Life on a major record label was full of high highs and low lows for Oklahoma City singer-songwriter Graham Colton. Forging his own path as an independent artist the past few years has proven to be more his speed. “To be honest, it’s equally liberating and terrifying. When you have a success, there’s nothing like […]
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Rudyard Kipling’s Mark of the Beast
Not only is the title superimposed over an image from the indie effort, but two clickable options, two URLs and four review blurbs, as if to convince you upfront that you are about to witness brilliance. To further complicate the eyesore, the blurbs are not presented in consistent typeface, color or size. In other words, […]
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The Ghostmaker
A little research reveals it was built by an inventor of torture devices — a man considered “an evil version of Leonardo da Vinci. They called him the Devil’s Craftsman.” The coffin is a “ghost machine” constructed to allow its users to safely experience the sensation of death without actually dying. One goldfish test later, […]
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Nitro Circus: The Movie
Sandwiched between a faux-stakes framing device of preparing for its first live show in Las Vegas, ringleader Travis Pasternak and his Nitro Circus crew perform X Games-friendly stunts that must have earned a nod of the helmet from Evel Knievel in heaven. The guys — and lone woman, Jolene Van Vugt — often defy gravity […]
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[REC] 3: Genesis
Despite the subtitle, it’s not really a prequel. Ingeniously presented as a cheesy wedding video, complete with menu and photo montage, the film documents the nuptials of Clara (Leticia Dolera) and Koldo (Diego Martín), and the subsequent country-club reception that gives new meaning to “blow-out.” At some point deep into the dance-party portion of the […]
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House of Dark Shadows / Night of Dark Shadows
Both directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis (Dead of Night), the pair of flicks conveniently has arrived in long-overdue DVD and Blu-ray releases from Warner Home Video. Both also benefit in the production value inherent of theatrical releases, which the live, shot-on-video soap often severely lacked. It took me a while to realize this, […]
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Safety Not Guaranteed
Feature-debuting director Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed marks the rarest of indie comedies — the speculative kind — as Jeff, a cocky magazine writer (Jake Johnson, TV’s New Girl) in Seattle, relies on his intern, Darius (Aubrey Plaza, TV’s Parks and Recreation), to use her feminine wiles to get close to the lonely grocery clerk/would-be […]
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The Pact
Following the death of her mother, an independent-minded waitress named Annie (Caity Lotz, TV’s Death Valley) returns with dogged reluctance to her childhood home — and that’s before her sister (Agnes Bruckner, Kill Theory) and friend (Kathleen Rose Perkins, TV’s Episodes) have vanished there. As made perfectly clear by the cover art, a malevolent force […]
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Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch / Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers / Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
And if there weren’t, why do the sequels keep being re-released? The first four recently were — yet again, but with valid reason to upgrade and/or double-dip. Modest theatrical hits in 1988 and 1989, respectively, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers make Blu-ray debuts courtesy of […]
Posted inMusic
‘Grease’ girl
Although Olivia Newton-John earned her stripes well before starring in 1978’s Grease and released her debut album an entire decade before 1981’s Physical, odds are that when you think of the Australian pop star, you think of one of two things: black hot pants or a leotard. Despite those benchmarks, she has performed nonstop for […]