.I have visited D.W. Griffith’s grave. I felt like I was making a pilgrimage of sorts. I hope that does not make me racist. Can we ever truly separate the art from the artist? Is it conditional and, if so, what are those conditions? I recognize that as a motion picture pioneer, Griffith had no peer. But as a man, Griffith was a confused, bigoted, boorish dolt. The Birth of a Nation teaches us that two things can be true at the same time.

Thrill Seeker: CONSENTING ADULTS Aug 31, 2026
Show notes
by Sonia MansfieldAnd this is why you shouldn’t make friends with your neighbors.
Consenting Adults
Starring Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Rebecca Miller
Written by Matthew Chapman
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
Rated R for sex, violence, and coveting thy neighbor’s wife
Welcome to Thrill Seeker, in which I watch thrillers from the '80s and '90s. This month, I watched 1992’s Consenting Adults, starring Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Rebecca Miller.
Thanks to the success of Fatal Attraction, movie studios were cranking out [insert thing] from hell movies. The mistress from hell. The roommate from hell. The nanny from hell. The son from hell. The client from hell. The tenant from hell. Consenting Adults is the neighbors from hell movie.
Of course, I ran to the theater to see this movie. I thought it was ridiculous then, and I think it’s even more ridiculous now. Also, this movie was four years out from Kevin Kline’s Oscar-winning performance in A Fish Called Wanda, and — I think because of the mustache — I couldn’t get Otto out of my mind. I kept waiting for him to yell, “ASSHOLE” every time he was driving a car.
Don't call him stupid

Also, I was like, “Whoa, this is a January Man reunion. I’m in.” After the one-two punch of The January Man and The Abyss, I always liked Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. I have no reason to write about The Abyss, so I’ll just mention now that I put that movie in the category of “accidentally romantic.” I also put Poltergeist in that category.
So anyway, then there’s Kevin Spacey. Sigh. In 1992, I had no idea who Kevin Spacey was, but a few weeks later I saw Glengarry Glen Ross, and that’s when I realized that I was going to be seeing more of him. He was so good at playing creeps. He was one of my favorites for a while, until I realized that he wasn’t just playing a creep in the movies.
And hey, Rebecca Miller is there, too.
OK, let’s run through the plot, no spoilers.
The plot: Richard Parker (Kline) and his wife Priscilla (Mastrantonio) have been married for 14 years and work together as commercial jingle writers. They make a good living. They’ve got a nice, big house in the suburbs, and a sweet, young daughter who is never around because she goes to a school for musically gifted children. Is that important to the plot? Not at all. I guess they tell us that so we won’t wonder, “Where’s their kid?” all the time.
Richard and Priscilla meet their new neighbors, Eddy (Spacey with blond hair, so weird) and Kay Otis (Miller, also with blond hair, but not weird). They have dinner and drinks, and they get to know each other. Eddy works in finance and quickly bonds with Priscilla over investment talk. Kay is a talented singer, and she joins Richard at the piano. Richard is obviously super attracted to Kay even though his wife is Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It makes no sense.
The couples hit it off, and they start to go on double dates and weekend getaways. Richard and Eddy start confiding in each other, and Richard reveals that their family has some debt. Eddy offers to help them out. Richard probably thinks Eddy will give him investment advice. Instead, Eddy throws himself in front of Richard’s car, fakes an injury, and then splits the settlement money with them so they can pay off their debts. What’s a little fraud between friends, am I right?
Apparently, this isn’t a red flag at all. They all go to a bar together, and Richard convinces the band to let Kay sing. Does this happen a lot in real life? Audience members just ask a band if someone else can sing, and the band’s like, “Ummm, it’s just my job to perform, but sure, go for it.” The way that Richard looks at Kay, it’s so obvious that he wants to fuck her, and Eddy calls him out on it. Luckily for Richard, Eddy also reveals that he wants to fuck Priscilla. Whew. It was about to get awkward.
Eddy’s like, “Yo, wouldn’t it be cool if we swapped wives, but didn’t tell the wives? We just sneak into each other’s bedrooms in the middle of the night and try to fuck each other’s wives while they’re sleeping without their consent? That would be so fun, right?”
Richard’s all, “Umm, nah. The movie’s called Consenting Adults, and there’s no consent in your plan.”
But Eddy doesn’t take no for an answer. He brings it up repeatedly and aggressively. He’s relentless. He basically peer pressures Richard into adultery that is also sexual assault.
So, late one night, after their victims wives are asleep, Richard and Eddy meet in front of their houses, exchange knowing looks, and sneak into each other’s homes and beds.
How did it go? Well, does this newspaper ad that Priscilla is reading the next day give you a hint?
There's a sale at Penney's!

And here’s where my plot summary ends, thrill seekers. Just know there’s a murder, more singing, and a Forest Whitaker sighting.
Is it a thrill? Not at all. It’s hard to believe Alan J. Pakula directed this. He directed one of the ultimate President from hell movies, All the President’s Men. He was more successful mining infidelity and paranoia in Presumed Innocent two years earlier.
Richard is such a dolt that I couldn’t muster up any sympathy for him. Eddy is so clearly a creep from the moment he appears that you can’t believe that someone smart like Priscilla wouldn’t see through him immediately. And hey, Kay is also there.
There are so many plot holes: “That wouldn’t happen.” “Whhhhy?” “Nobody does that.” “Do apes read philosophy?” (Yes, they just don’t understand it.)
No one behaves like an actual human. They’re just doing and saying the things they need to do to move the story to the next unsurprising twist. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it’s basically “Having neighbors is the problem,” which is so stupid it made me wonder if the movie is supposed to be a comedy.
Rating: 2 out of 5 bunnies in a boiling pot

Thrill Seeker: CONSENTING ADULTS Aug 31, 2026
Show notes
by Sonia MansfieldAnd this is why you shouldn’t make friends with your neighbors.
Consenting Adults
Starring Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Rebecca Miller
Written by Matthew Chapman
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
Rated R for sex, violence, and coveting thy neighbor’s wife
Welcome to Thrill Seeker, in which I watch thrillers from the '80s and '90s. This month, I watched 1992’s Consenting Adults, starring Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Rebecca Miller.
Thanks to the success of Fatal Attraction, movie studios were cranking out [insert thing] from hell movies. The mistress from hell. The roommate from hell. The nanny from hell. The son from hell. The client from hell. The tenant from hell. Consenting Adults is the neighbors from hell movie.
Of course, I ran to the theater to see this movie. I thought it was ridiculous then, and I think it’s even more ridiculous now. Also, this movie was four years out from Kevin Kline’s Oscar-winning performance in A Fish Called Wanda, and — I think because of the mustache — I couldn’t get Otto out of my mind. I kept waiting for him to yell, “ASSHOLE” every time he was driving a car.
Don't call him stupid

Also, I was like, “Whoa, this is a January Man reunion. I’m in.” After the one-two punch of The January Man and The Abyss, I always liked Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. I have no reason to write about The Abyss, so I’ll just mention now that I put that movie in the category of “accidentally romantic.” I also put Poltergeist in that category.
So anyway, then there’s Kevin Spacey. Sigh. In 1992, I had no idea who Kevin Spacey was, but a few weeks later I saw Glengarry Glen Ross, and that’s when I realized that I was going to be seeing more of him. He was so good at playing creeps. He was one of my favorites for a while, until I realized that he wasn’t just playing a creep in the movies.
And hey, Rebecca Miller is there, too.
OK, let’s run through the plot, no spoilers.
The plot: Richard Parker (Kline) and his wife Priscilla (Mastrantonio) have been married for 14 years and work together as commercial jingle writers. They make a good living. They’ve got a nice, big house in the suburbs, and a sweet, young daughter who is never around because she goes to a school for musically gifted children. Is that important to the plot? Not at all. I guess they tell us that so we won’t wonder, “Where’s their kid?” all the time.
Richard and Priscilla meet their new neighbors, Eddy (Spacey with blond hair, so weird) and Kay Otis (Miller, also with blond hair, but not weird). They have dinner and drinks, and they get to know each other. Eddy works in finance and quickly bonds with Priscilla over investment talk. Kay is a talented singer, and she joins Richard at the piano. Richard is obviously super attracted to Kay even though his wife is Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. It makes no sense.
The couples hit it off, and they start to go on double dates and weekend getaways. Richard and Eddy start confiding in each other, and Richard reveals that their family has some debt. Eddy offers to help them out. Richard probably thinks Eddy will give him investment advice. Instead, Eddy throws himself in front of Richard’s car, fakes an injury, and then splits the settlement money with them so they can pay off their debts. What’s a little fraud between friends, am I right?
Apparently, this isn’t a red flag at all. They all go to a bar together, and Richard convinces the band to let Kay sing. Does this happen a lot in real life? Audience members just ask a band if someone else can sing, and the band’s like, “Ummm, it’s just my job to perform, but sure, go for it.” The way that Richard looks at Kay, it’s so obvious that he wants to fuck her, and Eddy calls him out on it. Luckily for Richard, Eddy also reveals that he wants to fuck Priscilla. Whew. It was about to get awkward.
Eddy’s like, “Yo, wouldn’t it be cool if we swapped wives, but didn’t tell the wives? We just sneak into each other’s bedrooms in the middle of the night and try to fuck each other’s wives while they’re sleeping without their consent? That would be so fun, right?”
Richard’s all, “Umm, nah. The movie’s called Consenting Adults, and there’s no consent in your plan.”
But Eddy doesn’t take no for an answer. He brings it up repeatedly and aggressively. He’s relentless. He basically peer pressures Richard into adultery that is also sexual assault.
So, late one night, after their victims wives are asleep, Richard and Eddy meet in front of their houses, exchange knowing looks, and sneak into each other’s homes and beds.
How did it go? Well, does this newspaper ad that Priscilla is reading the next day give you a hint?
There's a sale at Penney's!

And here’s where my plot summary ends, thrill seekers. Just know there’s a murder, more singing, and a Forest Whitaker sighting.
Is it a thrill? Not at all. It’s hard to believe Alan J. Pakula directed this. He directed one of the ultimate President from hell movies, All the President’s Men. He was more successful mining infidelity and paranoia in Presumed Innocent two years earlier.
Richard is such a dolt that I couldn’t muster up any sympathy for him. Eddy is so clearly a creep from the moment he appears that you can’t believe that someone smart like Priscilla wouldn’t see through him immediately. And hey, Kay is also there.
There are so many plot holes: “That wouldn’t happen.” “Whhhhy?” “Nobody does that.” “Do apes read philosophy?” (Yes, they just don’t understand it.)
No one behaves like an actual human. They’re just doing and saying the things they need to do to move the story to the next unsurprising twist. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it’s basically “Having neighbors is the problem,” which is so stupid it made me wonder if the movie is supposed to be a comedy.
Rating: 2 out of 5 bunnies in a boiling pot

Weekend Open Thread Aug 29, 2026
Show notes

Review: COYOTE VS. ACME Aug 28, 2026
Show notes

by JB
This is such a special film.
One of the happiest pieces of film-related news this year was the announcement that Ketchup Entertainment had bought the film Coyote vs. Acme from Warner Bros. and was going to give it a proper release in theaters. This followed Ketchup’s great success rescuing The Day the Earth Blew Up from streaming obscurity in 2024. The latest Looney Tunes feature film opens in honest-to-goodness theaters today. Don’t miss it.
THE PLOT IN BRIEF: After years of purchasing ACME products and having these wildly defective gee-gaws malfunction, causing him grave injury, Wile E. Coyote decides to sue the company for damages. He hires “billboard law firm” Avery, Jones, and Maltese to plead his case in court. Kevin Avery (Will Forte) would rather settle the case quickly for a quick payout. He hasn’t been in a courtroom in years. ACME also would rather settle quickly and quietly. What is ACME hiding?Based on a very funny New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier that was later published as a book, Coyote vs. Acme starts with a strong premise. It is not merely an extended Road Runner cartoon, though it contains many gags based on the Coyote’s crazy obsession with making that zooming bird his dinner. Screenwriter Samy Burch does a great job handling a potential story problem: how to make the scheming and single-minded Coyote a sympathetic protagonist? Kudos also for working out how to center a feature film on a main character who never speaks.
As the new film reminds us, some of the sight gags in the original Chuck Jones shorts were worthy of Buster Keaton—if Keaton operated in a universe where gravity could be paused for the sake of a joke. I've always loved how these cartoons played with physics, motion, perspective, spatial relationships, and utter silliness.One of my favorite jokes in the film is Forte’s TV lawyer pitch. (These types of commercials are ubiquitous where I live in California, where fender benders are apparently big business.) “Have you ever set a big stack of TNT on the road, hoping to blow up your nemesis, but the detonator itself explodes? Have you ever pulled the ripcord of your parachute, and only a bunch of silverware comes out? IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!”
How ironic that this cartoon tale of corporate malfeasance would become a metaphor for itself when mega-corporation Warner Bros. refused to release it, choosing to write it off as a loss rather than, you know, MAKING PEOPLE HAPPY WITH A FUN MOVIE.
The current owners of Warner Bros. have proven themselves to be inadequate cultural stewards by taking this special little Valentine to the studio’s rich cartoon history and shelving it indefinitely... for A TAX WRITE-OFF. Assholes. Clowns. Criminals.After Ketchup Entertainment bought the rights to the finished film, they began running trailers for Coyote Vs. Acme... on April 15th, Tax Day. The teaser featured Wile E. Coyote hanging in the air before holding up a sign reading "Happy Tax Day" on one side and "Check Your Write-Offs" on the other, then falling to his doom.
The film's marketing geniuses leaned into the tax write-off controversy, using ACME Corporation as a placeholder for Warner Bros., such as with the slogan "The Movie ACME Doesn't Want You to See.” The trailer was watched 25.6 million times within its first 24 hours, which set the record for most views for an independent family film. Take that, you soulless bureaucrats!
I feel that owning a film studio or a film library means something more than owning a fucking factory that churns out baked beans. Carl Laemmle understood that. So did Jack Warner. So did Louis B. Mayer. So did Walt Disney. The short sightedness of the current crop of studio heads is depressing. I may never stop throwing up. As Mr. Bernstein says in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, “There’s no trick to making a lot of money... if all you want is to make a lot of money."
As this YouTube video, “How Warner Bros. Killed a $17 Billion Cartoon Empire” from just last month explains by laying out the history of the studio for the last 35 years, Warner Bros. has criminally mismanaged this asset since the first Space Jam. Cartoon Brew, quoted in the piece, put it succinctly: “Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslaz is continuing his systematic crusade to dismantle WB’s animation legacy and he’s doing it with the kind of thoroughness that borders on obsession.”Much like 2024’s The Day the Earth Blew Up, Coyote vs. Acme has everything a Looney Tunes fan would desire in a modern version of the classic cartoons. The characters all stay true to form, there is an abundance of inspired sight gags, and there are scads of cameos from Looney Tunes characters both famous and obscure. I don’t want to spoil the joy of recognition, but I have a special feeling for any film that features shout-outs to Peter Lorre, Yosemite Sam, and Yertle the Turtle.
This weekend, or in the days ahead, let’s all plan to see this special little film in a theater. This will be the equivalent of buying boxes and boxes of TNT from a company OTHER THAN ACME and shoving them up Warner Bros.’ collective keister. And when we put down our money at the box office, nothing will go wrong with the Detonator of Taste and Discretion and Comeuppance... We will teach the Brothers Warner a lesson about the importance of our cartoon heritage... and things blowing up REAL good.
Especially the comically-labeled sticks of metaphoric TNT stuffed inside their capacious, metaphoric assholes.
Boom!

Review: COYOTE VS. ACME Aug 28, 2026
Show notes

by JB
This is such a special film.
One of the happiest pieces of film-related news this year was the announcement that Ketchup Entertainment had bought the film Coyote vs. Acme from Warner Bros. and was going to give it a proper release in theaters. This followed Ketchup’s great success rescuing The Day the Earth Blew Up from streaming obscurity in 2024. The latest Looney Tunes feature film opens in honest-to-goodness theaters today. Don’t miss it.
THE PLOT IN BRIEF: After years of purchasing ACME products and having these wildly defective gee-gaws malfunction, causing him grave injury, Wile E. Coyote decides to sue the company for damages. He hires “billboard law firm” Avery, Jones, and Maltese to plead his case in court. Kevin Avery (Will Forte) would rather settle the case quickly for a quick payout. He hasn’t been in a courtroom in years. ACME also would rather settle quickly and quietly. What is ACME hiding?Based on a very funny New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier that was later published as a book, Coyote vs. Acme starts with a strong premise. It is not merely an extended Road Runner cartoon, though it contains many gags based on the Coyote’s crazy obsession with making that zooming bird his dinner. Screenwriter Samy Burch does a great job handling a potential story problem: how to make the scheming and single-minded Coyote a sympathetic protagonist? Kudos also for working out how to center a feature film on a main character who never speaks.
As the new film reminds us, some of the sight gags in the original Chuck Jones shorts were worthy of Buster Keaton—if Keaton operated in a universe where gravity could be paused for the sake of a joke. I've always loved how these cartoons played with physics, motion, perspective, spatial relationships, and utter silliness.One of my favorite jokes in the film is Forte’s TV lawyer pitch. (These types of commercials are ubiquitous where I live in California, where fender benders are apparently big business.) “Have you ever set a big stack of TNT on the road, hoping to blow up your nemesis, but the detonator itself explodes? Have you ever pulled the ripcord of your parachute, and only a bunch of silverware comes out? IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!”
How ironic that this cartoon tale of corporate malfeasance would become a metaphor for itself when mega-corporation Warner Bros. refused to release it, choosing to write it off as a loss rather than, you know, MAKING PEOPLE HAPPY WITH A FUN MOVIE.
The current owners of Warner Bros. have proven themselves to be inadequate cultural stewards by taking this special little Valentine to the studio’s rich cartoon history and shelving it indefinitely... for A TAX WRITE-OFF. Assholes. Clowns. Criminals.After Ketchup Entertainment bought the rights to the finished film, they began running trailers for Coyote Vs. Acme... on April 15th, Tax Day. The teaser featured Wile E. Coyote hanging in the air before holding up a sign reading "Happy Tax Day" on one side and "Check Your Write-Offs" on the other, then falling to his doom.
The film's marketing geniuses leaned into the tax write-off controversy, using ACME Corporation as a placeholder for Warner Bros., such as with the slogan "The Movie ACME Doesn't Want You to See.” The trailer was watched 25.6 million times within its first 24 hours, which set the record for most views for an independent family film. Take that, you soulless bureaucrats!
I feel that owning a film studio or a film library means something more than owning a fucking factory that churns out baked beans. Carl Laemmle understood that. So did Jack Warner. So did Louis B. Mayer. So did Walt Disney. The short sightedness of the current crop of studio heads is depressing. I may never stop throwing up. As Mr. Bernstein says in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, “There’s no trick to making a lot of money... if all you want is to make a lot of money."
As this YouTube video, “How Warner Bros. Killed a $17 Billion Cartoon Empire” from just last month explains by laying out the history of the studio for the last 35 years, Warner Bros. has criminally mismanaged this asset since the first Space Jam. Cartoon Brew, quoted in the piece, put it succinctly: “Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslaz is continuing his systematic crusade to dismantle WB’s animation legacy and he’s doing it with the kind of thoroughness that borders on obsession.”Much like 2024’s The Day the Earth Blew Up, Coyote vs. Acme has everything a Looney Tunes fan would desire in a modern version of the classic cartoons. The characters all stay true to form, there is an abundance of inspired sight gags, and there are scads of cameos from Looney Tunes characters both famous and obscure. I don’t want to spoil the joy of recognition, but I have a special feeling for any film that features shout-outs to Peter Lorre, Yosemite Sam, and Yertle the Turtle.
This weekend, or in the days ahead, let’s all plan to see this special little film in a theater. This will be the equivalent of buying boxes and boxes of TNT from a company OTHER THAN ACME and shoving them up Warner Bros.’ collective keister. And when we put down our money at the box office, nothing will go wrong with the Detonator of Taste and Discretion and Comeuppance... We will teach the Brothers Warner a lesson about the importance of our cartoon heritage... and things blowing up REAL good.
Especially the comically-labeled sticks of metaphoric TNT stuffed inside their capacious, metaphoric assholes.
Boom!

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