u/Zeddblidd

Just look for the gap!

2026-316 / Zedd MAP: 75.09

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: After undergoing gender reassignment surgery, an aspiring actress travels to Hollywood, where she also wants to make a claim on her wealthy uncle's estate.

For a dude so full of the love for language and the words that come with the mindset, you might be surprised to learn I have a slightly (completely) noticeable speech impediment… well, not impediment exactly. More like, I’m prone to a series of speech errors that arrive as part of my spontaneous utterances. Still confused - let me introduce you to my little whoopsie-dos to watch for. I’m betting you’ve engaged them in limited moments of brain-farts yourself…

I give you the Spoonerisms - yes, ladies and gentlemen, when two words generally come together but you transpose the letter: Hey, want some belly jeans? Generally, it’s the first letter of each transposed but yours truly has been known to slip my tongue at any junction… I’m going to taker a show!

Fun.

Of particular interest to my misfiring phonetic ordinal system is what’s called a Blend - the unintentional combining of two words into one… Mrs. Lady Zedd is cutty (because I’m trying to force cute and pretty through my mouth at the same time like two broadly shouldered men out the front door and what is the mouth, if not the front door of the body).

((Hard stare))

When doing my research, I saw the example of great and cool resulting in the blend grool, which (haHA), yeah - anyone aquatinted with the hornier back alleys of Reddit will know as a word not to be dropped in polite company (unless one wishes to know which polite company frequent the hornier back alleys of Reddit). That’s what a friend told me, I wouldn’t know… I swear ((wink-wink)) why would I lie?

What of that little devil known as Malapropisms - a substitution error whereby you accidentally say an inappropriate word that sounds like the word you meant to say… “once the people voted, the electrician college steps in” - electrician instead of electoral college.

There are others - from Freudian Slips to Preservation and Anticipation Errors - but they all have a common thread running through them - your brain isn’t merely out running your mouth, it’s more like language isn’t speaking words in an order, it actually arrived in the brain in clumps (at least, that’s what cognitive psychologists suggest).

The thinking forms a framework first, then fills the specific sounds in second. If you’re trying to speak quickly, feeling fatigued, or experiencing stress… well, let’s just say the spoken pock tickens and you’re issuing a verbal mis-match.

Not a speech impediment, more like a speech garble.

MLZ: Well, I thought you said gruel, first…

Zedd: You’re precious and that’s why I love you.

MLZ: Second - this is all well and good but what does any of this have to do with Myra Breckenridge?

((Shrug))

The production is reminiscent of these sorts of spoken problems… cinematically speaking, the framework for the story is there but once Director Michael Sarne started actually shooting… well, he seemed so intent on subverting convention and dismantling storytelling basics, his high avant-garde ideals out clocked what he actually wound up committing to film.

MLZ: Go ahead and say it… I can tell you’re going to bust otherwise.

Zedd: He failed to thick the standing.

((Nervous smile))

Hell - I don’t care, it’s a strange little relic from a now extinct moment in film history. A fossil from the fringe of the New Hollywood Era when the studios were letting directors churn out art instead of commercial filmed entertainments. It answered the question how far is too far to the garbled sounds of upset stomachs everywhere.

Ok - onwards and upwards - that’s the great thing about being the head Zeddblidd from Zeddberg on the Isle of Zeddland… I never sit around too long on any one production. Love’em and leave’em is my motus operandi… leave them right back on the shelf where I found it. Or, in layman’s terms:

Movie On.

2026-314 / Zedd MAP: 94.27 / MLZ MAP: 95.62 / Score Gap: 1.35

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: Linguist Louise Banks leads a team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors.

Mrs. Lady Zedd: Holy cow, Zedd - did you front load this “quick and easy” summer short write-up enough? In addition to the movie, a discussion on a person’s disconnect surrounding the philosophical under-pinnings of the sub, and the can of worms that is Christopher Nolan’s latest hit movie ((blink-blink)) did you want to discuss and disseminate my White Chocolate Cranberry Cookie recipe too or perhaps finally agree to talk about our car’s extended warranty program?

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Ok - I’m just going to let MLZ’s question hang, not because she isn’t correct (I am front loading topics) but in a weird - and frankly interesting way, they’re all the logical consequence of the way I do business around motion pictures… car warranty and delicious cookie recipes aside. She’s just doing what MLZ does best: keeping me honest.

Groovy? Let’s move on…

The Film: Arrival

You may not think of it this way but you and I have exchanges here at 500 Movies that transcend the primary language we use to converse. I transcribe my thoughts into English because - ((shrug)) - I speak English (seems straightforward) but we are also speaking Cinema.

That second layering of information has its highest octave of usefulness when we’ve shared a similar experience… from “say hello to my little friend”, “the wand chooses the wizard”, or “go ahead punk, make my day” - you catch a cinematic vibe when someone utilizes Cinema as nuance.

Things get muddled when someone uses those lines but hasn’t shared the experience directly. “Look how they massacred my boy” became an often used meme but the impact of that moment in Francis Ford Coppola’s* *genre-redefining opus The Godfather (1972) is magnitudes more profound. The meme gets the laugh, the scene leaves a scar.

What happens when two intelligent beings are both speaking but neither understands what the other’s words mean? Well - that’s rough - even Star Trek’s fabled Captain Jean-Luc “Patience and Imagination” Picard was broken down by a language barrier and he had a universal translator… Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, indeed.

Language is tricky - even with the literal words handed to him, Picard still couldn’t make heads nor tails of the enigmatic race known as the Children of Tama (S5E2) who speak only in meaningful phrases and metaphor. The episode is a stand out - it took the unflappable Picard a full day to catch what the Tamaiens were putting down - and then it went from Shaka, when the walls fell to Picard, his eyes open.

((Looks around))

…anyway…

Arrival is a story of two species that don’t share a language but also - don’t occupy the same temporal constraints… the heptapods’ language, once learned, rewires our hero-linguist Louise’s brain, allowing her to see the future, present, and past simultaneously. Similarly, the heptapods’ language is circular, mirroring their non-liner perception.

Zedd-Present: Hey, Zedd-Future… where did we find the TV remote?

Zedd-Future: You found it under your chair, tomorrow.

Zedd-Present: Hey, thanks Zedd-Future… how was the ice cream?

Zedd-Future: ((silent sigh)) Let’s not start up with that bit again, ok?

(Probably)

A solidly build film with all the cold, bleak staring into space moments Director Denis Villeneuve could stuff in - I have it on good authority, he had a whole bag of cold, bleak staring into space moments left over which (to save on postage) he used in his next big project Blade Runner 2049 and don’t get me started on Dune and its sequels… doesn’t matter what color scheme Villeneuva’s films are utilizing: blue, sepia, rust, um grim… somehow they all have the same soul-sucking effect of gray running under it.

Just saying… dude’s last name could become a verb and it’d be okay-dokie just fine with me… “Hey - did you check the weather forecast?” Yeah, it’s cloudy with a chance of Villeneuva.

Hey - Did 500 Movies Get Trolled?

Some say yes, some say no - I say, “I’m with you fellas”… ((blink-blink)) the only thing I can say for certain is a negative interaction resulted in a ban. This happens so infrequently, it becomes noteworthy simply on the grounds of having needed to happen at all.

MLZ: ((said knowingly)) What happened, Zedd?!?

The most honest answer to that question is this: an unfortunate turn of events.

The next most honest answer is: a waste - the conversation might have blossomed into a meaningful dialogue leading to an exchange of ideas, mutual respect, and a tightening of sub-related language.

My personal philosophy, shared openly here at 500 Movies, posits that you - the movie going public - are 50% of the movie watching experience. You each bring along your thoughts, feelings, understanding, language, personal bias, etc. The film, itself is ((shrug)) whatever it is and ((shrug-shrug)) is frozen, meaning (unless altered) I’d expect Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) to remain unchanged with subsequent views.

MLZ: But Zedd… what about the filmmaker’s intent?

For me - the filmmaker’s intent is covered in the other 50% and I find the most enjoyable experience often arrives when the art’s creator doesn’t consider the audience experiencing it. My previous choice of words may have been perceived as ambiguous (the filmmaker shouldn’t account for my 50%), allow this to serve as a tightening up of that language.

Individual results may vary.

MLZ: 50% - why not 49% or 51%?

Don’t get hung up on the convenience of language I chose to use as philosophical shorthand… 50% is certainly “close enough” to express: you bring you - the artist/filmmaker brings their art.

MLZ: Fair enough - what do you think happened, why the “unfortunate” interaction?

We (of course) don’t actually know - I can’t stress that enough - but if I were to speculate, the flash point seemed, (originally) to be centered on the wording surrounding the 50% philosophy itself with some extra attention paid to to the apparent certainty of this statement as a serious method and not merely an opinion expressed by some random internet dude.

Here’s the thing: I really didn’t mind the stress test. My 50% philosophy (apparently similar to the Reader-Response Theory - look at me learning about new things) is opinion and certainly one of many.

On the other hand, me claiming to be the only authority of what I enjoy… well, that’s also opinion.

Rest assured the algorithmically-derived score I provide is pure… well, that’s also an opinion. An opinion that uses a lot of math so you could say - opinion with extra steps.

Our opinionated Redditor earned the ban, not because they held different opinions but because they ignored attempts to de-escalate, ignored the numerous off-ramps I provided, ignored (and even commented on) the gentle warnings I issued… then they made it personal.

Sorry Charlie - MLZ banned them.

We’re a safe place, it’s important you see us holding up our side of that bargain. While I agree with bringing down the hammer, it’s not cost free. This person might have picked up on a different way to “movie” or helped me tighten up my verbiage. Acting in bad faith just makes us both lose.

It happens. ((Hausser les épaules)) Et moi qui pensais que mon anglais progressait.

What does any of this have to do with Odyssey (2026)?

Yet to be seen: Odyssey

Here’s the deal, I’ve received more than a few discrete inquiries about Christopher Nolan’s latest effort and all I can say is, we haven’t seen it yet.

Holding the opinion that my screening experience is the most important element -and- treating each film as a distinct individual work, separate from its creator and its creator’s sibling filmed projects (i.e. Nolan’s other films) -and- am honor-bound to provide that movie with the optimal MAP’ping environment… I’m holding off, for now.

Nolan’s constant media campaign coupled with a steady stream of internet debate crowds my 50%.

Another way to look at it is this: words.

They’re important, I love language, but the media push, the interviews, and the directorial drive to create FOMO all have nothing to do with the film screening experience. All the swirling words swarming around the motion picture become extra signal between me and the screening event.

There’s no downside to waiting. What’s on film will remain, long after the incessant buzz falls away.

Thank the maker: The Summary

My philosophy has worked well for me and I’m aware it’s not for everyone but - for some - it offers the chance to “movie” in a different way that can lead to improved appreciation of the art.

I’ll count that as a win.

Let’s not forget, my system treats opinion as not fixed but MAP scores are valid but expired after two years… that’s not an accident of design or an afterthought - it’s because the film (the sights, sounds, and story) of any particular motion picture stays the same but the cinephile known as Zedd continues to grow and change and evolve. Food for thought.

Temba - at peace. (Movie On)

I mean, more or less the same info for each season… damn, at least line up the titles, right?

2026-313 / Zedd MAP: 74.37 / MLZ MAP: 71.88 / Score Gap: 2.49

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: In 1850 San Francisco, a Russian Countess runs away from an arranged marriage to a Russian Prince and falls into the arms of an American sea captain who occasionally poaches seals in Russian Alaska.

What can you say about the 8th most popular movie at the British box office for 1952… I mean, other than there was 7 other more profitable films (I guess).

I’ll cut to the chase, we actually watched the film yesterday and ((shrug)) it was totally… standard. There was very little to get into but also very few threads to pull. It was as advertised - ice cream all around.

I’m getting vanilla.

MLZ says she’ll get the Movie On tracks (it has peanut-butter cups that freeze into little rocks). It’s not vanilla but it’ll do in a pinch.

((Blink-blink))

Movie on.

2026-310 / Zedd MAP: 58.88 / MLZ MAP: 58.28 / Score Gap: 0.60

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: After one member of their group is murdered, the performers at a burlesque house must work together to find out who the killer is before he strikes again.

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Apparently a “sanitized” adaptation of Gypsy Rose Lee’s racy book The G-String Murders - they pushed things as far as the censors would go. Unfortunately, the film plays out a bit like… hmm, how to explain… ok, I got it.

Back in my teenage years, I bought a 1970 Plymouth Sport Fury - I loved the car but (aside from it being exceptionally large and particularly bad in terms of gas-mileage) it came standard with… an AM radio. Unsatisfied, I wandered into my local K-Mart, picked out an inexpensive Kraco AM/FM stereo and walked out with the “Teenager’s First Car” tier AM/**FM/**Cassette Player - $39.95 along with a tangle of cheap speaker wire and two generic speaker… I must have dropped $80 ((shrug)) doesn’t sound too expensive but I was making about $3.35 an hour so yeah - it was a chunk of change.

I got to work.

It’s funny to think about tearing out your car stereo now, right? It’s not a simple prospect as its now usually an integrated info-tainment module… in the mid-80s it was literally a couple of nuts, unhook a few wires and you’re ready for the new deck.

Of course, I’d never done it before but ((shrug)) what could go wrong? I spend a pleasant afternoon installing the stereo, running wires under carpet, under the backseat (the one the size of a living room couch - big, big car) and to the freshly installed speakers. Hit the key and ((ta-da)) we’ve got groovy tunes aplenty.

Well… mostly.

One small hiccup - this was a quirky car. Turn right too swiftly ((shrug)) engine would flood. Turn left too swiftly ((shrug)) engine would flood. Hit a bump / chuck hole / railroad track / small pieces of gravel ((shrug)) the engine might flood and the right-side speaker would die.

No big deal - if it went out, just drive around until you found another bump / chuck hole / railroad track / small pieces of gravel and (assuming the engine didn’t flood) the speaker would come back to life.

Honestly, even with only the left channel - dude, it was fine. Most “stereo” features very little difference between left and right… that was until I slipped in The Beatles’ Rubber Soul - an album with its own little quirky secret… a relic from its 1965 manufacture:

A rather clumsy workaround implemented by EMI studios (who utilized two-track or four-track tape machines), sound engineers kept vocals on one track and instruments on the other making it easier to mix down to mono later. Not that big of a deal until…

((Bump))… ((sigh))

That’s what the screening experience of Lady of Burlesque was - the film adaptation (forced by Hays Code censors) mutes the seedy, steamy heart of the novel, The G-String Murders, and leaves the front house stage show (sans anything too tawdry) and backstage murder / investigation intact. The amputation is noticeable in its obvious absence, whether you’ve read the source novel or not.

The saving grace: Barbara Stanwyck (of course). She’s well cast as the fiery, sharp-tongued Deborah Hoople.

Mrs. Lady Zedd: The movie wasn’t terribly enjoyable but I love Barbara Stanwyck. Your story about the stereo is apt: they left the function of the story but there was something… missing. No right speaker.

Huh - half a story missing - 50s spectrum MAPs… makes sense to me. Not really what you’d call a film of consequence to begin with. Onwards, upwards, and (as always) Movie On.

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2026-309 / Zedd MAP: 57.53

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Country of Origin: United Kingdom

From IMDb: Prehistoric man Tumak is banished from his savage tribe and meets pretty Loana, who belongs to a gentler coastal tribe, but he must fight caveman Payto to win her favors.

Listen - there’s fun in this movie, an interesting confluence of Hammer Films, Raquel Welch, Ray Harryhausen stop-motion magic, and a culture experiencing a significant flux - the movie had one fuzzy animal pelt shoe in each world.

That said, the production sags under its own weight - fur bikinis are fun but bearded grunting and episodic peril only takes you so far. ((Blink-blink))

There’s apparently two versions of the film - an extended European cut is floating in the wind. Finding Kino Lorber on the spine ((shrug)) yeah - that makes sense. Maybe I’ll bump into it when the price is right. Hey - it’s just how we Movie On.

2026-308 / Zedd MAP: 53.90

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: Major Howell Brady arrives in Indian Territory in hopes of recruiting peaceful, relocated Seminoles to help the army fight rampaging Kiowas.

Straight out - an art form is bound to reflect the culture its creators are from… translation: you don’t walk into a 50s Western to learn about Native American culture. Hollywood was very involved in producing a very particular image of what it means to be American and you’re going to not have a lot of questions coming out of it. I’m not moralizing backwards, just telling it true, as I understand it.

One might wonder… why are you watching it at all.

I don’t feel the need to enjoy every stroke of an artist’s brush to find something to look at in a painting. I’ve managed (one way or another) to collect a few Western movie collections of various qualities - for right, for wrong - they’re part of a larger history of film so ((shrug)) why not?

Of this film in particular:

Very standard mid-century western story (Bad “Indians” needing killing, good “Indians” employed to help) you know the type. Director George Sherman brings decades of experience in competent, what-you’d-expect filmmaking. Scriptwriter John Michael Hayes produced a competent, what-you’d-expect script (and goes on to pen 4 Alfred Hitchcock films during Hitchcock’s arguably most prolific hit-making phase).

Maureen O’Hara is always good, no trouble there, and of her strapping ruggedly individual costar Jeff Chandler she reportedly said, “…he was a nice man…” (isn’t that nice?) but added, “…but a bad actor.”

Ouch Maureen, just ouch. Judgy…

Not wrong… but still.

Of course - and this is just me spitballing here - but I think leading men, particularly working in this genre and at this time, all seem to come to screen affecting some version of John Wayne. It’s like young writers often need to get all full up on Hemingway’s sparse prose before they can finally find their own written voice… cowboy actors need to go through The Duke before finding their bowed-acting legs.

I can’t imagine this being a problem now. Thank the makers, right? (Thanks 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, and United Artists… the rest of you know who you are)

Good enough for this afternoon’s trifle… I hope dinner is good.

Movie on.

2026-307 / Zedd MAP: 45.73

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Country of Origin: United Kingdom

From IMDb: In Spain, an American skydiver is recruited by Western intelligence agents to recover a lost atomic bomb detonator from hostile foreign agents.

Listen - a mid-60s spy film from the UK with Raquel Welch running around the sun-drenched Spanish countryside?

Easy yes.

The Brits really knew how to churn these genre pieces out. Unfortunately, the director was from Boston ((shrug))

Yawn.

Movie on.

2026-306 / Zedd MAP: 99.18 / MLZ MAP: 99.14 / Score Gap: 0.04

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: World-changing events spectacularly disrupt the annual Asteroid Day celebration in an American desert town.

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Hey - ice cream!

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2026-305 / Zedd MAP: 82.30

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.

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Mrs. Lady Zedd: Dude, ((sigh)) do you remember telling me you were going to “go easy” on the write-ups? Not go all high concept, or maybe just not Zeddblidd so hard… remember?

Zedd: ((blink-blink)) It’s not my…

MLZ: … your fault?

Listen, it’s just I get to thinking… it’s a big movie, Ron Howard’s career is in the stratosphere, Tom Hanks is shifting his career from the carefully crafted “Hanks Brand” comedy to cinematic prestige dramas, 9 Oscar nods, and the critics… oh boy, they’re trotting out words like:

Masterful / Solid / Powerful / Year’s Best / Remarkable / … Hell of a Ride

((Shrug)) cool.

It’s not a film that needs to be dragged on - it’s certainly a compelling story, based on Jim Lovell’s, “that was me out there being abstractly fucked in space”, firsthand account - helped along (clarified, amplified, stakes-intensified) by Jeffrey Kluger, Editor at large of Time Magazine, once writer and editor for Discover Magazine, The New York Times, Family Circle, and Science Digest. I’m not saying there’s anything done wrong or deceptive, mind you - I’m just saying these are some incredibly brainy guys - Kluger has numerous books published - he knows how to massage a good story to greatness.

This is before Hollywood even gets ahold of it and works that magic into the script. Just saying… if you don’t mind me taking poetic license, the stars aligned for this production.

MLZ: Here we go…

Zedd: Here’s the thing… I was just thinking ((cough))… why then?

MLZ: Why what when?

…why did that story - a long-ago close scrape in space - come to the surface (stars aligned) at just that moment in time? No disrespect to Ron Howard’s direction, Tom Hanks’ performance, or any other matter of production, only limiting my attention to just that moment in time - why did this 1970 space debacle suddenly make sense for a 1995 $50m+ lavish Hollywood treatment?

We were around, paying attention back then. I tried to pull up my memories… the Soviet Collapse, the end of the Cold War, the closure of military bases. NASA got tossed on the chopping block ((shrug)) no foreign space race rival, no need for expensive space programs. Jobs were getting cut. A new Faster, Better, Cheaper philosophy was implemented (with mixed results)… the thing is: hot war wins generate parades, troop returns, “post-war honeymoon” prosperity. Winning a cold war brought America (um) job loss and muddled cultural drift?

Enter Apollo 13 - right when we needed it most (/s) - a loving infusion of remember when, sprinkled with a pinch of even when we fail, America wins! John Wayne might have been dead but Ron Howard’s here to remind us all - This is America, damn it, and we got grit… I say grit, sir!

Or at least… we did.

This may come as a complete surprise to some of you ((looks around shiftily)) if America was looking for Proof of Grit (PoG) in 1995, why were we watching a film set in 1969/70? Wouldn’t that suggest 1970 was grit-full? It’s confusing, but the prevailing winds whisper, “When the chips are down, the USA USA crowd usually turns from forward-facing progress to rear-facing remember when.”

But it’s more than that.

It’s more than the honeysuckle-sweet lullaby of nostalgia… that peaceful, yet powerfully unconsidered longing for the past. Strictly speaking - I’m not a huge fan. This feels different - it’s more akin to a haunting! The grey ghost… the specter of mid-century promise manifesting in the 90s - and if we’re being honest (more or less) on regular repeat since then.

I wonder about this constant longing for past glories - that’s kept our culture sluggishly walking a circle for decades - the Ghost of America’s Great Past that keeps slipping behind the veil, only to reappear a little while later.

Why?

That past made big promises - we were going to “the final frontier”, we were building the future, we were going to the stars! Science, technology, and a bit of elbow grease was going to make The American Dream - better than ever.

((Looks around))

Dude - where’s my flying car?

Frankly, I don’t think the ghost of mid-century greatness can rest until we face the loss of the dreams of the future we were promised, that never arrived.

Think on it this way - it’s 1970 and your parents are dragging you on one errand after another, it’s hot and work and you’re getting fussy sitting behind dad in the Vista Cruiser wagon (why does the AC never make it to the backseat?) and then - they make the offer: keep up the good work, we’ll be done soon, then… how about going for some delicious ICE CREAM!

Now it’s 1995, you’re in a crowded movie theater watching Ron Howard’s Oscar-bait darling: Ice Cream ‘70. You watch a family in a stylishly modern Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon (party in the front, family in the back) and Tom Hanks, looking fresh and air conditioned, charmingly says, “Keep up the good work kid, and we’re all getting ice cream.” As the family approaches the ice cream shop (31 flavors and I’m getting vanilla, plain) the family is distracted by a huge factory fire on the other side of the freeway. They drive right by the shop - roll credits.

You sit in your theater seat and lean over to your spouse in the rising theater lights and say, “Remember the delicious ice cream we never got to eat.”

Your wife says, “Wasn’t it the best?”

“Probably.” You say with ice cream dreams dancing behind your eyes.

MLZ: Damn Zedd - fucking factory fire!

Zedd: Right? The worst part - nobody got ice cream, why are people clapping?!?

(Why is nobody pissed off?)

Even now, when the neo space race has turned corporate (rather than government sponsored), the same ghostly mid-century talking points show up, on cue: we’re going to travel the stars, colonize Mars!

How we getting there?? On a SpaceX Starship! Because we built this city, we built this city on (hard work and sacrifice now / promise of future continually unfulfilled later).

All things considered, I might not have hit on this way of seeing things until just now but I’ve felt the effects my entire life. I don’t get excited for the promised future like I used to, I admit it. The dreams rich men and politicians sell always seem to run out of gas before the fruition becomes real. Naming a “coming soon” moonbase Artemis (sister of Apollo) doesn’t bring back the old magic but who knows.

Maybe this time it’ll all work out. The ghost of lost futures will be sated by an actual future - one that includes the big pay off for all of us.

Ice cream for everyone, no distracting factory fires.

Golly - I wrote a pretty dark write-up for such a feel good movie huh? Hey - you guys wanna switch tracks and use the same thinking to explore how the neon candy colored, synth-soaked craze in movies and tv of the last 10 years is really just the ghost of 80s lost future… when thinking computers were friendly and times were good because ((shrug)) no social media to mix the message?!?

MLZ: Zedd… honey - no.

Maybe next time ((wink-wink)) until then we’ll just Movie On.

I bet that ice cream is good.

(Probably).

2026-304 / Zedd MAP: 99.00 / MLZ MAP: 93.52 / Score Gap: 5.48

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Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: The Griswold family's cross-country drive in their brand new Wagon Family Truckster to the Walley World theme park in California proves to be much more arduous than they ever anticipated.

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Here I was - rescuing Vacation from the 2023 Ledge - and thinking about when I was a kid, laying on the mottled-brown shag carpet of my bedroom watching some old Black-and-White movie on my Zenith TV and watching the ephemera of a bygone age… watching people crank wall mounted magneto telephones and marveling at how advanced the candlestick phones must have felt. Every man seemed to have a bowler hat and women clearly didn’t have hairspray and curlers were the order of the day. So different from my life in the late 70s snd early 80s.

My (dead) imposter grandmother - the one I learned the Holiday cookie recipe from - would stay months at a time with us and, consistently needed looking after (her generation drank, silently) and somehow, despite me not actually being related to her, I was her bartender / constant companion. The payoff to someone like me were the stories she shared… funny how, when given time, you can adapt to understand drunken-slurdeze. To her - watching The Three Stooges was more than film’ed entertainments… it was a trip back to a time that made sense to her. “Cars look like cars,” she’d say, “…not like spaceships.”

Maybe the combination of my quiet observations and hearing stories from the 1930s and ‘40s has allowed me to walk a fine line between the golden hues of nostalgia and the grey, sterility of simply allowing time to pass on its own terms. I’m reasonable - I have always expected change so it doesn’t trip me up as it broils by.

…but I wondered…

When would the things around me disappear? Where would it all go? When would rotary phones become a part of the past or a 24” television no longer seem large? When would current movies appear antiqued before my eye, like those old movies I passed summers watching?

I may not have mired myself in the time of my youth but I have lived long enough to ride the waves of change to the strange days we’re all seeing now.

How to explain this… I’ve watched National Lampoon's Vacation countless times ((shrug)) a couple times a year, every year, for literal decades. Then - like many other high rotation films - Vacation got trapped under the ice of 2023. Watching it as often as we did, the film and its characters remained part of our family - fresh and vital. Having that time apart…

I don’t know dude - I see the age suddenly. The sepia tones have crept into the corners, bleeding an antique hue everywhere I looked. I no longer need to wonder what will fade and what will endure. Somewhere along the line Vacation transmogrified an old movie.

Meh - fuck it. I don’t really care. It’s interesting to note but of no real consequence. Let old things be old, let time change me. The films are temporally locked but we all float free.

As it should be.

Movie on.

2026-303 / Zedd MAP: 64.78 / MLZ MAP: 39.12 / Score Gap: 25.66

Wikipedia / IMDb / Official Trailer / Our Collection

Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: In a post-apocalyptic world, a group of survivors travel and find other settlements in huge custom designed all terrain vehicles.

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Sometimes things are so completely obvious, you don’t really need to put the concept through rigorous testing. For instance, in the Spring of 1992, I was down at the local record store to see if anything interesting had come in. It’s been a matter of conversation, several times here at 500 Movies, that I was heavy into music before I started collecting movies so this should surprise no one.

There I stood, looking down in the seemingly perpetually filled isle of LPs, audiotapes, and CDs of Warehouse Music (where all the employees tried to impress their friends by saying they, “worked in the music industry”) and the album looking back up at me had a profound truth scrawled in heavy white block letters, directly above the flame-tattoo inspired parental advisory label warning (advertising?)… it read:

Bricks Are Heavy

“Yup,” I laughed, “you’re coming home with me.”

Let’s face it, I was simultaneously proving one irrefutable truth (a fool and his money are soon parted), while accepting a known, 9000+ year old truth (bricks are heavy). I don’t need to test any hypothesis there… I mean just how heavy depends on a lot of factors, clay density, clay-to-hay ratios, hey-to-head trajectory angles (there goes my night vision), local gravity because, um - hello - it’s not exactly the same everywhere.

Just saying, the jury’s not out on that one.

Here’s where the surprising bit comes in, in an unrelated discussion in the Spring of 2026, I asked Mrs. Lady Zedd a Standard Zedd Probing Inquirery (SZPI)…

Zedd: So, MLZ.

MLZ: So, Zedd.

Zedd: If you could go into the hallowed shelving works of The Everlasting Cinematic Confectionery Shoppe and Television Historium…

MLZ: Yes…

Zedd: …and remove one - just one movie (forever), which movie would that be?

Frankly, I throw her softball questions like this all the time (wait, did I use that mixed sports metaphor right? I’m not a sports person), the questions are usually ones I feel pretty confident I already know the answer to. It’s a way of keeping the two of us in-sync but also film focused.

My point wasn’t to create static between us, prompt a fight, or reopen old wounds. The only thing I expected to be surprised by was the lack of surprise in how quickly she responded. I gave a high probability her answer might align with something we’d both MAP’ped in the basement like Blue Summer (1973) - the accidental porn we watched on Mother’s Day - or maybe Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) - you know, the movie that made Slumber Party Massacre (1982) seem like an enjoyable “afternoon well spent”.

MLZ, to her credit, neither shot out either of those films in reply, or any other movie quickly. No - she hemmed and hawed, then she dithered, wavered, and waffled for good measure. She crinkled up the corner of her eyes, as if the question was so bright, she needed to squint. I told her to not break her brain, just the first film you thought of…

“Damnation Alley.”

She spoke clearly, unemotionally - one could say matter of factly.

Now it was my turn to hem and haw, to dither, waver, and (perchance) to waffle. On what planet could that possibly be the correct answer? You might not know this but MLZ is not a leg jerker - no chains are ever in danger of yanking but maybe today, that moment… was she fucking with me??

Ok, listen - she wasn’t. This was her well considered, honest answer… but - BUT - if she had been winding me up, believe me, I’d have had it coming. I think after 30+ years of me messing with her, day-in / day-out, I’m just sort of expecting my just desserts. I’m a bear poker from way back but, statistically speaking ((shrug)) here’s a tried-and/true Zeddism:

It doesn’t matter the thousand times you get away with something, just the one time you don’t.

But no - girl was just being honest.

Zedd: I think you mispronounced Saturn 3…

(I said more hopefully than I meant to… Harvey Keitel’s head gets used as a hat by a sex-crazed robot which she wasn’t found of watching)

MLZ: Um, no…

(Here she let out what could only be described as a “sinister cackle” - the sort one might expect of a Bond villain or a sex-crazed robot with a Harvey Head Hat)

She say Damnation Alley because to her - just as bricks are heavy (local gravity not withstand) - Damnation Alley is the obvious answer.

Zedd: …but but but - it’s got that Landmaster vehicle! It’s got Yancy Tucker from The Waltons (actually, the actor who played Yancy, Robert Donner)…

Mrs. Lady Zedd sat, unmoved.

Zedd: It’s got George “I love it when a plan comes together” Peppard!

MLZ: ((nothing))

Zedd: It’s got Jan-Michael Vincent!

((Continued nothing))

Zedd: He wandered a post-apocalyptic wasteland with 3 names, Mrs. Lady Zedd… three - and all of them first names. (And one of them is at best a fancy European unisex name but at my school… you might as well be a boy named Sue)

Ok, that one gave her pause.

MLZ: ((pause))

She stuck to her guns ((shrug)) what can I say - I respect the opinion, even if I don’t agree with it. Damnation Alley was one of those “from my youth” finds that I cherish - not because of nostalgia - but as an artifact of my matured personality… like George Lucas’ Star Wars, Steven Spielberg’s E.T., The Extra Terrestrial, or Hubert Frank’s Vanessa. Artful representations of my youth, like paintings on a museum wall. The film’s history with me assures its shelf space allotment.

Movie On.

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2026-301 / Zedd MAP: 98.57 / MLZ MAP: 97.31 / Score Gap: 1.26 - Gold Star, all the way

Wikipedia / IMDb / Official Trailer / Our Collection

Country of Origin: Japan

From IMDb: Farmers from a village exploited by bandits hire a veteran samurai for protection, and he gathers six other samurai to join him.

Despondent samurai, high contrast (downright harsh) shadows, elements and atmospheric conditions used deepen the gritty realism of the desperate situation, fatalism baked right in… a win that really is no win at all… I’m just going to call it like I see it - man, this is film-noir, translated into a 16th century Japanese farming village.

Is Samurai-Noir a thing?

I think so but then ((shrug)) what do I know?

“It’s just such a classic…” Mrs. Lady Zedd chimes in, “…and maybe that’s how you can tell if a film or its maker is truly great.”

When I asked her to elaborate, she hmmm’ed and haaaawww’ed and said, “I don’t know man - it’s Kurosawa, he’s OG dude… his films endure the test of time. Seven Samurai has been copied over-and-over for a reason.”

All things considered, this time around, I was watching and thinking about Star Wars. Lucas pulling the broken promise of the roaming ronin into the Jedi - right down to the relative crudeness of the guns used to blast people vs. the elegance of skilled swordplay.

Kurosawa places the village on hills and the bandit’s horses swooping down from high ground before zipping past the camera gives the feeling of great speed and motion… Lucas used the same tricks with Tie Fighters taking aim at, charging, and over-flying the Millennium Falcon before being undone by a farm-boy turned warrior (yes - another striking similarity with this film).

What can I say - the more we watch, the more we know - and isn’t that what makes our shared hobby so much fun? We both find the more we understand the machinery of storytelling, the richer our enjoyment of the films that use those pieces-parts particularly well.

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2026-300 / Zedd MAP: 82.50 / MLZ MAP: 69.88 / Score Gap: 12.91

Wikipedia / IMDb / Official Trailer / Our Collection

Country of Origin: United States

From IMDb: A farm boy recruits a band of outlaws to save the planet Akir from dark forces that threaten to wipe them out from the face of the universe. A battle stretching beyond the stars begins here.

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In 2023, I built out the current Movie Collection Catalog and, for the first time, included a space for Mrs. Lady Zedd’s MAP. At first (obviously), she needed to provide a score for every film we watched - including films that I had a current MAP for. She’d say things like “just me?!?” or “why am I always doing the work,” and I’d tell her to just wait - all things in time - it’ll reverse itself, and because our score will expire at different times, suddenly it’ll seem like only I’m needing to hit the scorecard… today was one of those days.

My MAP was from 2023 and was still valid when we screened John-boy in Spaaaaaace! back in 2025. Here we are on a lazy Friday in 2026 and I’m reMAP’ping and MLZ gets off scot-free.

All things in time, indeed - Movie On :]

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