This is the most popular page on my website, but it’s not particularly interesting, so I wonder why you’re here. PLEASE DROP ME AN EMAIL, and let me know. Thanks.
                                                           

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

Interdimensional Pizza Portal (2023)

Dude cosmically calls for pizza, and mmm it’s the best pizza of his life, but it’s unknown where it came from.

This is barely 4½ minutes, funny and recommended. Remember to always tip your driver.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

International House (1933)

Welcome to the International House, a fancy hotel and night club in Wuhu, China. The city actually exists, but is used here as a punchline. The racism is mild, though, for a 1930s movie set in China but filmed on a Hollywood backlot. Some of the wait staff are actually Asian, and none of the dialogue is openly mean.

The film’s nominal plot has a scientist named Wong (white guy in yellowface) premiering a new invention that seems to be television, but never quite works right, and anyway it’s a MacGuffin. Mostly the movie exists to let stars check in at the hotel, and either make jokes or make music.

Guests include George Burns and Gracie Allen, Baby Rose Marie (the child singer who became the The Dick Van Dyke Show‘s Rose Marie), Cab Calloway, W C Fields, Sterling Holloway, Bela Lugosi, Rudy Vallee, and several stars I’ve never heard of, including so help me, two middle-aged white guys billed as “Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd” — and they’re funny!

One of the stars unknown to me is Peggy Hopkins Joyce, who’s playing herself. In the movie’s plot, even mentioning her name is scandalous, which made me curious so I looked her up, and Wikipedia says she was a silent-era sex symbol.

The hotel’s funniest guest is Gracie Allen. The best music is from Calloway, singing “Have You Ever Met that Funny Reefer Man.” And I wouldn’t mind staying another night at this hotel.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Intersect (2020)

This is low-budget sci-fi, and opens with 15 minutes of two young scientists, Ryan and Caitlin, arguing as she dies. After this death scene, though, she’s alive and well.

At the lab, they successfully send a mouse through an experimental time portal, and there’s a champagne celebration, where someone makes a sad toast to the late Nathan.

That’s the first mention of Nathan, but after that there’s a third person on their lab team — Nathan — acting like he’s always been there. When these three scientists go out for drinks, Caitlin says sadly, “I was just thinking about Bill. I miss him, you know…”

That’s the first mention of Bill, but you guessed it — here comes Bill. We’re being told the story in reverse, which could be fascinating or frustrating, depending on how well it’s done. Spoiler, though: it’s not done very well.

The story sputters, gets a little more watchable when better actors play the same characters as adolescents, and then comes the big twist that made me vomit a little in my mouth.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

Night and Fog (1954)

Made while the Holocaust was fresh in human memory, this is a half-hour from French New Wave filmmaker Alain Resnais, summarizing what happened and how, with near-poetic narration as we stroll through a now-empty concentration camp. It’s hard to watch but beautiful, essential history.

And “Never again” is such a lie.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Searchers 2.0 (2007)

Mel and Fred, two long-since grown-up child actors, hear that the writer of one of their movies will be speaking in Monument Valley, and decide to attend. They’ don’t want to catch up about old times, they want to beat him up, because he was a tyrant to the kids while they were making the movie.

It’s a long drive to the Valley, so they borrow Mel’s daughter’s SUV for the drive, and she’s part of the deal. Which is good for the movie, because she’s cute and funny.

Written and directed by Alex Cox, this is a road trip filled with crackling conversations about old movies, politics, philosophy, and the war on terror. John Ford & John Wayne’s The Searchers comes up, and there may be callbacks to it, but it’s been years since I saw it so I can’t say for sure.

Cox, you may recall, made Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Walker, and a few other weird movies. Weird movies don’t make big money, though, so Hollywood is done with Cox, and he’s spent the latter years of his career mostly making Spanish-language movies in Mexico. I need to find a few — they’re probably great.

This one’s American and in English, and was filmed in Monument Valley, of course. It’s fun and funny, and climaxes with a dramatic movie trivia standoff in the desert, staged reminiscent of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly‘s last scene.

Roger Corman is (and also plays) the penny-pinching producer. Everything about Searchers 2.0 is clever, counterculture moviemaking on the cheap, and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Verdict: YES.

9/23/2025

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

Neverending Film Festival

itsdougholland.com
← PREVIOUS           NEXT →