I’ve seen enough Rob Zombie movies to know that you never should accept a ride from Bill Moseley, no matter how genuine his “aw, shucks” demeanor seems. Young Mara (unknown Michelle Page) either didn’t know this, or was simply too caught up trying to spread her deceased father’s ashes at the Rogue River. With her […]
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The Aggression Scale
A Polaroid! Cinematically, that’s a nice touch; realistically, it’s cost-prohibitive. Besides, now that the company has stopped making the instant film, it’s increasingly difficult to find. Paid assassins, take note: It’s never too late to embrace the technological wonder of Instagram. That’s all beside the point. In this Scale, out-on-bail crime lord Bellavance (Ray Wise, […]
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Cinema Verite
How that came to be is depicted in the made-for-HBO film Cinema Verite, directed by the American Splendor team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, with Diane Lane (Secretariat) and Tim Robbins (Green Lantern) respectively starring as Pat and Bill, the heads of the Loud family. Shooting their every move — every highlight, every […]
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The Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls
The Wizard of Gore may not be among Lewis’ best, but it’s one of his most notorious. The title character is Montag the Magnificent (Lewis regular Ray Sager), a stage magician who maims and dismembers his hypnotized female “volunteers,” who leave appearing A-OK, only for their wounds to reappear later, this time fatally. Sherry Carson […]
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Mimic 3 Film Set
I’ve always found del Toro’s Mimic to be a pretty decent, if disposable, film. But now, with a few extra minutes in his director’s cut, I find Mimic to be a pretty decent, if disposable, film that’s a little bit longer. As Dr. Susan Tyler, Mira Sorvino (remember her?) battles giant cockroaches in the subway […]
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Flareup
Utterly kaleidoscopic credits to a most swinging Les Baxter score give way to the story of Vegas belle Michelle (Welch). One sunny, carefree afternoon, she’s drinking tea and making shopping plans with pals Iris (soap actress Pat Delaney) and Nikki (Oklahoma-born Sandra Giles). Plans are broken when Alan (Luke Askew, Easy Rider), the jealous loser […]
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Death and Cremation
One of the outcasts is the lonely, miserable Stan (Brad Dourif, Halloween II), who runs a crematorium. The other is Jarod (Jeremy Sumpter, Soul Surfer), a high school “loser” who paints his nails black. When the latter approaches the former about a job, Stan reluctantly gives in, yet sees so much of himself in his […]
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The Swell Season
Musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová were not an item when they played the MFEO lovers of Once, but that relationship status changed after the movie’s release. By the time they deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Original Song the following year, they were sharing more than honors. Taking its name from Hansard and […]
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Underworld: Awakening
This chapter finds a virus loosed on the public that turns them into vampires and lycans upon infection. With no cure in sight, martial law has been declared, with a “mass cleansing” immediately following. Amid this chaos, vampire super heroine Selene (Beckinsale, Contraband, Whiteout) is captured, only to awaken in and escape from a high-security […]
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Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie
Of Adult Swim (Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) and Funny or Die Presents infamy, comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim play themselves. Having just squandered a billion dollars of the Schlaaang Corporation’s money on a feature film that somehow runs all of three minutes and stars a guy who isn’t really Johnny Depp, […]