May 2011
19 posts
2 tags
Django (1968)
Starring Franco Nero
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
Django is a an enjoyable imitation of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, featuring Franco Nero as a mysterious anti-hero with a mysterious casket he drags behind him, up against not only an oppressive Confederate soldier, Major Jackson, but a whole Mexican army, both of whom are making it very hard on a small border town. Django saves the life of a...
3 tags
The Parallax View (1974)
Starring Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Paula Prentiss
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
I remember when The Pelican Brief came out, one of the angles the promotion took was that it was a return to form for Alan J. Pakula, who directed The Parallax View, another thriller involving conspiracies. I took a while getting to this one, as, let’s face it, Warren Beatty’s reputation as an actor is...
3 tags
The Chicago Code Season/Series Finale (Updated)
The two part season finale renewed my faith in the series, with dramatic twists and turns. That said, the teaser ads that suggested male lead Jarek Wysocki was going to sell out to bad guy Ronan Gibbons were highly misleading. I like that he accepted that his dead, sanctified hero cop brother Vincent was clearly dirty, and used it to screw Gibbons. Could have been more time spent with Irish...
2 tags
House Season Finale
Not that great an episode, especially after a good one last week that somehow proved the writers can actually work on character stuff from almost everybody and still have good plots to go with it. I like the opener with Cuddy talking to the cops, so that we know House did something really bad this time. All the stuff leading to that act of destruction (less self-focused this time) was tepid,...
3 tags
Lemora, A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1975)
Starring Cheryl Smith, Lesley Gilb, Hy Pike
Directed by Richard Blackburn
The best horror movies are usually the ones that lean on mood and imagination rather than expensive things like special effects, stars, or good audio tracking. Lemora is one such scrappy, better-than-crappy film. Though maybe not quite good or strange enough to merit a nice Criterion remaster, there’s quite a bit to...
2 tags
Pearl Jam - Ten (Remixed, 2009)
The original release of this album was one of those things where you feel obligated to get it. Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. were others, earlier in my life. Stuff you bought or maybe asked for as a gift so you wouldn’t have to spend your own allowance on it. I remember getting Ten as one of those “12 cds for a penny” deals with...
2 tags
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes (2011)
Melodic, heartbroken, doo-wop/Velvets/folk/Depeche Mode/Adam Ant/Bjork inspired, sexy, threatening, melodramatic, hummable songs about how fucked-up and awesome it is to be young, in love and in pain. What’s not to like? She’s photogenic, too, and so cool she advised radio listeners who couldn’t see her in concert to just smoke a joint and watch it on YouTube. The album expands...
3 tags
Smallville Finale
I only started watching the show this season, so I realize I’m not going to get the full impact here. Still, aside from not really having a feel for Lex Luthor, I don’t think I missed too much. I’ve enjoyed the series, though I think the season didn’t completely fire on all cylinders because they only advanced the Darkseid storyline every now and then.
This episode had a...
4 tags
Hammer Horror Series: The Evil of Frankenstein...
Starring Peter Cushing.
Written by John Elder. Directed by Freddie Francis
By 1964, Hammer had a new distribution deal with Universal, which resulted in them not having to so studiously avoid resemblances to old Universal monsters in their own horror films. This means that this Frankenstein movie has a creature that looks quite a bit like the square-headed Karloff version from the ’30s, or...
The Chicago Code
Look, I understand that The Chicago Code is network TV and The Shield was cable. So that means when the lead male character has passionately regrettable unfaithful sex, you don’t see anything. Fine. But when the plot involves a hate crime and you make the killer say nothing worse about his homosexual victim than “gay guy,” then you might as well not do the episode at all, you...
Low Hanging Fruit
Just unfollowed a well-known comics writer on Twitter for his dozen or so tweets quoting dumb iTunes movie reviews (Scarface, Godfather III). Yeah, I get it. Lots of people out there whose tastes aren’t as developed as yours. It’s nothing personal, but I will enjoy his comics more not seeing this side of him. Same with the friend who tweets about radio he’s listening to or the...
4 tags
Broken Bells - Meyrin Fields (2011)
I really liked Broken Bells’ first album. DangerMouse rarely disappoints, and his tracks really seemed to invigorate The Shins’ James Mercer. The funny thing is, although at least half the tracks on the album were contenders for singles, they didn’t really release any singles. I mean, there were videos for several songs, but if you went to iTunes, it’s the album and...
4 tags
Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth (2008)
Writer/Director - Eric Nelson
I was in a documentary mood last night and had been thinking about Ellison lately. Although he wrote a decent, somewhat overlooked comics miniseries for IDW several months ago, it occurred to me that I really hadn’t seen much publishing news from him. In looking at his authorized forum, I found a message from just a few weeks ago that after a couple years of...
4 tags
Hammer Horror Series: Night Creatures (1962)
Starring Peter Cushing, Oliver Reed, Yvette Romain
Directed by Peter Graham-Scott
As with Paranoiac, Night Creatures isn’t really a horror movie, but I suppose those putting together this Hammer collection wanted to show their range. Based on the opening, this could be a pirate movie in the 1600s, as an unseen Captain Clegg sentences a man to be disfigured and abandoned on a small,...
2 tags
Blaqstarr - The Mixtape (2010)
I’m comfortable enough in my musical skin(?) by now to admit I’m little more than a tourist when it comes to Top 40 and hip-hop these days. A lot of pop I first hear through some amateur covering it on American Idol, and hip-hop, I dunno…a Girl Talk mix album? So Blaqstarr’s The Mixtape isn’t really my thing. I enjoyed listening to it, though it’s a much less ambitious mix than what Girl Talk...
4 tags
Carnival of Souls (1963)
Starring Candace Hilligoss, Sidney Berger
Director/Producer - Herk Harvey
It’s always nice to finally catch up with a cult film and find it exceeds expectations. A week ago, I saw another one, Ted V. Mikel’s The Astro Zombies, and found it mostly forgettable and boring, aside from a little nudity and gore. But Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls was not created as a piece of...
5 tags
Hammer Horror Series: Paranoiac (1963)
Starring Oliver Reed, Janette Scott, Alexander Davion and Sheila Burrell
Directed by Freddie Francis
Paranoiac is more of a psychological thriller than a horror film, though it appears as the fourth film on Disc One (or the second film on Disc Two of the Netflix version) of the Hammer Horror Collection. It’s shot in black-and-white, which leads me to believe Hammer may have designated some...
WatchMan can tell a joke!
twiststreet:
President Obama’s chunk on Donald Trump.
Watchsteveagee:
witstream:
Seth Meyers, great. Barack Obama, serious comedy chops.
Seth KILLED! He DESTROYS Donald Trump at about 11:45 in to the video. Nothing makes me happier than the cutaway shots of Trump looking PISSED OFF!
