• Home
  • popular
  • EVENTS
  • submit-new-event
  • CHARITY GUIDE
  • Children
  • Education
  • Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Services
  • Arts + Culture
  • Animals
  • LGBTQ
  • New Charity
  • TRENDING NEWS
  • News
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Home + Design
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Innovation
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • subscribe
  • about
  • series
  • Embracing Your Inner Cowboy
  • Green Living
  • Summer Fun
  • Real Estate Confidential
  • RX In the City
  • State of the Arts
  • Fall For Fashion
  • Cai's Odyssey
  • Comforts of Home
  • Good Eats
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2010
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2
  • Good Eats 2
  • HMNS Pirates
  • The Future of Houston
  • We Heart Hou 2
  • Music Inspires
  • True Grit
  • Hoops City
  • Green Living 2011
  • Cruizin for a Cure
  • Summer Fun 2011
  • Just Beat It
  • Real Estate 2011
  • Shelby on the Seine
  • Rx in the City 2011
  • Entrepreneur Video Series
  • Going Wild Zoo
  • State of the Arts 2011
  • Fall for Fashion 2011
  • Elaine Turner 2011
  • Comforts of Home 2011
  • King Tut
  • Chevy Girls
  • Good Eats 2011
  • Ready to Jingle
  • Houston at 175
  • The Love Month
  • Clifford on The Catwalk Htx
  • Let's Go Rodeo 2012
  • King's Harbor
  • FotoFest 2012
  • City Centre
  • Hidden Houston
  • Green Living 2012
  • Summer Fun 2012
  • Bookmark
  • 1987: The year that changed Houston
  • Best of Everything 2012
  • Real Estate 2012
  • Rx in the City 2012
  • Lost Pines Road Trip Houston
  • London Dreams
  • State of the Arts 2012
  • HTX Fall For Fashion 2012
  • HTX Good Eats 2012
  • HTX Contemporary Arts 2012
  • HCC 2012
  • Dine to Donate
  • Tasting Room
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • Charming Charlie
  • Asia Society
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2012
  • HTX Mistletoe on the go
  • HTX Sun and Ski
  • HTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • HTX New Beginnings
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013
  • Zadok Sparkle into Spring
  • HTX Let's Go Rodeo 2013
  • HCC Passion for Fashion
  • BCAF 2013
  • HTX Best of 2013
  • HTX City Centre 2013
  • HTX Real Estate 2013
  • HTX France 2013
  • Driving in Style
  • HTX Island Time
  • HTX Super Season 2013
  • HTX Music Scene 2013
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013 2
  • HTX Baker Institute
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • Mothers Day Gift Guide 2021 Houston
  • Staying Ahead of the Game
  • Wrangler Houston
  • First-time Homebuyers Guide Houston 2021
  • Visit Frisco Houston
  • promoted
  • eventdetail
  • Greystar Novel River Oaks
  • Thirdhome Go Houston
  • Dogfish Head Houston
  • LovBe Houston
  • Claire St Amant podcast Houston
  • The Listing Firm Houston
  • South Padre Houston
  • NextGen Real Estate Houston
  • Pioneer Houston
  • Collaborative for Children
  • Decorum
  • Bold Rock Cider
  • Nasher Houston
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2021
  • CityNorth
  • Urban Office
  • Villa Cotton
  • Luck Springs Houston
  • EightyTwo
  • Rectanglo.com
  • Silver Eagle Karbach
  • Mirador Group
  • Nirmanz
  • Bandera Houston
  • Milan Laser
  • Lafayette Travel
  • Highland Park Village Houston
  • Proximo Spirits
  • Douglas Elliman Harris Benson
  • Original ChopShop
  • Bordeaux Houston
  • Strike Marketing
  • Rice Village Gift Guide 2021
  • Downtown District
  • Broadstone Memorial Park
  • Gift Guide
  • Music Lane
  • Blue Circle Foods
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2022
  • True Rest
  • Lone Star Sports
  • Silver Eagle Hard Soda
  • Modelo recipes
  • Modelo Fighting Spirit
  • Athletic Brewing
  • Rodeo Houston
  • Silver Eagle Bud Light Next
  • Waco CVB
  • EnerGenie
  • HLSR Wine Committee
  • All Hands
  • El Paso
  • Avenida Houston
  • Visit Lubbock Houston
  • JW Marriott San Antonio
  • Silver Eagle Tupps
  • Space Center Houston
  • Central Market Houston
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Travel Texas Houston
  • Alliantgroup
  • Golf Live
  • DC Partners
  • Under the Influencer
  • Blossom Hotel
  • San Marcos Houston
  • Photo Essay: Holiday Gift Guide 2009
  • We Heart Hou
  • Walker House
  • HTX Good Eats 2013
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2013
  • HTX Culture Motive
  • HTX Auto Awards
  • HTX Ski Magic
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2014
  • HTX Texas Traveler
  • HTX Cifford on the Catwalk 2014
  • HTX United Way 2014
  • HTX Up to Speed
  • HTX Rodeo 2014
  • HTX City Centre 2014
  • HTX Dos Equis
  • HTX Tastemakers 2014
  • HTX Reliant
  • HTX Houston Symphony
  • HTX Trailblazers
  • HTX_RealEstateConfidential_2014
  • HTX_IW_Marks_FashionSeries
  • HTX_Green_Street
  • Dating 101
  • HTX_Clifford_on_the_Catwalk_2014
  • FIVE CultureMap 5th Birthday Bash
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2014 TEST
  • HTX Texans
  • Bergner and Johnson
  • HTX Good Eats 2014
  • United Way 2014-15_Single Promoted Articles
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Houston
  • Where to Eat Houston
  • Copious Row Single Promoted Articles
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2014
  • htx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Zadok Swiss Watches
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2015
  • HTX Charity Challenge 2015
  • United Way Helpline Promoted Article
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Fusion Academy Promoted Article
  • Clifford on the Catwalk Fall 2015
  • United Way Book Power Promoted Article
  • Jameson HTX
  • Primavera 2015
  • Promenade Place
  • Hotel Galvez
  • Tremont House
  • HTX Tastemakers 2015
  • HTX Digital Graffiti/Alys Beach
  • MD Anderson Breast Cancer Promoted Article
  • HTX RealEstateConfidential 2015
  • HTX Vargos on the Lake
  • Omni Hotel HTX
  • Undies for Everyone
  • Reliant Bright Ideas Houston
  • 2015 Houston Stylemaker
  • HTX Renewable You
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • HTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Kyrie Massage
  • Red Bull Flying Bach
  • Hotze Health and Wellness
  • ReadFest 2015
  • Alzheimer's Promoted Article
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Professional Skin Treatments by NuMe Express

    Mondo Cinema

    Knock Wood: Forget about Oscar-caliber attractions for one night and see theworst movie ever made

    Joe Leydon
    Nov 9, 2012 | 6:01 am
    • Wood fancifully stitched together random footage of his idol, Bela Lugosi, inPlan 9 that he shot shortly before the actor’s tragic death in 1956.
      Wikipedia.com
    • The film is criticized for poor special effects, like this one: A flying saucerhovering over a cemetery.
      Wikipedia.com
    • A visible boom mike in a scene from Plan 9 from Outer Space
      Wikipedia.com
    • Edward D. Wood Jr., director
      Motivationals.org
    • Theatrical release poster designed by Tom Jung
      Distributors Corporation of America/Wikipedia

    Some people are born to be punchlines for bad jokes. Edward D. Wood Jr. —World War II veteran, Hollywood fringe-dweller and uncloseted cross-dresser —wanted to make movies in the worst way. Unfortunately, that is precisely what he did.

    Long before the term “high camp” conjured images of anything other than a mountaintop military base, Ed Wood labored indefatigably in the 1950s netherworld of no-budget, fly-by-night film production. Among his most notorious credits:

    • Glen or Glenda, a fervently sincere but dizzyingly incoherent defense of transvestism as a way of life;
    • Jail Bait, a forlornly sleazy crime melodrama notable only for an early, pre-Hercules appearance by a beefcakey Steve Reeves;
    • Bride of the Monster, a stark and stupid cheapie-creepie that climaxes with an irradiated Bela Lugosi battling frantically, albeit unconvincingly, with a rubber octopus.

    Each of these Z-movies is of a mind-frying, jaw-dropping awfulness that must be seen to be disbelieved. And yet, at the same time, each clearly is the work of someone who passionately believes in the seriousness of his endeavor, whose intensity of purpose surely is no less than that of the people who made Citizen Kane or The Seventh Seal.

    Edward D. Wood Jr. wanted to make movies in the worst way. Unfortunately, that is precisely what he did.

    Wood may have been one of the most incompetent filmmakers — if not the most incompetent —to ever darken a soundstage, but there's something engaging, even endearing, about the exuberance that informs his ineptitude. By virtue of his threadbare oeuvre, he merits canonization as the patron saint of anyone who has all of the drive and ambition, and none of the talent, to become a true artist.

    And like a true artist, Wood actually did achieve a kind of immortality through his work – though not quite the kind he no doubt craved. His awesomely awful Plan 9 from Outer Space, widely acknowledged as the worst movie ever made, is the yardstick by which all cinematic fiascoes are measured, a title that has become shorthand for critics, academics and plain-vanilla movie buffs to demarcate the lowest of the lowest depths. It is, in its uniquely perverse fashion, a genuine classic.

    Better still, even after repeated revivals throughout the decades since its understandably limited theatrical release, it continues to live down to its reputation – as you can see yourself, Friday at midnight at the River Oaks 3.

    Just about everything you’ve ever heard about Plan 9 from Outer Space is true.

    Why it's so bad

    Yes, this is the sci-fi extravaganza that Wood fancifully stitched together to utilize random footage of his idol, Bela Lugosi, that he shot shortly before the actor’s tragic death in 1956.

    And, yes, in order to give his slapdash narrative some slight semblance of continuity, Wood really did cast his chiropractor — not-so-artfully disguised with a black cloak drawn across his face — as Lugosi’s stand-in for scenes filmed much later with other actors. (Look closely, and you see the same snippets of Lugosi, pathetically resplendent in his trademark Dracula attire, used over and over and over…) The switcheroo is laughably ineffective, and not just because the chiropractor was a foot or so taller than Lugosi.

    But, then again, Plan 9 is a movie in which the sun often appears to rise and fall several times during the course of the same scene, in which mismatched shots are conjoined with a logic that usually prevails only in a fever dream. In this context, Wood’s failure to persuasively double a stand-in for a dead “guest star” is a relatively minor gaffe.

    Plan 9 is a movie in which the sun often appears to rise and fall several times during the course of the same scene, in which mismatched shots are conjoined with a logic that usually prevails only in a fever dream.

    There is a plot, of sorts: Campy extraterrestrials invade California’s San Fernando Valley to launch a pilot program of mass destruction, intending to raise the recently deceased to dispose of the troublesome living. Why? Well, the extraterrestrials want to nip a problem in the bud by obliterating Earthlings before they perfect a potentially catastrophic weapon that....

    But never mind. Such niceties as logic and motivation have little if anything to do with the movie’s appeal.

    Any sane individual who willingly submits himself to Plan 9 from Outer Space doesn’t seek traditional sci-fi thrills and chills. Instead, we peruse Wood’s magnum opus to savor ludicrously melodramatic dialogue, much of which is delivered by Criswell, a phony-baloney oracle, as narrator and master of ceremonies. (“We are all interested in the future, because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”)

    Just as important, we want to gawk in bug-eyed wonderment while bit players inadvertently jostle rubber headstones in graveyard scenes, or while two guys in military mufti stand in front of a bare wall and pretend to oversee the firing of heavy artillery at wobbly flying saucers. (Is it just me, or does one of these faux soldiers resemble a very young Steve Buscemi?)

    We want to snicker while actors flub their lines, or clumsily read from cuecards, or distractedly scratch their foreheads with gun barrels, while Wood damns the retakes and moves full speed ahead.

    And while we’re doing all of this, we are transfixed — no, mesmerized — by Edward D. Wood Jr.’s singular triumph of will over competence.

    Isn't it ironic?

    It is, of course, more than a little ironic that one of the worst moviemakers of all time inspired one of the funniest movies ever made about moviemaking: Ed Wood(1994).

    Tim Burton’s hugely entertaining and sweetly sympathetic tribute to the notoriously inept auteur (vividly played by Johnny Depp) is something truly unique: A compassionate farce that evolves into a heartfelt celebration of self-delusion. (Co-star Martin Landau received a richly deserved Oscar for playing Wood’s partner in cinematic crimes, a decrepit but intrepid Bela Lugosi.)

    But Wood’s most important and enduring legacy may be the film that will forever secure his status as… as… well, the polar opposite of a role model for other directors.

    As I often warn students and other would-be auteurs: Never, never, never get too cocky during production. You know how great you might feel on certain days? How you think everything is coming together, falling into place, working perfectly? How every performance is dead-solid perfect, or at least competent enough to be “saved” in the editing room? Well, consider this: Ed Wood doubtless felt the very same way some days on the set of Plan 9 from Outer Space.

    unspecified
    news/entertainment
    CULTUREMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME
    Get Houston intel delivered daily.

    Movie Review

    Heartfelt movie The Life of Chuck adapts optimistic Stephen King story

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 13, 2025 | 5:30 pm
    Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck
    Photo courtesy of NEON
    Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck.

    Just like actors, once a filmmaker becomes known for a certain genre, it can be difficult to escape that pigeonholing. Writer/director Mike Flanagan has worked for 20 years in both film and television, and literally every project he’s done has been related to horror. He’s finally breaking out with The Life of Chuck, which is ironically based on a short story of the same name by Stephen King.



    Told in three chapters in reverse order, the film is almost impossible to describe without giving away its magic. The first section centers on Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a teacher grappling, like everyone around him, with what seems to be the world falling apart. He’s comforted to a degree by reuniting with his ex-wife, Felicia (Karen Gillan), but is also baffled by multiple ads touting the retirement of Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) after “39 great years.”

    The second section consists of little more than a slightly younger Chuck happening upon Taylor (The Pocket Queen), a drummer busking on a street corner, giving Chuck and a younger woman, Janice (Annalise Basso), the inspiration to start dancing. The final section goes back to the childhood of Chuck (Benjamin Pajak), where he’s raised by his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara), discovers dance as an outlet, and wonders about various small mysteries.

    Flanagan finds a way to deliver a lot of story with relatively little effort. Using a wry narrator (Nick Offerman), a limited number of locations, and a series of great small performances, he creates an intriguing premise with few straightforward answers. The structure of the film is designed to confuse the viewer until just the right moment, and the revelation forces you to reexamine everything that came before.

    The biggest accomplishment by Flanagan is making what are essentially three short films and having each of them resonate equally. The film contains elements of science fiction, although the first section may hit a bit too close to home for some of those watching. All three sections, though, have a heartwarming bent to them that sells their central idea without becoming overly saccharine.

    To do so, each of the characters have to connect in a short amount of time. The casting of the film is crucial, and not only does that department succeed with the main roles, but a series of small roles are filled expertly as well. Carl Lumbly as a funeral home owner, David Dastmalchian and Harvey Guillen as parents of students, Matthew Lillard as Marty’s neighbor, Q’orianka Kilcher as Chuck’s wife, and Jacob Tremblay as a teenage Chuck are just a few of the recognizable actors that do yeoman’s work in their brief time on screen.

    Hiddleston is only prominently featured in the second chapter, but his performance there and in small glimpses throughout makes a big impression. Ejiofor is given the star turn in the first chapter and he absolutely kills, both in moments by himself and in scenes with Gillan, with whom he has great chemistry. Hamill, making a rare non-voiceover appearance outside of the Star Wars universe, and Sara, in her first notable role in 11 years, are also very memorable in the final chapter.

    The Life of Chuck is a film that’s filled with emotion, but the full impact of the story is not felt until the final moments. It has a mysterious journey that is initially frustrating, but the performances keep the film going until it gets to its satisfying payoff.

    ---

    The Life of Chuck is now playing in theaters.

    moviesfilm
    news/entertainment
    Loading...