Posts by Randy Ray

[Originally Published: October 27, 2009]

This week’s edition was not written by a Wolfman. He’ll deny it, but…

The Eight Legged Beast moves as one brain-twisted entity like a Group Mind flailing around in the dark until all is silent—terrified, befuddled, looped, and not alone in these sinister thoughts. Suddenly, a voice, a series of whispered voices, echo through the cavernous depths. A Wolfman jogs Loaded up ahead, a pied Piper has some worm-y legs, and a Ghost appears and disappears—run asunder by bad acid, or a sign near the cave entrance that reads: “Turn Back! Beware! This is the Beginning of the End!”

Meanwhile, I direct my eyes forward, and turn down the Brother from Another Planet. How can I feel stoned, high, drunk, and out in deep ecstatic space even though I’m clean?

Saw IT & Esther again, and a Sleeping Monkey with 8 legs & 4 heads eating 1 PHISH!

Ahhh…yes, Vegas. We were somewhere outside Lemonwheel when the chaos took hold. In the Court of the Crimson King as Big Red bends our collective noodles, I turn down:

Wolfman’s Brother> – 10/31/98 – and the LAST Halloween show until…

Yes, until now. I had no great need for the almighty Bug to Come. But here, HERE, I find it appropriate to nod at Halloween as we check out this week’s Hidden Flick, Eight Legged Freaks, and an homage to all that is unholy about old school horror cinema.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – Eight Legged Freaks…

[Originally Published: September 29, 2009]

One of my favorite bands was, is, and always shall be Pink Floyd if you haven’t noticed. And like the psychedelic pioneers of space rock, I never met an idea I couldn’t use more than once or thrice. So, here, this week, we present an amalgamation of several Hidden Flick thought patterns as we continue our thesis study on “What is Cinema?” Why are the alleged great films usually bores, while the weird flicks are the post-everything gems?

And yes…a mixture of patterns sleeping in the dirt outside the Hidden Theatre as we wait to get inside to start an evening of unexpected fun and heady pre-Halloween no-goodery. Press replay, repeat, and then play the new stuff, please (“thesis” is used in jest, brah).

Well…time for more popcorn, Red Vines, Raisinettes, and a refill of that 97-ounce soda. We take a break from our regular look at obscure films with another edition of Intermission, which means another look at a cinematic chestnut that may have been lauded or groundbreaking in the past, but has since been forgotten in history’s hourglass.

READ ON for more of this week’s installment of Hidden Flick…

[Originally Published: December 22, 2009]

WARNING: This week’s edition attacks all cherished earthbound concepts as if some alien intelligence, some Trickster, is looking down and laughing at us all. I blame Mike.

As the Aught decade comes to a close, most people take a look back at not only the last ten years, but—as humans dwell within the holiday season at the moment—what exactly fuels mankind’s collective metaphysical engine, and, alas, what should be left behind.

The 2000s will be forever remembered as the decade where the United States of America was brought to its knees, its outlook crippled, and as the era when centralized and focused greed and corruption finally toppled the Empire, pushing the dust far outside its own borders, cascading down and around for all to breathe; indeed, encircling the entire globe. Oh, but this is the time of Cheer and Good Will towards all Men and Women, no?

Well…let’s look at that concept, with a nod back to the FEAR that gripped this nation for nearly the entire decade, and think about what it is to be a HUMAN, and what motivates them, and what strikes deep anxiety within its mortal frame. Yes, let’s gander at our final Hidden Flick of the decade, the 11th of season 3, and 41st overall. I suppose it isn’t a stretch to describe the chilling film, Fire in the Sky as a subliminal holiday tale, as well.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – Fire in the Sky…

Well, we come to an end of our third season, with the fifteenth edition, 45th overall, in our little quest to find the hidden truths, the hidden myth, and, yes, the hidden pearls beneath the surface of the cinematic pile. And, damn straight, it’s gotten weird every once in a while, especially lately as films from out of nowhere appear to have gained weight, whereas others, deemed more significant, have faded in importance over time.

Ahhh…time, we’ve hit upon that word. Again. THAT word, buried below, like some lost remnant on an island where time has no meaning; and space, even less, just the two concepts engaged in immortal combat, as it were, with each other. Or, is it with themselves? Climb aboard as we venture out there in the final episode of the third season with a journey to this week’s Hidden Flick, and a film which occupies the second spot on my all-time favorite film list, hidden or otherwise, Andrei Tarkovski’s Solaris.

• Previous Season 3 Hidden Flicks: The Burmese Harp, Tsotsi, The Science of Sleep, Fire In The Sky, The Homecoming, Cabin Boy, To Live and Die in L.A., Eight Legged Freaks, Memories, Slap Shot, The Devil’s Brigade, Der Tunnel, Edge of the City, The Holy Mountain,

Culled from a science fiction novel written by Stanislaw Lem, Tarkovski made some significant changes to the original text, and added more metaphysical dimension to a story which already carried immense noodle-bending gravitas. To be sure, Tarkovski spent his entire career making films about the human condition, asking questions about what it all means to be here, who we are, and the chances of a truly freed soul, which, dichotomically, is crippled by a society which places constraints on expression and free speech, to find those answers. And, in the end, what does one do with them?

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – Solaris…

The simple truths, moments when reflection during a key event can spring a new way, a profound epiphany, and give birth to hidden wisdom can come when one least expects it. Consider the end of a war, and what happens to the soldiers who may still be fighting in a particular battle, during a specific campaign, neither knowing nor caring about war’s end.

Well, that is exactly what happens in a film about the closing moments of World War II as a group of Japanese soldiers, during a campaign on Burma, fighting a group of British soldiers, face a basic fundamental dilemma, and one of the soldiers, sent to stop the others from fighting as, after all, the war IS over, finds his entire way of life questioned. Indeed, it is that simple truth which we explore for a brief moment in this week’s Hidden Flick, the ruminative masterpiece, directed by Kon Ichikawa, and adapted for the screen by Natto Wada from a novel by Michio Takeyama, called The Burmese Harp.

You Can’t Go Home Again was a 1940 novel by Thomas Wolfe, and published posthumously. In its pages, Wolfe wrote about the notion that one could not return to the basic ideals, concepts, and dreams of youth once experience, hardship and broken promises have shattered those illusions. When one’s grandiose hot air ballooned-fairy tale myths have been replaced by the dark realities of what appears to be wretched existence, one could never just head back into the safety and security that home once offered.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – The Burmese Harp…

Compassion is a luxury to those that can’t afford it. Tucked away, far away, in the back of one’s life, is the idea that what drives, what motivates, is the survival instinct. It is in the basic fundamental building blocks of most life forms on this rock, and it certainly digs into the heart of man. We wake up, we breathe in and out, and we seek food and shelter, and then? What next? Ahh…that depends on the person, right? Nurture? Nature?

And what if one is focused on some sort of self-centered, narrow-minded set of goals? Does it truly limit, or does it make one merely a well-educated creature, barely living like some sort of half-mad monster? We dig into the deep recesses of the human soul, pondering these expensive questions, in this week’s Hidden Flick, Tsotsi.

Filmed in South Africa, directed by Gavin Hood, from a novel written by Athol Fugard, which Hood adapted for the cinema, and winner of the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, this dramatic story of one man’s redemption has been chosen because a) I believe that despite its international accolades, most people in the West have not seen it, nor relate to its premise, b) it is an unsentimental definition of a spiritual rags to riches tale, and c) the level of compassion achieved by the lead character is quite astounding after one witnesses the evil at the root of his soul in the opening sequences. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick, Tsotsi…

This one is for an old friend with an odd name…a Seal amongst Men. A Brit, neither Spanish, nor French, wandering through the night with a German…

Nocturnal dissonance swirls into a fine point of clarity. Sure enough, you’re on the set of your own paper mache talk show. Psychedelic tendencies of abstract imagery abound. Give me something from a dream whence I breathe. Wander into sealish dives, backing away from the avatar, away from unconditional unconscious dreamscapes. Bring IT on.

We ponder the French because…well…someone has to, and it’s been a while since we’ve wandered away from the American shores of self-examination in this third season of Hidden Flick. Indeed, we also gaze upon the dreams of a young man with a wild imagination who can not focus his creativity into any form of daytime productivity.

We all dance along the precipice of daydreams, and some of us fall over the edge, the precipice which divides reality and fantasy, cross that bridge, but not getting burned, you may not know what you are going through, but time is the space which implodes…a prayer for the dreaming…life carries on with this week’s Hidden Flick, La Science des rêves, literally The Science of Dreams, or as marketed in the west, The Science of Sleep.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Not being a Christian—or a Clausian, for that matter—some of the holiday film imagery is totally lost on me. I don’t always get all of the players, either, or WHO was who, and WHEN they did WHAT, and whether John the Baptist was beheaded upside down, or Moses played for the Rockets, or Brian was really the Messiah, or if that spaceship that he rode in during the Monty Python film PROVED the existence of extraterrestrials.

I also don’t get what role this old Jerry Garcia wannabe plays. Is his name St. Nick, or Kringle, or Claus? What the fuck? And how did this fat ass that parties with elves become a saint? Answer me this—in the Lord of the Rings, the elves were normal-sized pseudo-humans, who also happened to look like Aryan wanktards who have pointy ears, and were all conceived by Johnny Winter and Spock. In Santa’s Frat House up north, elves are these little mutant munchkins who are either nerds with goatees, or gay (uhh…Hermie, the blonde kid, who wants to be a dentist in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Drunkard? HELL-LOW. Red flag). Jesus, get me a Tylenol, will ya?

Well, enough of that. It’s the holiday season, and THIS time, we’ve got ourselves a bit of a minor masterpiece, which then morphed into a cheesy 70s television series about a family with 174 kids. Uh…birth control, people! This week’s little holiday Hidden Flick charmer is The Homecoming, and it starred Patricia Neal (a sublime actress who survived cancer and being married to the great eccentric author Roald Dahl).

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – The Homecoming…

And that sound you hear isn’t a bowl of mashed potatoes splattered against the wall, or a brandy bottle breaking in the back alley, or even a dessert cart wheeled off the balcony. No, that’s the sound of the Great Beast Itself. Yep—the traditional Thanksgiving Turkey.

Don’t get your forks, spoons, and knives out, or your sporks, for that matter. This bird ain’t exactly edible. Hell, I’m not even sure if your loved ones should even see it, which explains why I had to clear the room when it was on full display. Yes, this week’s Hidden Flick is a real turkey of the cinematic breed, and I apologize in advance for its placement in the hallowed halls of our little film collection, but sometimes a clunker makes everything else that much better. Either that, or Cabin Boy is cheese classic-worthy.

Um, no. Turkey is as Turkey does, and this film contains nary a redeemable scene. However, that sort of critical thinking hasn’t stopped us before, right? As long as one can see the true spirit of filmmaking at work, scenes can sort of jump out in their own way, and produce a lasting memory. Well, let’s not get carried away. We are talking about Cabin Boy, and it does feature Letterman alumni Chris Elliott in his lone “star vehicle.”

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Hidden within the soul of certain cops is the feeling that they’re above the law. I’m not saying they’re not, mind you. They do get to sample the best dope, beat on the innocent and drive way past the speed limit. To Protect and Serve, as it were. But whom?

And speaking of The MAN, we slither into the City of Lost Angels in our latest thrill ride (and this one has a manic drive down the wrong way of a very crowded freeway), directed by William Friedkin, who made his name in the ’70s with two classics, The French Connection, and The Exorcist. The former, a tale about the devil on the outside; the latter, about the devil inside. In this week’s Hidden Flick, there is a sinister combination of the two wrapped into one character played by ex-CSIer William Petersen.

To Live and Die in L.A. should have been a comeback film for Friedkin, and a breakout performance for Petersen, who was a Chicago stage actor at that time (and, actually, went back to that role before, during, and after, his stint on that popular television show), while the director was mired in films that didn’t seem to capture the popular Zeitgeist. And who really gives a shit? What is popular? What is a stupid German term like Zeitgeist but an excuse to whip out the Andy Warhol card that says ‘15 minutes of fame happening’?

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Watching 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back for the gazillionth time made me think about the golden years of animation, past and present. Frank Oz, puppeteer and future director, painstakingly created the original Yoda and helped move him within each scene, in the back-breaking old school way, making the classic fifth Star Wars film a rewarding trip. Yes, Lucasfilm later computer-generated the Jedi Master in the prequels and Clone Wars animated series, but it was Oz who first breathed life into the ancient peaceful warrior.

That, of course, would change. Why put your hand up a puppet’s ass if you can spin the light fantastic on a computer, creating whole new worlds like a Geek Demigod? Why, indeed. A few years after Empire, 1988 to be exact, along came a Japanese anime film that would become a classic in its own right. Akira, the manga-inspired gem, is still considered to be one of the elite of its genre, and it helped move cinema from a world of four-eyed dipshit cartoons into grand mythical landscapes with rich, legendary stories.

This week, we deal with a Hidden Flick within a trio of films. Memories, a 1995 anime compilation featured the work of Katsuhiro Otomo, the co-writer and director of Akira. The series of three films contains an anime masterpiece, and two lesser works that don’t hit the mark. The pearl is the initial film, Magnetic Rose; whereas the other two, Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder, are visually intriguing, but not as artistically compelling.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

In Quentin Tarantino’s World War II film Inglorious Basterds, Brad Pitt’s character wears the patch of a very special unit on his uniform. This unit is discussed and amplified in a much older film, and here is where we detail their history to a certain degree. It was the little American film that could. Placed at an inopportune time in the middle of the release schedule during the slow-rising anti-Vietnam war era of 1968, the slab of very old school celluloid still resonates with a…well, devil-may-care leer and assault.

Neither revolutionary, nor profoundly artistic, the film contains bits of hidden truths that are often forgotten, but not for very long. One of those is the little slice of wisdom stating that the universe is built upon a specific template, and progress is sometimes motivated by the actions of one’s polar opposite. And so we turn to this week’s Hidden Flick, a World War II film released in that anarchist flashpoint year, 1968, The Devil’s Brigade.

Based on a true story of the 1st Special Service Force, a unit essentially featuring the most misfit-laden, criminally-inclined, and dubious gang of rat bastards this side of either Attica, or San Quentin, depending upon which side of the switchblade one lives. At the beginning of the story, the outstanding American actor and iconic anti-hero William Holden is a Lt. Colonel assigned to an isolated outpost in the middle of Swinging Dick, Nowhere (Fort William Henry Harrison in Helena, Montana). The fort will serve as a makeshift training camp to a new squadron being prepared to fight in European campaigns in WWII. Yeah, good luck with that, Bill.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Recently, along with 15 others, Sidney Poitier was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama as an “agent of change,” and so I went back to revisit his film canon and found an interesting surprise. Poitier’s great acting career reached its peak in the turbulent yet race-defining 1960s. However, he was at an artistic crossroads, a veritable career stalemate where his role as a strong African-American who defies societal norms while personifying the decent citizen led to creative atrophy.

How does one defy stereotypes, and lead a diverse career if one is trapped, forever pigeonholed as THAT straight cat who always makes the right move, always stands tall in the face of evil, and never drifts too far into anyone’s faulty plan? Poitier struggled with those issues throughout his career, but back in 1957 when this week’s Hidden Flick was filmed, he was just another bright star on the horizon, ready for his next big break.

What makes Edge of the City significant isn’t just the 30-year-old’s vigorously righteous performance, but that the film also features Ruby Dee, the dynamic actress/writer/activist, Jack Warden, who always appeared to be in every cleverly-written character role from the 60s to the 80s, and John Cassavetes who would go onto gritty acting and directorial triumphs later on in his career, while married to the brilliant actress, Gena Rowlands. In the end, however, it is Poitier’s soaring presence which towers over the film.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick, Edge of the City…

Alejandro Jodorowsky is many strange things to many outraged people, so it makes sense that clarity of purpose doesn’t appear to rank high on his artistic agenda. And that’s the hook right there. With the advent of this third season, 3.0 if you like, we drift away from the essence of what is known, and move further towards a more obscure angle—if that is actually possible when one is trying to focus on a rational discussion of film.

Well, that was all hoity toity and the usual heaping of pretension mixed in with foggy dissonance, but what does it mean? Indeed. What does anything mean? As we head out on a third voyage into the Great Cinematic Unknown with more than a little bit of tongue in cheek, and a heady nod towards experimental versus populist films, the nail on the head in this discussion becomes obvious, especially in light of this week’s Hidden Flick.

Before tripping on to the path of Jodorowsky’s scandalous The Holy Mountain, let’s continue our brief look at the definition of our little idea of a Hidden Flick column. These remnants of celluloid which we study and admire aren’t so much “hidden flicks” as they are films about “hidden knowledge” masked in eternally weird riddles: what is the protagonist after? What is the director trying to say? Is this a truly unique film, and does it challenge the viewer, thereby forcing the issue that to be questioning obscure ideas means that one’s audience is far smaller, but more in tune with the creative process? Ahhh…we have the answer: the Spinal Tap factor. Our audience is more “selective,” which is always the initial step towards delusion and self-indulgence, but it’s also far more honest. Let us build our 3 foot high monuments to Stonehenge, shall we?

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

[Originally Published: 06/02/2009] The Death of the American Dream has been laid out for quite some time. If anything, the definition has seemed to change from generation to generation and, ultimately, one is left to interpret the hallowed Dream as one see fits. As it should be, it is, I suppose.

However, some never really had that chance to pursue their ambitions, never really had an opportunity to find out what they could do if given the right passage to success. Yes, but many, if not all, see who they have become, and what they have done with their lives. It is those points on the road through existence that we see clearly demarcated in this week’s Hidden Flick, a tale of a destiny bound and buried, American Me.

Directed in his debut at the helm by Edward James Olmos, the film was inspired by a true story, but is essentially a heavily fictionalized characterization of life as a Mexican on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1950s-70s, detailing the racism of the dominating white populace, the early gang warfare in the city, and then, inevitably, life behind the walls of various California prisons where the Mexican Mafia solidified its formidable reputation.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – American Me and be sure to check HT in two weeks for the first edition of Hidden Flick’s Season 3…

[Originally Published: March 10, 2009]

When I first saw Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, his epic out-of-nowhere British zombie/uber cannibalistic/virus outbreak/mutant apocalypse mind-blowingly violent death mental film, I immediately had the same reaction I have with any incredibly talented director. Give the bastard some serious coin to spin the celluloid fantastic into hyperspace. See what they can do. Give them enough rope to either jump across the whole psychedelic lake and swing back with their sanity intact and talents furthered, OR the rope tangles around their artistic neck, strangling themselves on their own self-indulgence.

Boyle reached his total mass creative potential in a completely unexpected way with the unpredictable critical and commercial success of Slumdog Millionaire. However, Boyle’s film before the East Indian tempest in a tea pot, is an intense and visually stunning piece of work that just seemed to come and go under the cultural radar in the 2007 theatrical night like so many other obscure gems. Indeed, this week’s Hidden Flick is Sunshine.

The science fiction film helmed by Boyle, and written by Alex Garland, tells the tale of a ship in 2057 sent from Earth to detonate a nuclear weapon “the size of Manhattan” within our dying Sol in a desperate attempt to reinvigorate and give new life to a dying star. The international cast is surrounded by ingenious CGI effect shots, and the usual Boyle setups which neither foreshadow, nor echo anything that has really come before in the film.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Welcome to the final installment of the second season of Randy Ray’s stellar Hidden Flick column which clues you in on films that may have slipped past your radar. But don’t fret, season three kicks off on August 4 and we’ll feature the best of season two every other Tuesday until season three begins. Here’s a Special Edition of Hidden Flick to close the season properly…

It was an old amphitheatre that was going to be torn down and replaced with…well, the owner just couldn’t say. “I had a few offers to do something with the place, but I couldn’t part with her. She’s special,” said…well, the owner just prefers to remain anonymous, almost like the Stranger, aka the Cowboy Narrator, played by Sam Elliott, in the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski. “Sarsaparilla for all my friends,” as Elliott channels Barfly’s Mickey Rourke in another cinematic dimension.

He seemed to get misty eyed when he spoke of how long he had owned the tiny outdoor venue—it had been used for concerts by no name acts for years, with seats up front, and then a lawn which stretched out far and wide in the back, all leading up to a lot where patrons could park, walk through the entrance booth, and go find a seat, a seat on this night, not to catch a concert, or hear any music whatsoever from any band, but to see a series of films in what is now known as “my little Hidden Theatre at the end of the road,” according to the owner, a gracious chap on this refreshingly mild pre-summer eve. READ ON for more of this week’s Hidden Flick…

Going too far carries a gravitas that came to fruition in the excesses of 20th century rock. Hell, some of our favorite musicians have long straddled the line between life and death. Some, to such a degree (far too many great icons from Hendrix to Cobain), have died when that line was finally crossed. But this Rimbaud type tendency to burn across the poetic sky as some sort of mythical druggy superman before crashing down to earth as a lowly mortal dates back to the Dawn of Man (or the Dawn of Tripped-Out Man as I recently wrote, in reference to a heady band of new psychedelic warriors).

Johnny Depp has played many characters that willfully blur the line between life and death on a daily basis—characters as twisted and deformed as Raoul Duke aka Hunter S. Thompson, or the actor’s recent musical romp through the evil world of Sweeney Todd. But his characterization of John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet, sex fiend and scoundrel, gave film buffs a real taste of pure pirate-like behavior that far overshadowed his work as the loveable rogue in the Disney Caribbean trilogy. Yes, but I prefer the Bad Guy on film (Vader over Kenobi) as the bent mind seems more human.

Indeed, Depp behaves like a man on his last waltz through Dante’s Inferno. Every Day. Every Footstep. Every Drink from the Bottle. Every Leer and Sneer. He has contempt for ordinary society, and in his cavalier way, Depp’s character towers above the film that documents his sordid life in this week’s Hidden Flick, The Libertine.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick – The Libertine…

…a powerfully eerie sound erupts out of the darkness, and the magician twirls his hands up, down, and side to side, before waving his digits in a fast flurry through the low-lit air. The young sorcerer walks away from his own electronic creation, slashing his arms in a bird-like fashion, until the arcing cries transcend shape, slowly fading into the demonic distance, neither appearing nor disappearing by the physical touch of a human hand.

Jimmy Page is done with his bit of sinister audio, and returns to attacking his Les Paul. Robert Plant howls at the devil on his trail and yelps for a whole lotta love, while John Paul Jones and John Bonham beat the drums en route to Valhalla without any pretension towards mercy and restraint. This ain’t your daddy’s Chicago blues, mate. This is chaos.

My initial exposure to the strange surreal sounds of the theremin was on many trips to a little midnight movie by the world’s biggest band, Led Zeppelin. The Song Remains the Same was a sledge-hammered cranium-opener for my sane and sober teenaged mind. Flash forward a few years, and one comes across a documentary based on the inventor of the instrument and this week’s Hidden Flick, Theremin – An Electronic Odyssey.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Dr. Seuss is known for many things, but live action films based on his work is not one of them. Ron Howard helmed a version of the Seussian classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but it was an ill-advised attempt to remake something that was better off as a brief animated holiday classic. However, there is another Dr. Seuss live action movie if one happens to stumble upon a feature rooted in the daydreams of a boy who is forced to take piano lessons from a tyrannical teacher who insists on precision and perfection.

This week, we venture into the surreal, weird, whimsical, and always entertaining world of the late writer, cartoonist, and lampoonist, Theodor Seuss Geisel. His aim was not always true, often bent, and sometimes very odd, and one gets a huge helping from his surreal soup with a gander at a true relic from the innocent daze and consumption of the 1950s, the first live action Dr. Seuss film, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

The film stars a young boy who is being raised by a single widowed mother, and he hates his piano lessons, because the music teacher doesn’t seem to know how to make music fun, or even remotely interesting. The boy, named Bart, feels his creativity suffocated by this mad, mean-spirited megalomaniac, and drifts into the comforting dreams of a fantasy world in which he is quickly terrorized by the teacher, Dr. Terwilliker, and his legions of grownup guards who have enslaved numerous would-be piano players, otherwise known as harassed children pecking away at the black and white ivory keys. Bart from The Simpsons was not named after this cinematic character; however, Sideshow Bob, also from the Matt Groening animated series, was named after the evil Dr. T with a spelling adjustment—Terwilliker became Terwilliger.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…