But curiosity is curiosity, and interest is interest, so when Warner Archive issued an MOD DVD set of them in Perry Mason Mysteries: The Original Warner Bros. Movies Collection, I just had to check it out, your honor. Warren William (who also played another famous detective, Philo Vance, for the big screen) stars as the […]
trailer
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Bigfoot County
In li’l ol’ Siskiyou County, Calif., Bigfoot has been sighted 913 times in the last 25 years — so states the opening crawl of this found-footage film. Although the sought target is different, Bigfoot County copies The Blair Witch Project story template to a near T, what with sticks, tent rattling, heavy breathing at night […]
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A Vampire’s Tale
After unpacking his prized oldest obsidian mirror, Jacob inadvertently allows a time-traveling cowboy to cross over into our world, landing right smack in his barn. The cowboy, Phelan (Jonnie Hurn, The Zombie Diaries), is actually a hundreds-year-old vampire, not to mention one who makes references to The Shining, Army of Darkness and, um, City Slickers. […]
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Classic Albums: Peter Gabriel: So
To Classic Albums newcomers, the franchise delivers the “definitive authorised story” of a culture-shaking disc in feature-length form, relying on video clips, concert footage and many a talking-head interview from the talents who were there, on both sides of the studio glass. In this case, that includes Gabriel, other musicians, members of the tech team […]
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Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Five hundred years ago, a fox demon (Xun Zhou, Cloud Atlas) was imprisoned in the ice. Five hundred years later, she is freed, is nursed back to health, and wants to be human, yet has a heart hot enough to melt ice. This being an Asian epic fantasy, that doesn’t strike the other characters as […]
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Kill ’Em All
Then, Saw-style, eight of them wake up locked in a dingy warehouse room dubbed The Killing Chamber, where hit men are taken to die. All of them are assassins, but only one will be allowed to leave after rounds and rounds of glorious mortal combat. So says Snakehead (Gordon Liu, the ’70s martial-arts superstar experiencing […]
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Big Tits Zombie
But I’ll give you several dozen more. Aoi plays Lena Jodo, the illiterate, chain-saw-wielding stripper heroine at the center of this unapologetic celebration of arterial spray and areola. As her club is being shut down, she and her fellow entertainers … wait, what’s that? I’m boring you? Apologies. How’s this instead: an old Asian midget, […]
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With Great Power …: The Stan Lee Story
But no household name has led a life devoid of conflict and drama, and the three-director doc skirts over those portions, because I assume this project was made with the subject’s full approval. It is — pardon my French — one ass-kisser of a career retrospective. To give credit where credit is due, Lee truly […]
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Comes a Bright Day
The story surrounds a hostage situation during the attempted theft of a diamond butterfly broach commissioned by Napoleon and valued at some $1 million and change, and the efforts of a mild-mannered errand runner (Craig Roberts, Jane Eyre) to become a hero in the face of danger. So what if it mostly to impress the […]
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Rites of Spring
Realizing that’s been done before, writer/director Padraig Reynolds shrewdly introduces a second storyline in the form of a $2 million kidnapping scheme concocted by a white-trash trio on a wealthy family. For these two storylines to converge takes about 50 minutes, and just before they do, Rites delivers a welcome twist. Well, it would be […]