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

I Yam What I Yam (1933)

Popeye vs Native Americans, which has the potential to be insensitive by 2025 standards, and fulfills its potential.

Olive Oyl does all the rowboat rowing, then singlehandedly holds off an attacking tribe of Indians, then smooches Popeye and says he’s “My hero!” though she’s the one who rescued herself. Popeye organizes an army of ducks. Wimpy is here, but eating fried rice or something, but has no interest in hamburgers yet.

Olive Oyl being a tough dame rocks, but this is very early Popeye, black-and-white, with only the slightest, stalest moments of humor. Directed by Dave Fleischer.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Ice Pirates (1984)

This is a cheap Star Wars ripoff, about as good as some of the recent, very expensive Star Wars ripoffs that are branded Star Wars.

Water has dried up, not just on Earth but throughout the known galaxy, so Han Solo-style space rogues steal and sell ice, while having sword battles and making wisecracks.

The leads are dull actors from TV, but the supporting cast is stellar — John Carradine, Angelica Huston, John Matuszak, Ron Perlman, and funny fat guy Bruce Vilanch — and almost entirely wasted.

This is what happens when a movie is imagined, birthed, and manufactured by people whose motivation is solely making money. If there’s a spark of genuine creativity or passion in The Ice Pirates, it must’ve been during the parts when I was asleep.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

Ice Station Zebra (1968)

I thought this movie looked cool when I was a kid, and tried to talk my pop into taking the family, but he said it was too adult. Surviving on a $1 p/week allowance, I wasn’t going to movies alone yet, so I’m 57 years late to the show, sorry.

Is it worth the wait?

US Naval Captain Rock Hudson is assigned to escort mysterious British civilian Patrick McGoohan to Ice Station Zebra, a remote weather station experiencing an unexplained emergency. Russkie defector Ernest Borgnine is one of the good guys — or is he? — and thankfully makes minimal effort at faking an accent. Tough black officer Jim Brown says, “I measure an officer’s weakness by every man that likes him personally.”

Directed by John Sturges, based on a novel by Alistar MacLean, this is a military movie, so only officers are allowed personalities or dialogue beyond “Yessir.” And it’s a submarine movie, so there’s that cool echoey beep beep beep, but the sense of claustrophobia is lacking — this sub is as spacious as Mary’s apartment on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

By the end, as the tension ratchets up, I got a little bored. It’s half an hour too long, but it’s a good movie — a straight-forward up-and-up out-in-the-open example of smooth, polished, Hollywood spy stuff.

Verdict: YES, mostly for Patrick McGoohan.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’m Just Gonna Talk to Her (2024)

A young woman attends a meeting for victims of sexual assault. She doesn’t want to be there; her mother made her come. The lady running the session encourages her to talk anyway. She talks.

This is a 16-minute short about trying to climb out from one of life’s shittiest corners. It’s fictional, but still feels like it’s none of my business, like eavesdropping on a session that’s supposed to be private.

Me, neither victim nor rapist, I found it depressing as hell. If it’s intended to get hesitant victims to go to a group session, it’ll probably work, and it’s ever-so-slightly optimistic toward the end. It’s a good film, but a rough watch.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Black Gestapo (1974)

White bad guys cause trouble in a black neighborhood, so the blacks organize a militia, with uniforms that look kinda like Curtis Silwa’s Guardian Angels, complete with red berets.

Gotta say, it’s a great idea — not the red berets, but the militia. So long as guns are legal and cops are bastards, this is what the downtrodden should be doing.

The movie’s high point comes after the worst white baddie has raped a black woman. Several members of the black militia break into his house and castrate him, flush his dick down the toilet, and leave him to bled out and die in his bathtub. That’s gotta be the best moment ever in a blaxploitation flick, and there are other good moments here.

It’s a righteous war between the red-beret blacks and the dumbshit whites, but along the way there’s a subtext brewing, as the black militia becomes the local black mafia.

This ain’t great cinema, but it’s pretty good blaxploitation, and it’s fun.

Verdict: YES.

6/4/2025

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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