Frank Calvillo Archives -

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN – EP.11 – WICKED STEPMOTHER & THE WHALES OF AUGUST “Memories last forever.” As our journey with these two legendary leading ladies comes to a close, we look at Bette Davis’ final movie performances, the infamous dark comedy Wicked Stepmother, which was haphazardly completed despite her walking out […]

FREAKIER FRIDAY MOVIE REVIEW If you want a seriously freaky friday this weekend, you should probably go see Weapons. But, if you’re looking for a retread of the 2003 film with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan only now with more folks switching bodies, well, there’s Freakier Friday. Anna (Lohan) is now a music producer […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN – EP 10 – SPECIAL GUEST STARS “You don’t trust women very much, do you?” Welcome to another episode of What Ever Happened to Bette & Joan?, our ongoing journey through late-era Bette Davis & Joan Crawford. As we near the end of our exploration, I thought we’d […]

SAINT CLARE MOVIE REVIEW You know what they say about walking home alone at night, especially if you are a promising young woman. Always have a buddy. What if a buddy would just get in the way of your calling; a calling by God to take down all the sexual deviants and pathetic men that […]

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS MOVIE REVIEW In what seems to be fantasy wish fulfillment for fans who’ve been saying what they ACTUALLY want from a Fantastic Four movie, the MCU finally gets into the game with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Set on a parallel retro-futuristic Earth (don’t expect any ties to the current […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EP.9 – NIGHT GALLERY & SCREAM, PRETTY PEGGY “It occurs to me I’ve never seen your face.” In this episode, I’m joined by the hosts of Televised: The TV Movie Story as Bette & Joan make their TV horror debuts. In 1969’s Night Gallery, Joan plays what screenwriter […]

SUPERMAN MOVIE REVIEW Most audiences no longer have a problem ‘believing a man can fly’ in movies. Now the challenge is, ‘believing anyone can make a Superman movie that brings us even half of the quality of the original Christopher Reeve film’. There certainly seems to be a lot of confidence, both at DC/Warner Brothers […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EP.8 – THE KARATE KILLERS AND MADAME SIN “How would you like your submarine, gentlemen?” Welcome to another episode of What Ever Happened to Bette & Joan?, our ongoing journey through late-era Bette Davis & Joan Crawford. This week, we watch the two divas become a pair of […]

F1 MOVIE REVIEW In this day and age of trademarked products being made into gigantic Hollywood films, it’s at least a little surprising that Formula 1 Racing took this long to get into the act. At least since 2013’s Rush anyway, but never quite so proudly branded as F1 (and to a great deal, paid […]

DOGMA 25TH ANNIVERSARY MOVIE REVIEW Jesus was beaten, bled, died for your sins and if ye so believe in him thou will be saved. Guilt, shame, and discipline are the blessings on the path to righteousness. These doctrines served the purpose of frightening kids and adults into attempting a life of virtue for years to […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EPISODE 7 – “Della” and “Where Love Has Gone” “You have devoted your life to mud and filth.” In our 7th episode, we go camping with Bette & Joan in a pair of projects that aimed for artful drama but quickly devolved into exercises in laugh-out-loud camp. While […]

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN MOVIE REVIEW You know what they say about successful trilogies with satisfying conclusions? They gotta make another one now. After the huge success of R. L. Stine’s Fear Street trilogy adaptation on Netflix in 2021, it was only a matter of time before Netflix tried again to adapt the greatest YA […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EPISODE 6 – I Saw What You Did and Burnt Offerings Welcome to another episode of What Ever Happened to Bette & Joan?, an ongoing journey through late-era Bette Davis & Joan Crawford. This week, our travels through grand dame guignol cinema comes to a close as we […]

ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR MOVIE REVIEW An all expense paid trip to the island of Capri, Italy? Yes please! What’s the catch? Be the Maid of Honour at your best friend’s forever wedding? That may not sound like much of a catch but what if I told you that BFF was a sexy murderer? Yes, I […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EPISODE 5 – BERSERK! & THE NANNY Welcome to another episode of What Ever Happened to Bette & Joan?, our ongoing journey on late-era Bette Davis & Joan Crawford. This week, we head across the pond to England for a pair of British chillers starring our two legendary […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EPISODE 4 – STRAIT-JACKET AND DEAD RINGER On this episode, we jump in head first (no pun intended) into grande dame guignol cinema and Bette & Joan’s part in helping to establish it. After What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? proved that horror and older actresses were a […]

THUNDERBOLTS* MOVIE REVIEW The final film of Marvel’s Phase 5 (is anyone keeping track anymore) follows a group of d-listers gathered together reluctantly because of forces arrayed against all of them. No, this isn’t The Suicide Squad, it’s Thunderbolts*. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is our central character and first point of contact, as we watch […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? EPISODE 3: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE & HUSH…HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE “Oh, really, did she like it?” In this sisters and cousins episode of What Ever Happened to Bette & Joan?, podcaster Jerry Downey and I look at the film that took Bette Davis and Joan Crawford […]

MAKE ME FAMOUS MOVIE REVIEW Writer/Director Brian Vincent presents the story of an artist community in the East Village of New York in the 1980s. Make Me Famous is about an artist community coming together and supporting each other in the pursuit of notoriety, fame, and the capability to keep buying paint and sharing their […]

THE AMATEUR MOVIE REVIEW Imagine yourself as CIA cryptographer Charlie Heller. You look like Rami Malek, you’re decidedly a huge dork, and somehow you land Sarah (the stunning Rachel Brosnahan) as a wife. If she was on a trip to London and terrorists killed her, and then your bosses at the #1 spy agency in […]

TRASH IN THE CAN: ANGELS WITH ANGLES How did movies resurrect and exploit dead celebrities before Rogue One? Easy! Impressionists in Party City makeup and a budget so low the estate doesn’t bother to sue. Host of podcast Whatever Happened to Bette & Joan, Frank Calvillo, joins us for a bizarre vanity project about a […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN: EP 2 – THE BEST OF EVERYTHING & POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES “They Live in Dreams” In the second and final pre-Baby Jane episode, critic Elizabeth Stoddard joins me for the pair of movies our former studio queens would appear in just before signing on to star in the […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN: EP 1 – HUMORESQUE & THE LETTER “Don’t You Like Martinis?” In the debut episode of What Ever Happened to Bette & Joan, we go back a couple of decades before the making of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to look at classic Bette & Joan with […]

THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE REVIEW Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were a series of animated cartoons created by Warner Bros in 1935. The very first of these characters was Porky Pig created by Friz Freleng. On April 17, 1937 animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett created an insane little […]

SEVEN VEILS MOVIE REVIEW John the Baptist was a total hottie. He had that wandering the desert skin tone and preaching the gospel six pack, and long flowing silky black hair. That’s probably why Salome, the step daughter of King Herod, wanted to seduce and steal a kiss from him. Heads up, things didn’t turn […]

PREVIEW: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN Critic, blogger, and podcaster Frank Calvillo examines the later careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford following the success of 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and the resurgence in popularity it brought. In looking at the various roles the two actresses took on throughout the […]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD MOVIE REVIEW Here we are at the 35th film in the MCU and the 4th Captain America film, albeit with a notable change. Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) once a partner to Steve Rogers, was chosen by him specifically to take on the mantle of Captain America, after the events of […]

BACK IN ACTION MOVIE REVIEW Homer Simpson once said “Well, guess what, cool people! Parents are supposed to be lame. That’s so their kids have something to rebel against and be cool long enough to get married and have kids for whom they are lame. It’s nature’s way.” Netflix presents the espionage action comedy Back […]

THE BEST FILMS OF 2024 PART TWO Our best of 2024 film list continues with double the speed and that many more films for us to gush about. Come sit around the round table with the One Of Us Austin crew and see if we can turn you on to some stuff you may have […]

THE BEST FILMS OF 2024 PART ONE This more accurately should be titled, the best films of 2024 that we haven’t already talked about (largely). Because we are not talking about Anora, The Brutalist, or The Substance here. We did those reviews. We’re primarily talking about the other greatest films that we didn’t get to […]

MARIA MOVIE REVIEW “An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house” – Maria Callas Angelina Jolie is the titular character Maria in this […]

OH, CANADA MOVIE REVIEW Misery may love company but its infatuation with Paul Schrader could move mountains and ignite the stars. Hot off the conclusion of his loner weirdo trilogy (First Reformed, The Card Counter, and The Constant Gardener), Paul Schrader is moving in a different direction by adapting one of esteemed author Russell Banks […]

BETTER MAN MOVIE REVIEW Let’s go through our musical biopic checklist, shall we? Talented kid from a broken home dreams of becoming a pop star? Check. Serious daddy issues? Check. Fame and overwork leads to exhaustion, addiction, and self-destructive behavior? Check, check, and check. Protagonist is depicted as a CGI singing, dancing monkey voiced by […]

THE ORDER MOVIE REVIEW Bank robberies, car heist, a disappearance, a terrible work of fiction called The Turner Diaries…What connects them? An offshoot Aryan Nation group calling themselves The Order. The film The Order tells the story of FBI Agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) investigating the rise of a Nazi militia led by young charismatic […]

WICKED MOVIE REVIEW Seems like a holiday season can’t go by anymore without a big event musical film. Not that Chris, Frank, Wright, and Kim are complaining (note: these four end up together on a lot of the musical releases). This year though, one of the biggest musicals of the past few decades that has […]