Drive-In Dive In: 7 in the Torture Chamber

Posted: May 25, 2015 in Drive In, Horror, Reviews
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blonde-smokeYou’ve had this one circled and underlined in your appointment book for weeks. As soon as the trailer flashed up on the big white screen in the field a few weeks back during the Coming Attractions break between movies, you swore by all that is unholy that you would be back at the drive-in for the opening weekend of 7 in the Torture Chamber. For aspiring exploitation directors and screenwriters everywhere, always bear in mind that the single most important marketing aspect for your film is a title that grabs the would-be viewer by the goodies and squeezes. You need a title that will have 11-year old boys conspiring to somehow, someway get in to see the film without knowing a single additional thing about it.

7 in the Torture Chamber fits the bill nicely. Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrowland Review

Posted: May 22, 2015 in Action, Fantasy, Reviews, Science Fiction
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TomorrowlandDisney as cult is not a new concept. The Corporation would never choose such a descriptor, but neither has it ever shied away from behavior that justifies the label. Walt Disney saw his company as the landscapers of the future, the architects of the social engineering that would lead us into a brave, new world that simultaneously held the small town values of a past that never existed with a technology-solves-everything, squeaky clean and dazzlingly white future that could be ours if we purged ourselves of our baser vulgarities. Read the rest of this entry »

Mad Max: Fury Road Review

Posted: May 15, 2015 in Action, Reviews
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Mad MaxFor once, you can buy the hype.

You will see the screaming shout-outs in the Mad Max: Fury Road ads on line, in print, and on TV, and you will ask if it is really that good.

It is.

Mad Max: Fury Road is cinematic insanity. It defies routine film criticism. It exceeds the highest standards of the best moments of the three previous Mad Max films. It kicks ass, over and over and over again.

You will crawl out of an IMAX screening of this movie drained, with drums still pounding in your head. You will scan the horizon for Pole Cats, Gas Boys, War Pups, and Imperators. You will ask yourself, “What the hell did I just see?” Read the rest of this entry »

Drive-In Dive In: Assassin’s Game

Posted: May 13, 2015 in Action, Drive In, Reviews
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548790_036It’s decision time at the virtual drive-in. You’ve made it through the first two features of the night, and there’s a third one coming up. It’s a coin flip whether you stick it out and settle back in the vinyl upholstery of the front seat or whether you reholster the heavy metal speaker that’s been resting on your driver side window and join the growing line of cars heading for the exit.

Next up is Assassin’s Game, and all you know is that Tom Sizemore, Bai Ling, and Vivica A. Fox are the above-the-credits talent, and the premise is something about a hitman coming out of retirement to save his son. What the hey? It might turn out as poorly as ordering the deep fried shrimp from the snack bar, but any lingering aftertaste from bad movies and bad shellfish will be forgotten by next weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

Maggie Review

Posted: May 10, 2015 in Drama, Horror, Reviews
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MaggieTwenty-five years ago, Maggie would have been a profoundly different movie.

Cast Arnold Schwarzenegger in a zombie movie back then, and the only question would have been whether the one-line wisecracks would have outnumbered the body count.

Skip Arnold and go with the same script of the film that opened this weekend, and Maggie would have been widely viewed as a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic and the societal shunning of its victims.

In 2015, the film is an oddity, neither action adventure nor art house fare, with Schwarzenegger cast against type as part of his second act as a movie star after his hiatus in politics. Read the rest of this entry »

Fun Size Horror: Volume One Review

Posted: May 3, 2015 in Horror, Reviews
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Fun-Size-Horror-HBFun Size Horror: Volume One is the final step of a terrific idea. For Halloween 2014, Zeke Pinheiro rallied his friends and fellow directors into creating a series of horror shorts and releasing them onto the web via select sites that cater to fans of the genre. Now, they’ve been brought together and released via iTunes and VOD as a complete package.

The result is just what the title promises – bite-sized scares that rival more heralded anthologies of late including The ABCs of Death and V/H/S series. It’s a perfect fun pack for pre-gaming your next costume party. Volume Two is reportedly underway for release this fall. Read the rest of this entry »

Drive-In Dive In: The Ladies of the House

Posted: May 1, 2015 in Drive In, Horror, Reviews
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imageIs cannibalism the flavor of the month?

In 2013, we had a delicious Maori dish served with a side of kiwi in the New Zealand comedy cannibal caper, Fresh Meat. Eli Roth reheated ingredients from classic recipes like Cannibal Apocalypse and Cannibal Holocaust in his 2014 film, The Green Inferno. Even The Walking Dead whipped up a little something at the beginning of season 5 when it turned out that the good folks of Terminus were a match for any zombie when it came to chowing down on their fellow man.

Long pig – it’s not just for hillbillies any more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ex Machina Review

Posted: April 27, 2015 in Drama, Reviews, Science Fiction
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ex machinaOn the surface, Ex Machina is a state of the art meditation on artificial intelligence with a sleek, somewhat sterile, post-modern sense of the brave new digital world that awaits when Google and Apple turn from making phones and watches to manufacturing brains. Pop the hood and take a look inside the film, however, and you’ll see that Ex Machina‘s circuitry dates back to post-World War II science fiction. Underneath its shiny, new skin, this very welcome oasis of calm, adult entertainment is a robot movie. And like all robot movies, the central question is: what does it mean to be human? Read the rest of this entry »

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

Posted: April 26, 2015 in Action, Reviews
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MV5BMTc3MDc0NDkzOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjIwMjQ0NTE@._V1__SX1202_SY826_Have often do you see a film that starts well only to falter at the midway point and limp to a conclusion that leaves you wondering what might have been? Conversely, how seldom do you see a film that is going off the rails in the early going, yet somehow manages to correct its mistakes after halftime and eke out a win?

Count Avengers: Age of Ultron as one of the rare films that appears headed toward failure, yet somehow course corrects halfway through and finishes strong enough to be regarded as a mild success. As summer blockbuster entertainment, you can call it necessary, but not sufficient. Read the rest of this entry »

Drive-In Dive In: Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman

Posted: April 25, 2015 in Action, Drive In, Foreign, Reviews
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MV5BMTM1MDI5NDIzN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTE2Nzk1OA@@._V1__SX1202_SY828_Is there such a thing as rational nostalgia?

Can a romantic longing for missing elements of the past be justified analytically?

In the rush to a streamlined, sensible, efficient 6G, fully digital world, have we left behind essential naugahyde elements of the old, analog neighborhoods?

Damn it, wouldn’t life be better if we still had drive-in movie theaters? Read the rest of this entry »

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