“Bad Dreams” centers on Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin), the lone survivor of a Jonestown-esque religious cult that ended in a blaze 13 years ago, when its charismatic brainwasher of a leader, Harris (Richard Lynch, “Invasion U.S.A.”), soaked everybody in gasoline a lit a match. She’s spent the entire time since in a coma. Almost immediately upon […]
DVD review
Posted inArts & Culture
A Horrible Way to Die
And yet, this one has something most mumblecore does not: an actual story. The loose structure of mumblecore feels like on-the-fly moviemaking: continual bobbing of the handheld camera, zooming without worrying about pulling focus, unobstructed views of Swanberg’s penis. Here, director Adam Wingard (“Pop Skull”) sacrifices shots of full-frontal Swanberg. In its place: in-your-face Swanberg […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cry Terror!
Man 1: “Well, suddenly, we’ve got a problem on our hands, and it’s a dilly: the prankster.” Man 2: “Oh, no, not another one.” Man 1: “The fifth character to pull this sort of stunt in the last 60 days alone.” Man 2: “Used to be the joker who turned in the phony fire alarms. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cameraman: The Life & Work of Jack Cardiff
Pretty good for a man who considered his job to be “nonsense,” in an industry he found “full of hypocrisy and hyperbole.” Bookended by footage of the man receiving his honorary Academy Award — the first cinematographer to do so — in 2001, “Cameraman: The Life & Work of Jack Cardiff” celebrates his lengthy and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dream Home
Cheng (Josie Ho, “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li”) has her heart set on a flat appraised at more than $5 million. There’s only one problem: She can’t afford it on her salary as a bank telemarketer, even with her part-time job as a shop salesclerk. Oh, there’s a second problem, too: The apartment is […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Alfred Hitchcock: A Legacy of Suspense
Mill Creek Entertainment’s “Alfred Hitchcock: A Legacy of Suspense” collects 18 movies on four discs, for less than $10. The cover reads 20 movies, but two episodes of NBC’s “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” while welcome, do not count. While “early” means “public domain” — in other words, expect no “Psycho” — don’t think these aren’t worth […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Zen: Vendetta / Cabal / Ratking
Too bad BBC canceled it less than a month after it aired earlier this year. The reason? “Too much crime,” which is a terrible excuse when the programming is par excellence. Zen — “It’s Venetian,” he says — is played by Rufus Sewell (TV’s “The Pillars of the Earth”); his love interest is the seemingly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Take Me Home Tonight
It’s a tribute to the 80’s teen comedy , set in the latter part of that decade; it absolutely revels in those years, as the way-fun music video amid the extras attests. If not for its fresh-faced stars of today, the film could very well pass as a product of that era. Having a hand […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Oblivion
1. It’s from Full Moon Entertainment’s heyday of straight-to-video fare. 2. When’s the last time you saw Siamese twin poker players, identical right down to the eye patch? 3. Andrew Divoff (“Wishmaster”) plays dual roles, including the lead villain, a reptilian green guy named Redeye.4. Julie Newmar portrays a madam, but basically does it as […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Haunted Summer
To combat this, producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus made the occasional stab at respectability, like 1988’s “Haunted Summer.” Directed by Ivan Passer (“Loves of a Blonde”), it’s a dramatization of the wild week in 1816 amid a summer Switzerland paradise when horror fiction practically was born overnight. Mind you, it’s not too high-minded; a […]