For those who have been clamoring for a return to the more optimistic, life-affirming version of The Lips (or, as some would call them, “songs”), Peace Sword ought to appease — albeit subtly. The six-song EP was conceived after being asked to write music for the end credits of the recently released sci-fi flick Ender’s […]
sword
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Blades of gory
As Austin outfit The Sword would tell it, it’s a good time to be a heavy metal band. “People are finally trying some different stuff in heavy metal and hard rock,” frontman J.D. Cronise said. “All too often, bands rely on the traditional way … but traditional metal is funny to me because it’s a […]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXVI
Besides, fans of MST3K only need know that another collection exists, and they’re sold. The latest, Volume XXVI (aka 26, if you don’t like maths), may not have any classics among its four-ep offering, but any episode is worth owning. Among this batch, my favorite is the most recent: 1988’s Alien from L.A., a sci-fi […]
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The Five Man Army
The multiculti cast is led by Peter Graves as The Dutchman. For someone who grew up on multiple viewings of Airplane!, seeing Graves as a badass outlaw is something of a trip. At the time, he was about midway through his run on TV’s Mission: Impossible, and like that long-running series, Five Man Army finds […]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXIV
This edition — four episodes on four discs, per Shout! Factory’s usual — is like a cinematic-crap tour around the globe. We venture south of the border for 1962’s Samson vs. the Vampire Women, a masked-wrestler epic that stars Santo (not Samson, no matter what the title says), the caped superhero of Mexico’s wrasslin’ ring. […]
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Hercules, Samson and Ulysses / The Slave / Sandokan the Great
The appeal of 1963’s Hercules, Samson and Ulysses is right there in the title, or as the trailer puts it with caps-lock hyperbole, “THE 3 OF THEM — TOGETHER!” Here, Pietro Francisci, director of the 1958 Steve Reeves smash Hercules, marries the mythical with the biblical in joining Hercules (not Reeves, but Kirk Morris, Hercules Against the […]
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The King of Fighters
In “Fighters,” three ancient artifacts — a sword, a shield and a chain-metal necklace that looks like Red Sonja’s thong — combine to unleash energy that opens a gateway to another dimension where characters compete in underground fighting tournaments to become the King of Fighters. There, logic and physics are on hold, tunnels are awash […]