every movie ever made, in alphabetical order
(we’re in the I’s, with some anti-alphabetical cheats)

The Insect Woman (1963)

I was hoping this would be a Roger Corman schlocko sci-fi, but it’s a dead serious drama from Japan.

When a girl is born in 1918, a dimwitted and possibly retarded man files her birth certificate, claiming he’s the baby’s daddy. It’s possible, but just as likely it’s any man from the village, if you take my meaning.

The girl grows into a young woman, and her family sends her to be a servant at a neighboring farm, where she’s raped, and later forced into prostitution. But if there’s one person who gives a damn about her, it’s her dimwitted possibly-papa.

Those are the broad sweeps, but there’s much more to it, adding up to a darn fine dead serious drama from Japan. As for the insect part, the story is framed with imagery of a beetle struggling to climb a dungheep, an allegory for this woman’s life, and possibly for Japan’s existence after WW2.

This is not the feel-good movie of 1963, but it is harrowing, engrossing, depressing art. It’s by Shôhei Imamura, maker of Black Rain and a butt-load of flicks I haven’t seen but hope to, including The Ballad of Narayama, Pigs and Battleships, The Pornographers, and Vengeance Is Mine.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Inside (2008)

A man in a padded cell is roused by guards, and hauled in to see a shrink. He’s not alone, though — he’s schizophrenic, and brings all his multiple personalities to the session.

This is only five minutes, but it’s five clever minutes, and tells a story you don’t expect.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

Daisy Clover is a young girl who lives on the docks, rage-graffities walls, and dreams of being a singer. She sends a recording to an agent, which leads to her big break, which might leave her big broken.

Show business is full of men who might not have young Daisy’s best interests at heart, and one of them is Robert Redford in his first major role. There’s nobody on Daisy’s side, and everything’s a sham or a scam, sordid yet still 1960s squeaky-clean.

Natalie Wood stars, and she was always a good actress, but she’s 27 playing 15. Even with a face full of fake freckles, she can’t suggest adolescence.

Christopher Plummer co-stars, plus not enough Roddy McDowall, Ruth Gordon, and Harold Gould. It’s a watchable old movie, quaint, and I liked the ending.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Inside Detroit (1956)

Gus Linden (Pat O’Brien) is a United Auto Workers local official who’s been imprisoned for racketeering, but is soon to be released, and hopes to take power again. Blair Vickers (Dennis O’Keefe) is the straight-arrow union rep who’s running the local now, and wants to keep it pure as vodka. There’s been a bombing, and the feds and cops think Linden was behind it, so they make it a priority to keep him out of power and get him back in prison.

Plenty of punches and angry lines here, with nearly gruesome violence filmed in the factories of old Detroit. The film is black-and-white and so’s the script, with very good cops and very bad bad guys. If it’s a little self-righteous, watching a guy get squished by a train makes up for it.

2025 is so far removed from the movie’s time and place, figuring its politics is tricky. A memorable murder scene is filmed on the floor of a working auto plant, so management allowed the filming and presumably liked the movie’s perspective, but the only on-screen thanks goes the UAW and AFL, so they must’ve liked the look of being opposed to corruption.

Directed by Fred Sears, maker of such fine films as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Giant Claw, and Going Steady.

You don’t often see O’Brien as the bad guy, so that’s kinda fun, and the whole thing’s introduced and then wrapped up by noted watch salesman John Cameron Swayze.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Andor (second season, 2025)

The second and final season of this Star Wars sequel/prequel starts with Andor himself stealing a TIE fighter. Which is amusing, because he doesn’t know how to fly it, so there’s plenty of banging the wings and such.

But it leads to a long TIE fighter chase scene, loaded with imagery and sound effects I’ve memorized from the first three Star Wars movies, and so familiar it felt like a rerun. Then there’s a bumpy landing, and the next two episodes take place in front of that TIE fighter.

Someone must’ve sent a memo that the second season of Andor needed more Star Wars. It never goes fifteen minutes without showing a TIE fighter or Stormtrooper, hovercraft or a rhino-headed alien, etc.

There’s political and military intrigue, and an arranged marriage that had been specifically refused in the first season, and more political intrigue, and scolding and conflict and a heist, and more layers of political intrigue and whispered plans, and a whole lot of talking and waiting, and swooping shots of people running through wheat fields or something. And always TIE fighters and Stormtroopers fly overhead or march past.

Hour after hour of whispered plans lead only to more whispered plans. We’re shown several large party scenes where everyone’s dressed in the Star Wars version of formal attire, and a few of the guests are Star Wars rhino-heads.

But I am so tired of Star Wars. I enjoyed and recommended the first season of Andor because it wasn’t very Star Warsy, but this second season has all the boredom of The Phantom Menace plus soooo much padding and political intrigue.

In real life, I follow politics because it matters, but don’t much care about political intrigue. This show is episode after episode of political intrigue from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Which makes me care less, not more.

By the sixth of the season’s 12 parts I was getting seriously antsy. But even the first season took five episodes to get interesting, so I still intended to stick with it…

Then a rebel lady who’d been a good guy in the first season demands that all the other rebels do exactly as she’s ordered them to do. She says twice, if you can’t follow my orders blindly you should leave now — and if I was living in this show, standing in that room, I would’ve left right then. Following orders blindly is never the right thing to do, but this is what the rebels are fighting for?

Later in the same episode, a different good guy tortures a prisoner, and I’d seen enough, and clicked it off to watch some Three Stooges instead.

Verdict: NO.

9/19/2025

Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer. No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.

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