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There was a time back in my more formative years (around the mid-90's) where I was on this kick to find the most disturbing or gross films ever made. Titles like Ruggero Deotato's Cannibal Holocaust, Pasolini's Salo: 120 Days of Sodom and Men Behind the Sun were some of my absolute favorites when it came to these amazing taboo-breaking films. Agusti Villaraonga's In a Glass Cage also stood high among these classic shockers.
Dave discusses his love for a mystery solving Angela Lansbury. He and Kevin also talk about the rest of the elderly television sleuths, kids shows that starred adults and the many celebrities we lost over the last week. They also give their thoughts on who portrayed which DC superheroes the best.
Raro Video has taken it upon themselves over the past few years to release numerous classic film works from writer/director Fernando Di Leo. There was the excellent release of Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man, a Blu-ray boxset with four of his finest films (Caliber 9, Rulers of the City, The Boss and The Italian Connection) and now the recently released Shoot First, Die Later in a Blu-ray special edition is finally available. If you’re itching for some no-nonsense, violent Polizia, Mr. Di Leo rarely disappoints.
...good grief, George!!! In the 45-year aftermath of the macabre and gruesome concept introduced in the classic 1968 horror chiller, "Night of the Living Dead" (...as well as the countless incarnations of such, which have prolifically ensued, over the years...in movies, television and books), look what that concept has wrought...look what it has come to. What was once a unique, albeit graphically visceral, threshold-testing cinematic reinvention of definition (...the 'zombie'...once merely relegated to representation by one whose death is feigned, who is redrawn from the grave...thought still dead, but very much alive...and who is herbally enslaved to a master of the dark rituals of Voodoo.....now, a wayward viral infestation...origin varying, depending upon the story...whereby although the infected also rise from the dead, they instead are mindlessly frenzied, decaying, independently operating re-animations, driven to that one primal instinct, which indelibly remains in the fading vestige of their minds...to eat...or horrifically rather, to eat human flesh), has since become a world-wide, commercially recognized institution...like Twinkies...like Walmart...heck, like the very megastar of the following film to be reviewed herein, Brad Pitt. We've definitely come a long way, since genre fav George A. Romero's genre-changing horror classic...indeed, even since the deliciously over-the-top, stomach-churning 'spaghetti' horror days of Fulci, Bianchi and Mattai...so much so, in fact, that the 'zombie' concept in recent productions, like AMC's "The Walking Dead", seems to have taken an 'oh-by-the-way' back-seated backdrop, in favor of the suspense, tension and high-drama of having to survive in the midst of such apocalyptic turmoil. In a surprisingly tame and UN-visceral way, for better or for worse, such can be said for the recent entry in the well-worn horror sub-genre...the internationally intriguing, spansive and epic-sized apocalyptic "World War Z"...
SCHOOLGIRL REPORT VOL. 10: Every Girl Starts Sometime makes learning fun!
...I really envy my late grandfather's days, when it came to visiting the local cinema. Back in the '30's and '40's, for a measly ten cents, eager movie theater attendees of all ages, were privy to TWO feature films, which were proceeded by, and sandwiched a handful of movie trailers, a cartoon, a newsreel...and a weekly chapter of the latest serial, or cliffhanger. Never mind the pre-set allure and attraction of the feature films, each week...those cliffhanger chapters were definitely a great crowd-drawing gimmick, as...providing the serial was suspensefully engaging enough...people clambered back to the theaters each week, to see what happens to the cliffhangers' various characters, who were in dire straits and peril at the end of one week's episode, only to emerge from such peril, relatively unscathed, in the onset of the following week's vignette. It is somewhat surprising that in this day and age, when a hefty price at the movies (...nearly 100 times that of the aforementioned good old days, and thus driving folks further away from the auditoriums, and into their homes, where their wall-sized LCD television reigns movie-supreme) provides only ONE feature film, two or three trailers...AND commercials, no less...that movie distributors and movie house managers haven't considered reviving the movie serial, if at the very least, an able-bodied money-grubbing attempt to draw and keep theater patrons' butts in their seats. And this viewer, who WOULD gullibly, albeit gleefully venture regularly to the local cinema, in response to any such revival of the cliffhanger, can't help but think that THIS movie serial, a nostalgically wild and wholly, rip-roarin' action-packed, Old West six-shooter western from 1950, called "Desperadoes of the West", most assuredly had to have been one of those likably exciting chapter serials, which brought 'em in droves, back in the day...
Kevin and Dave discuss a ton of hockey movies in honor of the Stanley Cup winning Blackhawks.
For those of you who thought Cannon Films were just action film specialist back in the 80's, look no further then the sci-fi/horror oddity that is Lifeforce. Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Funhouse, Poltergeist) and penned by the late Dan O' Bannon (Alien, Return of the Living Dead), this cluster of space-vampire wackiness has just made it to Blu-ray and DVD via the folks at Scream Factory in a special edition that could "breathe" some new life into this underrated space fright flick.
...there's definitely something to be said about the unique appeal to films about bounty hunters...that eclectically anti-heroic, reputed pain-in-the-ass lot, who tend to cut against the grain of authority with their own rules, doing whatever it takes, and acting just enough outside the law, to not outright get themselves dirty, in the process of doing what they do best...bringing in the bad guys, for a price. Unbound by the staunch, rigored and disciplined regiment, regularly upheld by established law enforcement, they waywardly act of their own accord...sometimes quite recklessly, and often enough...gruff, raw & unorthodoxed...maintaining a frustratingly reciprocative love/hate relationship with the underlining, behind-the-scenes authority figures, who reluctantly, albeit needfully hires them out to do the job required, on a level outside of the restrictive boundaries of the law. As such, we cannot help but relish this brand of cinematic anti-hero, and their devil-may-care philosophies & attitudes because, quite frankly, as most of us are ourselves bound by the restrictive and sometimes obstacle-riddled set rules of our respective vocations, whatever they might be, we secretly fantasize being able to rebelliously operate outside of those rules...daringly and forbiddingly embracing and exhuing that 'devil-may-care' attitude...in an effort to get the same job done...perhaps even better, as time and time again, often does occur with film-rendered bounty hunters. For this viewer, a crust of personal favorites in that respect...covering a pretty wide spectrum...include 1986's "Wanted: Dead or Alive (...with Rutger '@#$% the bonus' Hauer), 1980's "Tom Horn", 1992's "Unforgiven", 1977's "Bare Knuckles", 1988's "Midnight Run", and oh yes, let's not forget about last year's "Django Unchained". And surprisingly enough, there's just might be enough room in this respected lot to include the ruggedly charming and jovial direct-to-video retro-actioner...recently upgraded to the Blu-Ray format...1996's "Bounty Hunters"...
Directed by Jack Pollexfen
