Film Category
Includes cinema reviews and trailers for upcoming films. A digest of the best and worst interviews on movies and cinema.
Mötley Crüe Goes ‘Triple R’: The Best Bits From The Hot Mess Film
IF there’s one thing you can say about Mötley Crüe, is that their band name is a total pain in the arse to type on a computer, if you want to do it correctly.
Of course, there’s more to Mötley Crüe than that – they’re a hilarious hot-mess too.
It goes without saying that not everyone likes their music. However, as court jesters of rock ‘n’ roll, you can’t help but feel pleased they’re around. Media training is something that passed them all by and, in their day, they were rich, badly behaved and thick as pigshit – everything you’d want from a celebrity.
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LOLZ: Dr Brule Reads Scarlett Johansson’s Lines In Her
IN this video Dr Brule plays the part of the love interest (formerly Scarlett Johansson) in Spike Jonze’s Her:
Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, the story follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Dr. Steve Brule,” a childlike, male voice, who is severely naive, socially awkward and largely ignorant. As his needs and desires grow, in tandem with Theodore’s own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.
Spotter: Reddit
Sainsbury’s Offers Shoppers A Chance To Buy The 12 Years A Slave Look
DID you watch the film 12 Years A Slave and think ‘ nice threads, dude’?
You did. Because someone at Sainsbury’s heard your mind whirring and started offering shoppers the chance to dress like a black slave in the American deep south. You don’t need to be black to get the look. Sure it helps. But we don’t doubt that Sainsbury’s sensitive shop assistants at its Heyford Hill, Oxford, branch can direct you to boot polish section.
Spotter: Indy
Posted: 19th, May 2014 | In: Film, The Consumer | Comment
Bearded Space Alien Jesus In A Leisure Suit Is Awesome At Karate
HALLELUJA! It’s bearded space alien Jesus in a leisure suit is awesome at karate!
YouTuber theSadistVideos explains this 1986 ride:
A bearded ‘superman’ with no powers comes to earth in a powder-blue velour tracksuit to drive a silver dune buggy into an unrelated blaxploitation film about urban literacy. Appropriately released under two titles, this is Alien Warrior / King of the Streets !
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The 5 Greatest Giant Monster Movies of All-Time
GARETH Edwards’ Godzilla opens this week in theaters, and the question remains: will the new film assume its place among the classics of the giant monster movie genre, or falter badly instead, much like the 1998 version of the same material directed by Roland Emmerich?
Perhaps the answer to that question will only be answered by the passage of time. How will the new Godzilla age, given advances in special effects? Will the film’s central metaphor about Godzilla and nature prove as sturdy as the original Godzilla’s (1954) anti-nuclear message?
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Posted: 16th, May 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (2)
The 5 Greatest Godzilla Movies Ever Made
SINCE his first silver screen appearance in 1954, Toho’s giant monster Godzilla has starred in more than two dozen epic movies.
The big green lizard has been featured as a terrifying villain, as a defender of the Earth, and, occasionally, even traveled to American shores to wreak havoc. In this span, Godzilla has stood alone, acted as a tag team player (with friends like Anguirus and Rodan…), battled ancient threats to humanity, and even fended off alien invaders on more than one occasion (Monster Zero [1965], Final Wars [2004]).
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Posted: 14th, May 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (2)
May the Force Be With Them: The 5 Best Star Wars Knock-Offs of the Seventies and Eighties
WHEN George Lucas’s space fantasy Star Wars premiered in the summer of 1977 – and promptly became the highest grossing film in history – it was only a matter of time before intrepid filmmakers sought to imitate and thus re-capture the movie’s magic in a slew of lookalike films.
Importantly, the Star Wars film craze not only brought a barrage of new science fiction-themed films to the international box office, it also changed the very way that movie-makers approached the difficult-to-visualize genre.
Before Star Wars, the 1970s SF cinema obsessed, largely, on matters of environmental disaster and future dystopias like Soylent Green (1973) and Logan’s Run (1976).
After Star Wars, however, science fiction films usually featured more action, colorful laser blasts, cute robotic sidekicks, and a concentration on fantasy aspects.
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Posted: 14th, May 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (2)
Attack Of The A-Frame: The Design Virus That Spanned Decades
THERE’S only a finite number of ways you can arrange a canvas. Naturally, there’s going to be some patterns that emerge, and certain motifs will be copied and repeated to oblivion within the pop art landscape. An artful conception will suddenly be mimicked on comic book covers to movie posters to paperbacks to album covers, and it will continue for decades.
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Posted: 13th, May 2014 | In: Books, Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
The 16 Greatest School Dance Scenes In Film
AH, yes. The school dance. Awkward and often soul shattering, it was a necessary rite of passage. It’s no surprise that such a dramatic collective memory would make for some great moments on film. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of the 16 greatest school dance scenes in movies. Feel free to add your own – I’d love to hear them.
It’s a Wonderful Life
The gym floor opening up into a pool is a beloved movie moment. It highlights perfectly George Bailey’s wild and promising youth before his big fall.
Carrie
Perhaps the most memorable of all high school dance scenes. DePalma’s split screen technique in combination with Spacek’s ghastly visage is one that’s hard to shake. Last year’s remake game an honorable effort, but you just can’t recreate this sort of horror magic.
Zapped!
Scott Bao’s powers are taken to their limit, and we get to see Heather Thomas zapped and disrobed (well, actually her body double, but a high point in teen sex romps nonetheless).
Pretty in Pink
Andi (Molly Ringwald) ended up with Duckie in the original version of the film, but test audiences were appalled. John Hughes subsequently changed to the script to have Andi end up with Blaine (Andrew McCarthy). I strongly agree with that decision; in fact, I would have preferred Duckie die a horrible death instead.
Grease
Who cares that every kid at Rydell looks like they’re over 30. This dance scene with Travolta in his prime doing the Hand Jive is solid gold.
Can’t Buy Me Love
Somehow Patrick Dempsey’s African Anteater Ritual dance catches on, and soon the entire student body is joining in. What a bunch of sheep.
Sixteen Candles
The dance scene has so much to love: “True” by Spandau Ballet, a painfully awkward dance by Farmer Ted, a brief appearance by John Cusack, Dong and his buxom soul mate, the scoliosis girl, and a $1 cover charge to see Sam’s underwear.
Napoleon Dynamite
“My old girlfriend from Oklahoma was gonna fly out for the dance but she couldn’t cause she’s doing some modeling right now.”
Perfectly captures the awkwardness of being on the outer fringes of the popularity caste system – all to the sounds of Alphaville and Cindy Lauper.
Footloose
Ren and Ariel release some seriously pent up sexual energy on the dance floor. Lithgow was not amused.
Better Off Dead
Ricky (the fat dude from Head of the Class) dances like an effing maniac to impress Monique. I laughed till I ran out of air and blacked out, woke up and laughed some more.
Prom Night
A prolonged dance sequence set to disco music (featuring Jamie Lee Curtis) is unusual for a slasher film, but a beautiful thing nonetheless. It’s like Xanadu meets Friday the 13th. Even better, we get to see Leslie Neilsen putting on his boogie shoes!
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
The prom flashback is a brief but wonderfully effective reminder that high school dances feel monumentally important at the time, but really has no consequence for the life that awaits. The reunion dance to “Time After Time” is a nice touch as well.
American Graffiti
There’s a very touching scene with Cindy Williams interspersed with plenty of mid-century tomfoolery. My personal favorite moment: Ron Howard telling the principal to go kiss a duck.
Just One of the Guys
Joyce Hyser shows her friend that she’s really a girl in disguise by exposing her breasts. An odd but historic moment in the annals of gratuitous nudity. (And, no, it’s not in the video below)
Valley Girl
The curtain opens revealing a brawl between Randy (Nicholas Cage) and Tommy the Prom King. Hilarity ensues when the titular Valley Girl shoves guacamole in Tommy’s face and the crowd erupts into a food fight.
Back to the Future
McFly on the guitar playing “Johnny Be Good” to an eager crowd at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance is an amazing moment…. but then his digression into heavy metal guitar noodling leaves the audience saying “huh?”. Classic.
Honorable Mention: The pilot episode of Freaks and Geeks
It’s a TV show, but it still deserves a mention. Sam Weir finally gets to slow dance with his crush, but the opening to Styx’s “Come Sail Away” quickly turns loud and fast. He decides to go with the flow, stop being so damn self-conscious and just have fun. The feeling is contagious and his sister Lindsey, operating the punch bowls, who had a little something to do with the mentally challenged boy’s broken arm ventures over to see if he has forgiven her by asking him to dance. Perhaps the greatest school dance scene of them all.
Posted: 12th, May 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
The 5 Most Underrated Brian De Palma Thrillers
SINCE the early seventies director Brian De Palma has crafted many intense and highly cerebral thrillers.
Alas, such efforts are often dismissed by critics as being overly imitative of Alfred Hitchcock’s films and style rather than praised for their own finely-developed sense of inter-textuality and intellectual gamesmanship.
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Posted: 8th, May 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (4)
The Shining Fashion Collection: You Can Wear The Carpet From Relive Kubrick’s Masterpiece
DID you look at the carpet in Stanley Kubrick’s haunting version of The Shining and think ‘Where can you buy that?” Well, now you can. The MONDO 237 Collection features the floor covering from room 237 as a sweater, cardigan, 6′ scarf, ski mask and two different sized floor rugs.
Buy the sweater and get limited edition die-cut room 237 keys.
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Posted: 3rd, May 2014 | In: Film, The Consumer | Comment
The Five Most Underrated John Carpenter Movies
JOHN Carpenter’s film career has had its critical ups and downs, but time – the final arbiter of success, perhaps – has been almost universally kind to the vast majority of his cinematic work.
Reviled upon release in the summer of Spielberg’s E.T., John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) is now revered as a horror classic and a work of art superior to the Howard Hawks film of 1951.
Similarly, Carpenter’s anti-yuppie battle cry, They Live (1988) has been re-evaluated as an ahead-of-its time masterpiece about the imminent death of the middle class in America, and “vulture capitalists” picking at its bones.
Even In the Mouth of Madness (1994), dismissed on original release as lesser-Carpenter, is widely considered now to be the finest interpretation of the Lovecraft aesthetic yet committed to film.
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Posted: 1st, May 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (8)
“If He Fires Me, I’ll Thank Him For It”: Five Great Character Moments in the Timothy Dalton James Bond Era
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Posted: 25th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (6)
5 Unspeakably Awful Songs of 1980s Horror Cinema
HORROR movies, like any other genre, are products of their time. So, naturally, their soundtracks are going to reflect the popular music of the day. This can be a good thing…. or a devastating handicap when the popular music of the day is disco and breakdancing. Yet, many horror flicks of the 1980s managed to get it right. The soundtrack to Halloween is expertly menacing, as were the soundtracks to Dario Argento’s films (thanks in no small part to Goblin). Perhaps one day we’ll look at the ones that did things right, but today we’re looking at the ones who did things oh so terribly wrong.
Graduation Day (1981)
“Everybody Wants to be the Winner”
I don’t know who sings this opening song, but I can only assume it’s a coked up Leo Sayer. Granted, I’m not a horror movie expert, but I think I’m correct in assuming the opening sequence of a horror film shouldn’t incite peals of mocking laughter. I could be wrong.
Friday the 13th: Part 3 (1982)
Main Titles
An excellent song to breakdance to, I’m sure; however, it seems utterly ridiculous as the opening theme to a slasher movie. The rather disturbing head on a table juxtaposed with a beat-box jam is downright laughable. This would have been right at home as the theme to Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, not a horror movie. I suppose you could make the argument that the Friday the 13th films weren’t exactly serious horror films. Whatever the case, this breakdancing opener is still a laugh.
The House on Sorority Row (1983)
Music by 4 Out Of 5 Doctors
The band in the following video clip is “4 Out of 5 Doctors”, who play several songs throughout the film. When you watch this clip, be sure to pay attention to the part where the 3 girls are checking out a “cute” guy who winks at them – this may very well be cinema’s finest moment.
This dude is sporting what was commonly referred to as the “butt cut”. This scene is just priceless – I want to give this dude a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!
4 Out of 5 Doctors actually released a few albums, and were Billboard’s “best new band” one month. In an interview with PM Magazine, the band stated their debut record took five years to craft – each day methodically perfecting the ultimate album.
Hmmm…. not quite. They were also the house band in another horror flick, The Boogieman (1980).
Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987)
“We Live To Rock” by Jon Mikl Thor
You’ve heard the phrase “so bad it’s good.” Well, this is “so bad it’s a blight upon all mankind.” Bodybuilder turned heavy-metal train-wreck, Thor, takes metal music to the absolute bottom of the barrel. Picture the worst songs by Quiet Riot, Ratt, and Twisted Sister all rolled into one. Oddly enough, Thor’s music ends up being the only thing remotely horrifying in the entire film.
The Pod People (1983)
“Burning Rubber Tires”
Repetitive, woefully generic, and best of all, the lyrics are incomprehensible. This would have been terrible on a record, but this embarrassing mess is being filmed, and the results are beyond cringeworthy. The moment at the end when the supposed rock star signals “It Stinks” has become something of an iconic moment among B-movie nerds. Most of the notoriety of “Hear the Engines Roll Now” is owed to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 who parodied it brilliantly.
For those wanting to read the lyrics (and I’m assuming that’s literally everyone reading this article), here they are in their entirety. You’re welcome.
With a fickle mind we kick the nickel beer
Steady as a goat, we’re flying over trout.
Ghetto down the highway at the speed of light;
All I want to feel now is the wind in my eyes.
Sack of monkeys in my pocket
My sister’s ready to go.Hear the engine roar now
Idiot control now
Hideous control now
Ninny on the road now.
Minnie in control, wheel’s on fire, burning rubber tires.Leer at jelly rolls now
Hiddy let’s it go now
Ninny inches po down
Pityin’ a po’ boy
Hear the engines roar, bees on pie, burning rubber tires.
Posted: 25th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
The Five Most Underrated Slasher Films of the 1980s
FOLLOWING the incredible box-office and critical success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), the slasher film quickly became the go-to-format for up-and-coming horror filmmakers in the 1980s. These films had titles like Happy Birthday to Me (1981) and My Bloody Valentine (1981), and most of them concerned bloody massacres on holidays.
Although critics denigrated these slasher films as “dead teenager movies” or “knife-kill” films and slammed their apparent sense of misogyny, and formulaic story lines, the slasher craze of the epoch actually produced a number of great and memorable horror films.
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Posted: 23rd, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (3)
Back from the Dead: The 5 Lamest Horror Movie Monster Resurrections
THROUGHOUT cinematic history, our most beloved monsters — from Dracula and The Wolf Man to Freddy Krueger and King Kong — have returned again and again to haunt our nightmares, and our movie screens.
In any horror movie or monster movie sequel, the primary challenge is thus always quite specific: how do we get our beloved monster back after so thoroughly and completely defeating him at the end of the previous movie? How do we snatch defeat from what seemed like victory?
Some movie franchises have proven cleverer than others at threading this particular needle, finding fresh and inventive ways to get our beloved monsters stalking again.
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Posted: 16th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
Through a Glass Darkly: 5 Horror Films and TV Episodes about Mirrors
THE painter Pablo Picasso once asked who can see the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter.
Popular horror films and television programs have long highlighted all three possibilities, but focused most intently, perhaps, on the mirror.
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Posted: 15th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
The New Noah Is Looking A Bit White – And There’s A Weird Reason For That
From left, New Zealand actor Russell Crowe and Australian actor Hugh Jackman arrive for the UK Premiere of Noah at a central London cinema, London, Monday, March 31, 2014.
PEOPLE have long chuckled about America’s insistence that people from the Middle East are white. Apart from present day Middle Eastern people of course. They HATE those guys.
We’re talking about the meme that got out of hand. European artists painted Jesus as a white guy and everyone cleverly ignored the fact that he would have at least been olive-skinned, or even darker. He definitely wasn’t some white guy with fair hair and a neat beard who looked like he might be the road manager for Creedence Clearwater Revival.
So too, the rest of The Bible’s important figures found themselves being whitened, in modern American depictions especially. And so, to Noah, who just happens to be the subject of a new film and, unsurprisingly, he’s played by a white guy; Russell Crowe.
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I Was G-Man Jerry Cotton: When Hedy Lamarr Performed The First On-Screen Orgasm And Jane Powell Grew Up
SO. ‘What does the music for a 1965 West German movie about a New York FBI agent sound like?’ asks James Lileks? That question to you, special agent Jerry Cotton, hero of Operation 100 Dollar Gang.
Cotton was played by US actor and all-round beefcake George Nader. You may know him from his 1958 melodrama The Female Animal, starring 1940s sex symbol Hedy Lamarr and actress-singer Jane Powell, pictured below taking advantage of the warm California winter to relax at pool side on Jan. 16, 1958.
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Posted: 12th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
Watch Jean-Pierre Léaud’s Fantastic Audition for The 400 Blows In 1958
FRENCH cinema’s intense The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups – the French title comes from the idiom, faire les quatre cents coups—“to raise hell”) features a fantastic performance from Jean-Pierre Léaud as the delinquent adolescent Antoine Doinel. For anyone who has not seen this spellbinding 1959 film, here’s an outline of the story from Criterion:
François Truffaut’s first feature is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut’s cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows sensitively re-creates the trials of Truffaut’s own childhood, unsentimentally portraying aloof parents, oppressive teachers, and petty crime. The film marked Truffaut’s passage from leading critic to trailblazing auteur of the French New Wave.
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The Five Most Shocking Death Scenes Of The ALIEN Franchise
FOUR movies strong, and spanning three decades (the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s), the cinematic Alien saga — consisting of Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997) — is renowned for its titular creature, one of the most terrifying silver screen boogeymen of all time.
Given the nature of this franchise’s hostile (and perfect?) monster, it’s no surprise that the death scenes featured throughout the saga are frequently terrifying, bloody, and brilliantly-orchestrated.
Yet the truly memorable death scenes possess another quality as well. They’re shocking. These scenes strike with a combination of terror, disgust, sorrow, and surprise, leaving a permanent imprint on the viewer’s mind.
For a death scene to be considered shocking, it must be one that the audience can’t see coming. In other words, we expect that Colonial Marines fighting aliens by the pack are going to die, or that confused convicts running from a monster in a dark corridor will come to a bad end.
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Posted: 10th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (2)
A Vital History of Captain America at the Movies and on TV
WITH Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) shattering box office records this weekend, it is an opportune time to recall that this iconic Marvel superhero — and symbol of non-ironic Americana — has not always been treated very well by Hollywood.
In particular, the 1970s and 1980s proved a difficult span for the patriotic Cap, who had made a career in his Marvel comic-book of smashing Nazis and communists.
But first, the 1944 Republic serial, Captain America, created a new character and origin for the superhero.
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Posted: 9th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Eegah! 10 Amazingly Bad Movie Titles
WHAT’S the worst movie title of all time? Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot (1992) are often cited as contenders. One that nearly earned a victory for worst is Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters (2007) – an immensely serious film which very nearly is The Master Debaters. Close but no cigar. The unpronounceable film The Rural Juror could have walked away with an easy victory. Alas, it’s a fictitious film from the TV show 30 Rock. Disqualified.
Perhaps, it’s best to look back a few decades. It may not be possible to scientifically lay out the all-time worst, but we can certainly make like Freddy and Finger a few candidates.
10. Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1973)
Sometimes a title is just trying to be get our attention by its ridiculousness [i.e. I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990). For low budget films without a lot of financial resources for promotion, the best way to lure audiences is via a sensational title. So, I understand the rationale, and am sure it served its purpose; however, the title is still horrible. Functional, but horrible.
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Posted: 8th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
The Goonies Are To Return… Which No-One Really Wants
The house shown in this photo taken May 24, 2001, in Astoria, Ore., was used in the Steven Spielberg film “The Goonies.” Nearly 17 years after the 1985 release, the home where the main characters live in Astoria still draws dozens of Goonie fans every week, and hundreds of people per month during the summer from around the world. (AP Photo/Stepanie Firth)
NOSTALGIA is a wonderful thing, provided you keep it where it is. 30somethings who have gone back to watch old cartoons they loved as kids are often found sobbing, depressed lumps sat in waterless baths, feeling cheated and hurt, like they’d summoned up a repressed abuse at the hands of school bullies.
Of course, some things stand the test of time, if you don’t pick at it. The Mysterious Cities of Gold is still oddly deep and perfect, but a redux of it would be like taking a great shit on the one meal that reminds you of the glory of your childhood.
And now, the director of The Goonies, Richard Donner, has said a sequel to The Goonies is in the works.
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Posted: 7th, April 2014 | In: Celebrities, Film | Comment
