Ian Shade

A review of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) Maybe I've been due for another spell of euphoria, but it certainly feels like I'm cracking the codes to my depression: posture, activity, some healthy luck. Something shaken loose by the--desperation...

"Do you love me?"
"Yeah."

A review of National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) I found wealth long ago It's a long way down the holiday road Holiday road, holiday road Jack be nimble, Jack be quick Take a ride on the West Coast gig Holiday road, holiday road -- Lindsey Buckingha...

Intent.

A review of TRON: Ares (2025) Yeah no pretty bad--in the end it feels like the endgame of a culture that posts/uses "nobody cares" as their only response to any attempt to reckon with or improve on the pillars that tower over us a...

Lost a car key during this film, which seems indicative of something

A review of Her (2013) From Facebook (January 8, 2024): The funny thing about modern chatbots is that they fool you into thinking it’ll be like a text adventure without limits, but it ends up being more like Nigel Tufnel tr...

Her who?

A review of Friday the 13th (1980) Certainly not carelessly made, with the images to prove it--the shadow of a raising axe; the pan across the stalls as Marcie lifts her flashlight from the floor; and yes, even the kitschy standoff tha...

Death (Part II)

A review of One Battle After Another (2025) Double feature with Anna; second half was Friday the 13th, but I'm not actually sure if Friday the 13th pairs with anything except Part 2. She offered the intriguing proposition that "you only like Pa...

Life (Part I)

A review of One Battle After Another (2025) A retreat to bullet points: • Monumental, intimidating. But I already feel that way a lot of the time because I consciously seek out the works that are bound to feel that way. This one, maybe even amo...

Life, man. LIFE

A review of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) The kind of movie that seems primed for rose-tinted liberal nostalgia in 2025--a YouTube comment pining for the days when the President would, instead of strong-arming them off the air, invite their s...

Keep your eye on the grand old flag.

Dahlia, infernal in iron armor, and Nil, goblin witch, are standing in front of a wall of wanted posters depicting their faces. All of the posters are various degrees of inaccurate. Dahlia points to the middle one and says “I like this one best!” The poster is a silly characterization of her face. Nil is less than thrilled with all of this.

No one is a proper villain without a bounty poster… even if it’s off the mark.

#wbn | #nil | #dahlia | #myart

A review of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025) It finally struck me for the first time, watching the original for the umpteenth, that the band could have played a few slow numbers at the Air Force mixer... if they could read a room well enough, or...

Listen to what the flower people say

A review of The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) Bit of a bummer to finally watch this in the aftermath of Grady Hendrix's The Final Girl Support Group, which is a brisk read but feels more like bullshit the more I think about it: immediately felt b...

"What's the damage?"

Ian Shade’s profile Ian uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 1,010 films watched. Favorites: Halloween (1978), No Time to Die (2021), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Batman Returns (1992). Bio: IAN SHADE'S LETTE...

And once I finish the novel (shooting for the end of the year), there's still some business I'll need to conduct here to get the ball rolling on it. Find me on Letterboxd (letterboxd.com/IanShade/) or Instagram (www.instagram.com/ianpercivals...) for now.

I trust the people I follow to give me as straight a shot as the media landscape allows--but I need to find some other way to filter the atrocity influx. Always been more of a lurker, but I can't lean on microblogging anymore, in any form. So like Facebook, I'll still post links to my work here...

Graham Linehan is like when the Animaniacs drive someone insane, but then he has to live the rest of his life like that

The idea that there are people who are interested in the Magnificent Ambersons but like, an AI version of it, is so funny. That's two different groups of people. And their dogs are trained to attack each other

I was already queasy when THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND was reconstructed by people who weren't Welles. The best case scenario was TOUCH OF EVIL re-edited from his notes, so copious and detailed that they came down to the right cuts, the right sounds. Why does the fuckin' MCP get a say

Seems tailor-made for "'The Paper' 'The Office'"

The thing is that bullshit guys like this probably do really think you're making stuff up because they don't think about or care about or remember any of their bullshit.

super glad someone i looked to in high school for queer representation wants me dead i guess. i’m so sad and fucking tired man

Fuckin' awful, man

I have subsequently determined that I can only trust you with the catalogue, Bill

Condolences to Kevin McDonald for permanently losing the title of “the Kid in the Hall we don’t like”

I can’t wait until fifty years from now, when someone invents the “paper doll” method to simplify the process and they hand it down like Rembrandt

The transition between organized crime to supervillains in Gotham City ❌ (overexplored to cliché, practitioners never actually alter dreary tone)

The atavistic regression of billionaire Lex Luthor to mad scientist warsuit Lex Luthor ✅ (silly fun, explicitly denies the rich any respectability)

I would, at least, like to see podcasts replace ham radio in fictional apocalyptic scenarios. Never mind the logistics

A review of Jaws (1975) First time since the fortieth anniversary? Unconscionable. Thought a lot about the mnemonic rhyme about encounters with wild bears, complete with its semi-sarcastic conclusion: If it's brown, lie down...

I can't imagine / why

Yeah, I'm a fan of A24. A24-year-old movie called Little Nicky.

very direct evidence that video game piracy is important in the preservation of video games

A shot from the inside of a rotary phone from Intruder. Such a perfectly weird, intrusive choice.

Dang, RIP to Scott Spiegel, co-writer of Evil Dead II and director of Intruder!

Awful news; always a pleasure to watch. (I remember being so tickled when he showed up in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE.) Seek out CLEAR CUT or THUNDERHEART to see him carry a picture with seeming effortlessness.