Guy Pearce Birthday Special! 🎉

 

Despite finally having a bout with Covid, there's nothing like a birthday to sit down and chat Guy Pearce with Jaylan Salah on The Jay Days YouTube Channel! This time we discussed the three latest Guy Pearce films that viewers seemed to have missed - The Shrouds, Inside, and Killing Faith.

Visit the Video label for more guest appearances or follow our Kbatz Reviews at The Jay Days Playlist for more Guy Pearce Re-Watch Analysis including:

The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Guy Pearce Awards

Jack Irish

The Convert

October Literary Moods

 

October Literary Moods 

by Kristin Battestella

These memoirs, biographies, and literary adaptations range from delightfully macabre and witty mysteries to gossipy yarns. Here's what to read or skip this autumn.

Must Read

Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson – The Queen of Halloween's 2021 tell all book made headlines for Peterson's coming out upon its release. However, that's only one late chapter revelation in a fascinating life of highs and lows. Scarring childhood injuries and an abusive relationship with her mother led to escapism in the family's costume shop before cruising the early groupie music scene. Despite a few early film appearances, traveling to Italy to sing in a band leaves Peterson ill and destitute until returning to California has her starring in The Groundlings and living in a tree house with a Tarzan-like boyfriend. Her subsequent marriage, haunted house, and struggles with infertility are told alongside the creation of Elvira – with shrewd business deals, appearances, endorsements, and merchandise retaining Peterson's control of the character. Satanic panic backlashes, conservative fears over her cleavage, and canceled television pilots often meant struggling financially. Thanks to her provocative image, outspoken attitude, and unwillingness to compromise character or convictions, Peterson bankrolled her own films – continuing to appear as Elvira during difficult pregnancies and her divorce. There is an entire chapter dedicated to several sexual assaults of varying degrees in an extremely telling commentary on how our society treats a confident woman. In some ways, Peterson's current lesbian relationship – kept hidden for decades for fear of alienating audiences who only cared about her buxom image – is the least interesting aspect about her life. A supportive friendship blossomed into romance, written as a lovely, natural occurrence topping off an entertaining read. This both reads like the way Peterson talks but is also a chronologically laid out and well written, emotional journey of a woman finally at ease in her own skin. Although I had to avoid leaving this book lying around for my curious niece to find thanks to the topless showgirl photos!

A Fun Adaptation

The Mirror Crack'd – Murder She Wrote meets Miss Marple as Angela Lansbury leads this star studded 1980 Agatha Christie adaptation from director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger). Classy silver screen panache, cigarettes, and scandalous revelations provide a fun awareness to the genre as viewers debate the whodunit clues, motives, and left hand versus right hand weaponry. A new Hollywood production is coming to the quaint English countryside, mixing village airs and graces with swanky jazz, vintage autos, nostalgic reels, and retro cameras. The hats and pearls are a flutter over the dalliances, backhanded insults, and catty attitudes as our jealous actresses trade plastic surgery barbs at the film party. This may be a little slow in setting the scene with who is who, but the film within a film rivalries and temperamental tension lead to murder. Flashbulb pops help the maids revisit the scene of the crime and a suspect daiquiri as Marple weasels the details from the town doctor. Poison, heart attacks, and Tennyson references move quickly once we're on set with Elizabeth I versus Mary Queen of Scots calling each other bitches. Seductive actress Kim Novak (Bell, Book, and Candle) is married to producer Tony Curtis (Some Like It Hot) and will get her way, but director Rock Hudson's (Giant) comeback wife Elizabeth Taylor (Night Watch) expects to win all the awards. Both leading ladies want to change history to benefit their onscreen queen, but which was the intended victim and who had the fatal opportunity? Threatening letters and harassing phone calls escalate the behind the scenes facades and period piece costume checks while our divas – “10 years ago, when I was 16...” – layer the Hollywood commentary, backstory, and trivial British deduction. Everybody in Hollywood is “intimate” but arsenic in the tea, switched medicines, and acid begat more deaths. The show must go on despite the Gene Tierney inspirations, and although the zany movie making and droll meddling are somewhat uneven in the end, the performances with performances remain entertaining. I want the clothes and one can totally see how Murder She Wrote was born here.

Better Bios Available

Montgomery Clift: A Biography by Michelangelo Capua – The format of this 2002 ode to the October 17 birthday boy is odd, with a gossipy, anecdotal tone rather than a factual recounting. Although there's nothing necessarily unusual about the footnotes being indexed in the back of the book rather than at the bottom of the page, the lack of immediate citations makes this reading hear tell frustrating. For all the book's complaints about Clift's overbearing, desperate to be well to do mother Sunny, this also reads very much like that kind of tut tutting old lady. Who said what and when quotes are treated as scandalous nuggets whispered over tea, with truth or origin unimportant compared to the trite, down low gay torment tack. Some early theater material and photographs may be new, but the author's voice is increasingly loose, as if he knew Clift's inner thoughts when most of the information is borrowed from other sources with unclear references. Whether Clift was throupled with his married friends is passed off as confirmed – continually falling back on Clift's tawdry sexuality and ill health while describing his trips to exotic islands with Hispanic men claimed to be his favorite. When not worried about which rich woman hopelessly in love with him was influencing him on set, this repeatedly recalls Clift's drunken antics, embarrassing dinner party routines, or his running through the streets naked. This is a short read with the appendices padding the page number so it maybe an easier introduction to Clift for classic movie newcomers. However, compared to older, longer biographies, this is completely superficial with an eye-rolling Hollywood Babylon pitch. New information about the behind the scenes of Clift's films is far too few and far between the garish here.

Now Reading: I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This by Bob Newhart

For more movies meets literary analysis, listen to several Women InSession Book to Film episodes including:

Othello

Hamlet

Female Writers Onscreen

Frankenstein

A Christmas Carol

Goodbye Hulu Sprint 👋🏻

 

Goodbye Hulu Sprint 

by Kristin Battestella

I was already working thru my Hulu queue to cancel it at the end of the year thanks to Disney's forthcoming complete takeover and unfortunate absorption of the platform. However, last week I expedited my final viewings and ended my subscription (held since Hulu began!) in response to Jimmy Kimmel's unconstitutional suspension. As Rose says, “I've never liked her,” and despite Disney's walk back on the decision, we must endeavor to do our small part in boycotting morally bankrupt entities. See also Target.

Ironically, these mystery miniseries, eerie documentaries, and Hulu original horror movies are middle of the road anyway – content designed for marathon filler perhaps rightly lost in the catalog instead of standing out by maximizing each's potential subject matter.

A Nasty Piece of Work – Intertitles demand an employee show initiative and adapt to achieve executive solutions because every task is a test in this 2018 Into the Dark Hulu/Blumhouse production. Ironic carols, exasperating attempts to impress the boss, shattered mirrors, and out of breath stress reiterate the corporate competition, desperation over the Christmas bonus, and the relatable, at the end of the cubicle tether. Unfortunately, late boss with the $75k golf clubs Julian Sands (Gothic) is cutting the huge executive bonuses so it's only fair that he give no bonuses to anyone. There is however a chance for promotion hobnobbing at his Christmas party amid jackass rivals, their trophy wives, and drunken innuendo from the boss's domineering spouse. The antique weapons, masks, and passive aggressive pranks are awkward, and the self-aware horror movie jokes about a guy hiding in the house walls are on the nose. The situation moves fast and gun play happens early, but the action comes at the expense of the taut Christmas on edge tension. Waxing on ballistics, security cameras, intruder alibis, or how to bury a body in the backyard are part of the promotion pop quiz, but the classism and corporate extremes driving us to violence should be a deeper commentary than it is. Quoting Dr. King while the Black servant scrubs the blood on the carpet or racism about not knowing the names of the ethnic catering staff are treated as throwaway moments. The decent employee is no longer the good guy once he's decided to stay rather than walk away from this how far are you willing to go horror challenge. Likewise, we don't feel sorry for the jerky rival crying that he's up to his neck in debt to maintain the upward mobile facade as their secrets come back to haunt them. Bathroom jump scares and wives used in the tit for tat lead to twists that our contenders say they aren't falling for again, but the predictable injuries and the lack of willingness to leave this so-called interview mount. Are we supposed to laugh at the boss messing with people because there's still a Schrodinger's chance they might get the job? Of course in the real world, the low man wouldn't be promoted, just blamed for the crimes committed herein, and this strays from the allegorical potential, losing steam despite being only seventy-eight minutes. Shouting, gunshots, and chases descend into back and forths played for illogical sardonic while one person runs away for comic relief and the staff peek around the corner. Cult men in white suits are tossed in for an easy solution with more jokes deflating the horror. This seems content to go for the lowest hanging concept rather than fully execute what the horror is saying, and it's up to the audience to know all the quips, pop culture references, and cliches to extrapolate our own views. I stayed for Julian Sands. I miss him, but despite the self-contained holiday possibilities, this just left me wanting much more.

Shardlake – Angry Cromwell Sean Bean (Sharpe) accents this four episode 2024 Disney/Hulu original based on the C.J. Sansom books. Doublets set the Tudor scene alongside the ecclesiastic mood, however the dark photography and modern digital gradient make this look contemporary and generic rather than period patina. Drone aerial footage is unnecessary as is orchestration that calls attention to itself. Arthur Hughes (The Innocents) is our titular hunchback investigator, but he has a scowling chip on his shoulder and the colorblind casting is reduced to being the murder suspects. Annoying sidekicks and comic relief hamper the case while Shardlake also talks to himself in the mirror. The dialogue is well spoken with fine performances when the ensemble is allowed to sit still and discuss the gory murder, precarious politics, and religious corruption. Unfortunately, such scenes are often spliced with the initial head chopping murder just in case the audience forgot it. Solving the crime should be straightforward; but stolen relics, suspicious hooded figures, sodomite finger pointing, and macho confrontations deviate from Cromwell's ultimate goal to blame the secretive brotherhood and seize the church assets. Already we're spinning tires with suicides, contrived bog perils, and silly chases about the steeples. Captivating moments forcing the viewer to pay attention are few and far between, sacrificed for deliberately cryptic ominous for the sake of it padding and run of the mill contemporary pace. Scenes away from Shardlake are frustrating with fatal toppers just for shock value and no apparent point to the second episode. Our crippled lawyer is put on the rack amid Boleyn twists, boat trips, and instantaneous riding to and fro – detouring when we should never leave the scene of the monastery crime. Clues and evidence the audience saw in the first episode are not deduced until the last hour via ghostly hints, repetitive plot points, and try hard flashbacks. Mounting deaths, uneven filler, and forced romance are as needed before an extremely busy final fifteen minutes tries to wrap up everything tossed at the screen. Even Sean Bean asks how has this murder has not been solved already, and the viewer has long lost interest in what should have been a two hour mystery.

Witches: Truth Behind the Trials – This 2024 six episode National Geographic documentary series begins with forty-five minutes dedicated to Salem before exploring the earlier European persecutions. The hyperbolic female narrator punctuates frenetic re-enactments while ominous, intrusive music emphasizes the sensational punchlines. Shadowed experts are filmed before dark backdrops, intercut with eerie imagery instead of being able to speak in full on the radical ministers. Opening with Salem's hysterical finger pointing at servants of color is meant to grab viewers. However there's nothing new presented and the irony of our current puritanical tailspin is apparent. Episode Two goes back to the German origins of the Malleus Maleficarum laying down the witch hunting rules, but the medieval belief in witches as both harmful outcasts or useful sages remains sensationalized. Innocent women are executed by the territorial theocracy thanks to the lack of scientific understanding. Self-appointed God-fearing committees get tips from conforming villagers about who's in league with the devil, and the invention of the printing press spreads all the torturous details. Naturally the Third Scotland episode sets the scene on Halloween, and despite the regional focus with different persecution extremes, each entry feels repetitive with a misguided tone hitting the viewer over the head on the scandalous accusations. Protestant versus Catholic takeovers against earlier folk practices as a reason for the hysteria is only briefly mentioned, but the Witch Act of 1604 means James VI's divinity guards him against witchcraft plots. Public humiliations gaining confessions are called “pressure” not “torture,” and this true crime style focuses on a few famous names whilst ignoring the massive scale of what happened. Nat Geo used to be quality but this puts shock strobe over history for a banal, crowd-pleasing overview. The short, superficial episodes feel redundant yet six episodes is overlong. This subject is now more important than ever, but I quit halfway through because Wikipedia's Witch Trial article series contains far more detail.

Eleventh Hour at Geek Vibes Nation!

 

I'm so grateful to have another outlet for retro television reviews and shows that have slipped through the streaming cracks. As such, my latest piece at Geek Vibes Nation highlights the forgotten Patrick Stewart vehicle Eleventh Hour!

Totally thankful for Dillion, Cainan and all the tech and editing team at GVN! It is such a privilege to be a part of diverse, welcoming film websites. You can read my past review of A Spy Among Friends as well as hear the latest on the Women InSession Podcast at InSessionFilm.com!

Read more television reviews including: 

Mare of Eastown

Jack Irish

Mary Tyler Moore Show

John Hughes Guest Podcast

 

It's been a VHS Summer at the Binge Movies Home Video podcast! It was so exciting to take part in the John Hughes episode ranking National Lampoon's Vacation, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and more!

Thank you Jason for inviting me to take part! Direct messages are open on Blue Sky for 2026 audio/visual inquiries. It's so wonderful to be so booked and busy as part of the podcasting community! I'm grateful to have my opinions heard. Revisit all my past Podcast appearances including:

Lone Acting Nominee City Slickers

After Hours L.A. Confidential

The Revisionist Almanac 1956 Oscars

2024 Guest Podcast Round Up

Psycho II Guest Podcast

 

I am so excited to visit with Phil of the Making Tarantino Podcast again! True to our previous horror shenanigans, this episode we chatted about the underrated sequel Psycho II!

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Thank you for listening! For 2026 audio/visual guest inquiries, direct messages are open on Blue Sky. Sometimes it's difficult to find an extra one or two days a month to record something but it's also so wonderful to be appreciated in the film critic and podcasting communities! You can find all my past guest appearances via the Podcast tag including:

Making Tarantino House of Dark Shadows

1999 The Podcast The End of the Affair

After Hours L.A. Confidential

The Female Gaze Hateship Loveship

L.A. Confidential Patreon Podcast

 

I am so excited to take part in awards pundit Matthew Anderson's new After Hours podcast!

This Patreon exclusive spin-off of his Lone Screenplay Nominee podcast was the perfect opportunity to chat about L.A. Confidential alongside my fellow Women InSession panelist Jaylan Salah. Thank you for having us Matthew!

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You can hear my previous Lone Screenplay chat with Matthew on Stand by Me or browse the Podcast and Video tags for more guest appearances including:

Lone Acting Nominee Podcast City Slickers

Greatest Movies of All Time Ben-Hur

2024 Guest Podcast Round Up

More Jonathan Rhys Meyers Horror

 

More Jonathan Rhys Meyers Horror

by Kristin Battestella

Let's have a birthday supper with two more genre bending pictures featuring Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Unfortunately, the horrors here do a disservice to the stars – to say the least.

A Mixed Bag

6 Souls – This international production originally titled Shelter starring doctor Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair) and patient Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) was originally released in 2010 before this 2013 US re-branding, which already doesn't bode well. After a tense hearing explaining multiple personality disorder as a fake fad defense, our psychologist Cara is on a new case at the behest of her colleague father. The wheelchair bound Johnny with a southern accent answers her questions before scratching, growling, color blind changes, and no wheelchair required inexplicable. Tearful recountings, creepy sores, and vomitings increase, but the x-rays look like two different people and the high school history doesn't gel. Occult symbols, ritual murder, Appalachia magic, and religious undercurrents are apparent early, yet Cara continues to pursue the psychological. Spooky flashes and dream scares break her point of view, and backstory of her husband's murder on Christmas feels forced amid the cool babysitter uncle banter. All the family elements seem unnecessary; doctor dad keeps pushing Cara to prove her motivation and it would be better if she was alone. The psychology interrogations are a tense who is who with angry alters and who's going to blink first chilling. Unfortunately, the medical treatment is fast and loose, and local superstitions, iron nails to ward off evil, and who does or doesn't wear a cross don't get enough attention. JRM's personality changes are well done amid gory discoveries and satanic possibilities, and thankfully we mostly hear rather than see the bone cracking transformations. The one on one scenes are best, yet they don't get us any closer to the root source and Doctor Cara actually doesn't seem very good at her job? Her daughter is a plot device to advance the science versus god when our supposedly religious doctor spends too much time on a medical solution when it's clear to the frustrated audience she is totally missing the demonic at work. We wonder why the authorities weren't involved sooner because she continually oversteps her medical bounds and makes the situation worse. Religious mothers and granny witches take too long to get to the backwoods backstory, with intercut rituals and over the phone info dumps making Cara look stupid alongside one step behind detectives and repeated road trips. The freaky is good when it happens, but so much time is wasted on cryptic ominous that it makes viewers question if there is another version of this left on the cutting room floor. Sepia toned back and forth faith versus faithless cures or curses are confusing with technological audio and visual ease advancing revelations when the characters should be experiencing the consequences directly. It's foolish that critical horror action happens while our doctor merely listens on the phone, muddling point of view and familial motivation and doing a disservice to the emotional, chilling leads. Hospital versus witch doctor choices wait while phone contrivances allow for more driving with in-world hop, skip, jump convenience on top of too many characters and plot detours when we should have focused on the psychosis versus religion twofer. The sacrificial action, influenza timeline, and twists upon twists unravel, descending into wooded chases instead of any scientific or spiritual resolution.

It's Bad

Operation Blood Hunt – Louis Mandylor (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) directs and stars in this 2024 action horror lark featuring Jonathan Rhys Meyers amid vampires, werewolves, and World War II South Pacific incomprehensible. The brief 1928 opening has a unique black and white scheme with stylish hints of color and yellow glows, but the subsequent modern de-saturated drone photography does not set the period mood– and it only gets worse from there. The initial werewolf shock is actually well done, however it's premature to reveal the wolf in the first five minutes. Location changes and onscreen notations telling us it's 1945 London jar with hamfisted contemporary dialogue. Fedora wearing, Bogarting it up JRM is hammy yet suave amid wooden deliveries, Kung Fu strobe, and confusing direction that make the cast seem like they are in different scenes. There are pieces of everything here from Dracula to Kong: Skull Island, and with the modern metal music and cool silver crossbows, they could have tossed in time travel and it wouldn't be out of place. Overlong, obnoxious banter introduces try hard people a half hour in with freeze frame titles while they jump out of a plane: casanova, tracker, assassin, spy, sharpshooter, veteran, supernatural specialist, gambler. None of this preposterous can be taken seriously largely thanks to the World War II trappings – visualized only by the period helmets that are too big and fall down over the actors' eyes. The perplexing Wikipedia summary reads like a novel, and JRM's vampire bar with the cool black and white flashbacks look like they're from another movie. Why is all this jammed into one ninety-four minutes when it could have been contemporary set? Werewolf slices and slashes are too few and far between, and it all should have been from the village's perspective where shaman rituals and animal curses give the asshole intruders what they deserve. The bad vampire wants to get to the North Pole, and I can't imagine how anyone in this movie kept a straight face. Attempted dramatic moments, deaths, and dire radio calls are inadvertently bemusing thanks to a contemporary edgy ballad. Ironically, a woman's arms being ripped off by the werewolf is another good effect, but we don't get to the hairy action, silver bullets, and curse mythology explanations until the final twenty minutes. Blaming the native village history feels racist, and intercutting the mercenary island action with London explanations that it's all about hidden gold and not the monsters adds more messy. But hey, maybe every film needs a naked woman who is clearly wearing a flesh tone tank top yet is still treated as if she is naked. JRM is a vampire who's been listening to everything the entire time, and a racist coda inviting them to Egypt to battle mummies leaves it open for a sequel, lololol. I can't believe I watched this whole thing!

Priscilla & More Pride Picks Jay Days Video Review! 🌈

 

Despite these increasingly turbulent times - or just to spite them! - I sat down again with Jaylan Salah to have a charming chat about The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Vampire Lovers, and more of our favorite Pride picks on The Jay Days Review YouTube Channel! I'm grateful to be an ally and discuss what our favorites get wrong as well as what rainbow they get right. 

Follow our Video tag for more virtual appearance or revisit previous episodes of The Jay Days including: 

Bound

Desert Hearts and When We Rise

Jack Irish