Movie Review: "Red Flag/Rubberneck" (2012; Tribeca Film/Cinedigm)

...whether the endeavor proves successful, or garnishes failure, it's actually sometimes interesting to see a filmmaker attempt to concoct feature films in his or her repertoire, under different...sometimes drastically different genres. The act of trying out something outside of one's normally assumed genre...like putting on an alternate overcoat, in a style totally unexpected...for whatever reason...self-arrogance...boredom...creatively wanting to get something off the chest...confidence in one's self, in working out of the norm...it all goes right down to, it's a matter of 'if you are going to do this, you better get it right, or you'll alienate your core audience" (...although there have been countless directors, who have done this very thing, one cannot help but call attention to one of the latest, Kevin Smith, and the mixed results of his break from the norm, "Red State"). However, given a fledgling filmmaker's tendency to do this...to try on different genres...one cannot help but think that the director isn't really sure what he or she wants to do or say, and conjecture inclined, might lead to believe that he's/she's letting the criticism and/or acclaim for his work, drive that filmmaker toward what he or she may prove best at...and yes, ironically, this is in a world where seasoned and untried filmmakers seem to want to strive to break away from their norm, do something that's unconventionally original and different...something deep inside, which they want to say, or a vision, which they want to show...damned be the critics, in the interim...

...oh, Hollywood!! You're so...odd...

...but then, so is this very much contrasting pairing of independents, the humorous "Red Flag", and it's dramatically tense co-feature, "Rubberneck"...both produced, directed and starring actor, and now filmmaker Alex Karpovsky; and yet, while very much odd, this two-fer may not be as opposingly different, as the premises might suggest...

Movie Review: Wrong (2012, Realitism/Drafthouse Films)

...in the short time that I have been scribbling complementary and critical cinematic verbiage for this most embraceably eclectic webpage (...oh yes, a motley crew, are we...), I have gleefully perused through a rather respectable gamut of cult movies...a whole spectrum of relishably lurid schlock, escapist genre classics, arousingly sizzling erotica, easily-digestible commercial oddies, and all point in-between, around the sides, over the top, as well as the slimy, abysmally darkened dreck, underneath (...what was it that Maxwell Smart once offered in response, on more than one occasion?? "...AND loving it!!", I believe it was...). In the midst of having viewed & viewed & viewed, and thusly offered commentary to such viewings, this...well, this viewer has since instigated in the back of his mind, a gage...a measuring device, not so very much unlike that of a meter, measuring a level of intensity, from left to right...an intensity, which reflects how much my face contorts and assumes a live version of the cartoonish Cinema Head Cheese logo, which you readers have come to know and recognize. Least to say, given the wide range of film-fantasique, which this viewer has been privy of, the needle on said gage has seen flutter well across the range of the scale...with the odd, occasional times, when the needle slams resoundly to the right, and this viewer's facial visage takes on the euphorically sado-masochistic and tortured look of this webpage's namesake logo. And it is those rare times when one finds that oh-so numbingly rancid, tantilizingly tasteless and wincingly brain-twisting vintage of Thunderbird...that rare, opportune piece of flickage, which makes one stare hypnotically googly-eyed at the end of the movie...at the screen...through the screen...while the final credits roll, and then, moments later, after the screen has faded to black, makes one shakes one's head back & forth crazily back to reality, blubbering spittle all around, like a Whammo Water Wiggle, and half-laughing/half-screaming madly, in the process...

Movie Review: Freak Dance (2010)

Directed by Matt Besser, Neil Mahoney

Starring Joshua Allen, Edwin J. Bennett and Matt Besser

When rich girl Cocolonia (Megan Heyn) cant shake her booty at home because of her uptight mom (Amy Poehler), she hits the streets, determined to live the lifestyle of a poor, uneducated street dancer. She soon hooks up with a group of  dancers who are about to lose their dance-studio if they cannot come up with money to pay the fines levied by the building inspector.

Together with her new dance partner Funky Bunch (Michael Cassady), Cocolonia must partake in the most dangerous and forbidden dance of them all, The Freak Dance, in a dance-fight to the finish against their arch-rivals, led by the flamboyantly sinister Dazzle (Drew Droege), in an attempt to win enough money to save the studio. The last time The Freak Dance was performed was when the former leader of Funky Bunch’s troupe, Astonaut (Corby Griesenbeck) performed it with Dazzle’s sister.......resulting in Astonaut losing his penis and Dazzle’s sister dying from a shattered spine.

Movie Review: Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012)

I can't wait for all of the hate mail and complaints I get for this one. I know, I know, alternative comedians can do no wrong. If I don't like something they do, I'm just stupid and I don't get it. They are the geniuses of all genius and should be revered as such. I should immediately bow down before I go get some skinny jeans, an ironic ALF t-shirt and Buddy Holly eyeglass frames. Sure, that could be the reality of the situation, but it's not. I do get it, and it just isn't funny. Here's the thing. I like "alternative" comedians. I like David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis and Sarah Silverman as stand-up comedians. I like Mr. Show, The Benson Interruption and Todd Margaret. I even liked King of Queens and Just Shoot Me, which featured some of the pillars of alt comedy. Sometimes, though, the comedians you love so much will do some shitty things. Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie was definitely one of those shitty things.