Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Hare Splitter (1948)

Hare Splitter (1948)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Ken Champin

The premise for “Hare Splitter” feels like someone took an old script for “Tom and Jerry” and retooled it for Bugs Bunny. One of my main problems that completely hinders “Hare Splitter” for me is that the whole short feels too much like it’s cribbing from the MGM formula. All that’s missing is the rambunctious mouse or angry yard dog. It too often feels like Tom and Butch should be the ones taking center stage instead of Bugs and his one and done rival Casbah. Too much of the short here feels like the animators were borrowing from Fred Quimby or Tex Avery (before his move to MGM), creating a premise that feels so far removed from what we’re used to seeing with Bugs Bunny.

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Lost in the Sky (2023) [Cinequest 2024]

Director Simon Öster and his team really do deliver an accomplishment of cinema, it’s a short film about the power of companionship and the classic tale of a species ending war that might not have resulted in the best outcome when all is said and done. “Lost in the Sky” revolves around a scavenger robot who has spent what we can only assume is an enormous amount of time in the aimlessness of space looking for humanity of any kind.

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Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

Now in Wider Release Exclusively in Theaters.

Rose Glass’s crime thriller is a rotten and often grotesque neo-noir that kept me glued to the screen from beginning to end. Like more neo-noir’s, Glass’s film centers on morally gray protagonists doing battle with amoral characters, all of whom are couped up in such a small town. Corruption and violence is never too far away and “Loves Lies Bleeding” centers on Lou and Jackie, both of whom are desperate to escape their confines. More and more their lives feel like prisons, with their whole source of misery pointed toward domestic dysfunction.

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Every Bugs Bunny Ever: Hot Cross Bunny (1948)

Hot Cross Bunny (1948)
Directed by Bob McKimson
Written by Warren Foster
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Animation by Manny Gould

Robert McKimson is one of my all time favorite directors for the Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny, if only because his shorts always end up being so off the cuff and bizarre. But not bizarre in the Bob Clampett sense, but bizarre in original and outside the box. There’s just something so out of bounds about “Hot Cross Bunny” that even when I was a kid, I couldn’t get over the unusual energy of the short. When I was a kid, “Hot Cross Bunny” was one of the many shorts on constant rotation every Saturday morning on “The Bugs and Daffy Show” and I always got a kick out of it whenever it came on.

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Make the Call (2023) [Cinequest 2024]

Chelsea Gonzalez’s short horror film really manages to be an outstanding piece of filmmaking from top to bottom. It’s a horror movie that’s teeming with social commentary about spousal abuse, domestic dysfunction, and our ability to sacrifice our own health to protect our own façade of domestic bliss. I loved every moment of “Make the Call” as writer Sal Neslusan knows how to perfectly explore this unusual situation within its small window of time and perfectly illustrate how these domestic situations can rip apart friendships and lives.

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Bounce House (2023) [Cinequest 2024]

Callie + Chris’s short apocalyptic film watches like if Wim Wenders decided one day to direct his own post-apocalyptic flick. And I mean that as a compliment because while “Bounce House” isn’t too concerned with action, it does deliver to us the idea of what monotony would look like at the end of the world. Once it’s all gone down and you’re alive: then what? Do you keep living or find something else. “Bounce House” is more about the absurdity of the end of the world and basically waiting around for some kind of new development that may or may not ever come.

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Stephen King’s The Shining (1997) [Blu-Ray]

Now Available on Physical Media from Scream Factory while the Original Novel is Also Available.

It’s no surprise that Stephen King did not like Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 version of “The Shining.” He’s gone on about it. And on. And on. And on. I’m sure he even brings it up whenever someone uses the word hotel, or Jack Nicholson, or axe, or twins. In either case, in 1997 Stephen King teamed up with long time collaborator Mick Garris to deliver a faithful, more epic version of “The Shining” and well—it’s fine. It’s an okay movie. It’s not a gem like Kubrick’s version but it’s not boring. And it has its supporters, if anything. And it’s aged pretty well, all things considered.

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The Ring Collection [4K Ultra HD/Blu-Ray]

Available March 19th from Scream Factory.

In the age of analog horror and ARG’s, Hideo Nakata was so far ahead of his time, that it’s horrifying. His 1998 horror film “Ring” is a concept that, if realized today, would have probably been a hit series on Youtube. A cursed VHS tape featuring a dreaded short film with supernatural powers, a powerful demon sleeping within it, calling up those that view it, and giving them seven days to live. On the seventh day when the user fails to cut the curse or pass it on to someone else, they’re visited by an unfathomable terror. It’s the formula for a great horror film that sparked the huge J Horror boom of the early aughts that spawned a slew of Japanese Horror Films to either be imported to America, or remade in to hits in their own right.

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