Earlier in the year, buzz about Twin Peaks returning was in high gear. Everyone started their rewatches and conversations flourished. Obviously, the one person that would be in every conversation would be the man who played the incomparable Kyle MacLachlan. Driving to work, listening to the Shock Waves podcast, one of the crew mentioned that…
Sci-Fi
BLADE RUNNER 2049 “In One Ostentatious Word: Fan-fucking-tastic!”
It is 10:08 on Thursday night and I have just made it home after seeing Blade Runner 2049. I walked out the cinemas doors and felt the cool air meet me as I walked to my car, strolling through the poorly lit parking lot. Usually I would start calling folks or texting after a movie,…
31 Days, Day 3: WHAT JUST HAPPENED – Chapters 1-5
[Editor’s Note: One of the things we’re featuring this year as part of 31 Days of Halloween is a short book that Cash, my son, begn writing in a notebook last month. He wanted to share it and, together, we decided to do it in 3 parts, one part each week for the first 3…
PUFF 2017: Beauty, Gore, Metal, and Tits – A Day 1 Wrap Up
When he wears her tits… just wow. That’s the text I received when I woke up this morning. I don’t get texts like this very often. A text like this at 7:00am could only mean one thing – PUFF 2 has begun. 2016’s inagural Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival (known as PUFF) was my favorite movie…
PUFF 2017: Lauren Ashley Carter Stars in Natasha Kermani’s Contemplative Sci-Fi Film IMITATION GIRL
Imitation Girl is the festival’s opening night movie at the festival. It starts at 7:00. Get tickets to the film or a full pass at FilmFreeway!
TOBE TUESDAY: Tobe Invades Our Imaginations with His 1986 Cannon Remake of the Classic INVADERS FROM MARS
As I sit here watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the first time in my adult life (it’s possible I’ve never seen it 100% through and unedited, to be honest) and I have Eaten Alive queued up, I can’t help but think to myself, “Goddammit, John Carpenter better get to the doctor stat!” We’ve…
SIMPLE CREATURE Wrestles with Vast Ideas Using Powerful Performances
Simple Creature (2016, Old Loyal Films) is a strange little flick about a young woman who’s been reconstructed after an accident into some kind of bio engineered super human. I think. It’s not super clear what all is going on here. There’s a lot going on. Written and directed by Andrew Finnigan, Simple Creature is…
It Took Me Far Too Long to ENTER THE WARRIOR’S GATE, Don’t Make My Mistake
If you are anything like me, you enjoy a good PG-13 fantasy film that you can get away with watching in from of your kids. Films like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World are staples in my film diet, watching alone, with the missus, and/or with the kids. Some parents wouldn’t let their 6 and 8…
PRISONER X: Hard and Smart Sci-Fi with Small Budget and Big Ideas
With a limited budget and talented – but unknown – cast, this film creates tension and genuine intrigue through a complex narrative with hard sci-fi concepts. Prisoner X is deeply contemplative, unique, and well made. Perhaps, it can feel a bit slow at times, but it ultimately achieves in being exactly the film it sets…
ALIEN: COVENANT is Better than the Internet Haters are Telling You!
I have a tendency to avoid trailers and hype around big releases, especially when it is something that I am excited for. Alien: Covenant IS one of those titles and I had to try hard as fuck not to read reviews, hype and hate on the internet. I wanted the purest viewing experience and made…
Sunday Squabble: Arrow’s Release of DONNIE DARKO is a Great Edition of a Great Film… or is It?
Friday Fights getting posted on Sundays seem to be a thing lately. Fridays get crazy, then Saturdays follow suit. In this week’s case, I had this almost set Friday night, then finished it yesterday, then my computer died. When I turned it back on, it reverted to an unedited version… so, I’m finally almost done…
Finding God at the Grindhouse: Predestination, Free Will, and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Over the past few weeks, I rewatched 2 films that have always hit me hard, one is considered a classic and the other is pretty well regarded by the horror community but not many beyond that specific demographic: the first being Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s landmark novel A Clockwork Orange and the latter…
DAVE MADE A MAZE and Tonight, the Fine Folks at BUFF 2017 Will Show it to You
Ummm… sooo… I just watched Dave Made a Maze… and… it was… different. In what is literally the most unique and weirdest film I’ve seen in a really long time… like a really long time… we begin the film with a guy named Dave who built a maze. His beautiful live in girlfriend finds their…
Six 2016 Films that Made Ana Happy
Everybody Wants Some Richard Linklater has finally made a bookend of sorts to Dazed and Confused. Imagine a film that embodies the feel of 1980: It’s excellently acted, roll-on-floor hilarious, and centers around a college baseball team the weekend before school starts. This was my favorite film of the year. Rogue One: A Star Wars…
Lines from 2016 Films That Resulted in My Baffling Laughter
“Learrrrninnnng.” – Apocalypse from X-Men: Apocalypse, with his hand pressed against a tube-television, implying he’s learning the history of mankind via a singular Egyptian television station’s current programming. One hopes he got lucky enough for an anchor on that station to reference the internet so that he learns of its existence and make some real…
HE-MAN Meets FERNGULLY at Ithaca Fantastik Fest
Nova Seed is exactly the kind of movie that makes film festivals like Ithaca Fantastik so worthwhile. Essentially He-Man meets FernGully, drawn in the style of an 11-year-old’s math notebook doodles, Nova Seed is a Saturday morning adventure cartoon about environmentalism. With a great sense of visual storytelling, propelled by a fun, 80’s-style original score,…
Ithaca Fantastik Fest is Upon Us!
Tomorrow night, on Wednesday the 9th, one day after this shitshow of an election, you can head North from election headquarters in NYC to the home of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, to catch some great movies and soak in love of film. Hugues Barbier, the head of the Ithaca Fantastik, is excited for the…
31 Days, Day 30: Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright, I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER, Alright?
Officer: What’s the prognosis, John? John: He’s dead, for sure. From the onset, John (Max Records from Where the Wild Things Are) presents as a young man of little affect. He seems completely unfazed by the presence of death and has a very even temperament. We soon find out that despite being a good kid…
31 Days, Day 26: Johnny Galecki Pukes Out an Adorable Pet Creature in THE MASTER CLEANSE at BHFF
Winner of Brooklyn Horror Film Fest’s “Best Effects” award, The Master Cleanse, has a star studded cast that includes Johnny Galecki, Anjelica Huston, Oliver Platt, Anna Friel, and Kyle Gallner. On top of the incredible effects and amazing cast, the film also has a great script, a fantastic sense of humor, and legitimately great cinematography.…
31 Days, Day 23: MEMETIC Shows Us the End is Nigh
Ignorance is now a choice. We have lightning fast connection to all of human information with us at all times. It changes how we communicate and how we pass information. I still have one friend that will call me to identify an obscure Muppet or remember who played that part in what movie. But other…
31 Days, Day 7: Week 1 of Friday Frights Takes on EVENT HORIZON
Every Friday this month, the team is going to take on a horror flick streaming on Netflix as a special October sub-series of Stream a Little Stream called “Friday Frights”. This week, we tackled a little 90s cult horror film called Event Horizon. This week was my selection, which I chose because somehow I’d never…
31 Days, Day 7: PUFF 16 Opens with Some SMALL TALK
Paired with a screening of CRSHN ON U (a 2-minute short described as a “a stylish EDM nightmare date” that you can watch right here) Small Talk marked the opening of the very first Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival, or PUFF. Small Talk is a decent little genre short in which a phone sex operator starts…
When Tomatoes Kill: The Clooney Connection
Arrow Films just put out a Blu-ray for what is perhaps a cult classic? I don’t really know. You can read my review of the first one on Letterboxd, which I thought was decent fun with a few good jokes, but mostly felt pretty frivolous. Here, they improve on their formula in big ways but…
Two of a Grind: July 5th Edition
Still feeling patriotic after yesterday’s festivities? Or maybe just hungover and in need of a good “hangover movie” or two? You’re in luck, because today’s Two of a Grind features two war movies and what is more American than war? While the greatest war film of all time, Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, is available for…
BODY BAGS: Your New Favorite Horror Anthology
[Editor’s Note: This review is a bit different for the Stream a Little Stream column. Instead of a few short recommendations, we have one recommendation, with a full review (I, Justin, also reviewed this over at Cinapse as a Pick of the Week awhile back). And in this case, you can watch this one 100%…
Two of a Grind: Monsters Enter the Real Green Inferno
Introducing a new column today, Two of a Grind. Like Stream a Little Stream, I’m going to make some streaming suggestions for you to enjoy. Unlike, Stream a Little Stream, I won’t make suggestions from a variety of services, focusing solely of The Grindhouse Channel, and I’ll exclusively be choosing films I’ve seen (I think).…
Stream a Little Stream: Wild Turbo
The title of this new weekly column is a not-so-clever play on the title of the 1989 Coreys classic… However, the title of the column is a perfect summary of what the column entails… each week I’ll post a recommendation each from 3 or 4 of my favorite streaming services. This week, the three selections…
True Ethical Dilemma
As someone who considers himself a sociologist, it’s probably not surprising at all how extremely fascinating I found my first viewing of The Purge. The stratified system of gender, race, and class is present in virtually all of the themes of the film. From the mass execution and complete disregard of the homeless to interesting…
On Steampunk
This piece was originally written for an old website that thepaintedman ran, but seeing as it is informative and no less relevant. Some references may be a couple of years old, but here it is for a new audience! Steampunk is the biggest literary and artistic genre that you’ve probably never heard of. I can…