(2001) dir. Ray Greene
viewed: 07/30/06
This film was a Netflix find, but not a good one. The subject matter is very interesting to me, the exploitation films of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The film has some good interviewees including Roger Corman, Samuel Z. Arkoff, and Doris Wishman among them, but the narration by writer/director Ray Greene is [...]
Archive of entries posted on July 2006
Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies
It Came from Outer Space
(1953) dir. Jack Arnold
viewed: 07/29/06 at the Red Vic Movie House, SF, CA
The Red Vic Movie House is one of the great theaters in San Francisco, with its repetory schedule, its cooperative-run and scheduled selections, the fact that popcorn and soda come in actual bowls to be returned rather than more disposable garbage, and it’s homey [...]
Cursed
(2005) dir. Wes Craven
viewed: 07/28/06
Wes Craven isn’t all that interesting of a director, despite having a rather mixed catalogue of career highs and lows. His more notable work I haven’t re-seen in years and am now only more familiar with some of his more recent films. I think that he made his name with some [...]
The 40 Year Old Virgin
(2005) dir. Judd Apatow
viewed: 07/27/06
I could never be a mainstream film critic, not simply because I don’t write well nor try to emulate that fashion, but also because I am not 100% in step with typical opinions of things. For instance when it comes to comedies, I often feel like I don’t have a sense [...]
Five Easy Pieces
(1970) dir. Bob Rafelson
viewed: 07/26/06
A few years ago I read Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood his paean to the 1970’s as a great period in American cinema, which seemed due at the time as the Hollywood machine, even under the influence of the 1990’s “indie film”, [...]
BloodRayne
(2005) dir. Uwe Boll
viewed: 07/25/06
Well, the last of my little sci-fi trilogy turned out to be more or a horror/fantasy set in the “1800’s” apparantly. Still, it’s a modern chicks kick-ass movie, with vampires, which turned out to be the real theme here in the long run. But truly, when looking to save the “best” [...]
Ultraviolet
(2006) dir. Kurt Wimmer
viewed: 07/23/06
Number two in my mini-marathon of bad modern science fiction featuring hot, kick-ass babes. It would actually be interesting to trace this back historically. I am sure that Sigourney Weaver in Aliens (1986) is the real progenitor, but this is a much evolved form, one in which it matters less and [...]
Underworld: Evolution
(2006) dir. Len Wiseman
viewed: 07/22/06
I do these things from time to time, create a mini-festival of like films and watch them in order, if not all at once. Today’s theme, and the theme for the next couple of days, is modern science fiction/horror films in which chicks kick ass. Now I know that doesn’t sound [...]
We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
(2005) dir. Tim Irwin
viewed: 07/17/06
I remember when I read that D. Boon had died in 1985…actually I am pretty sure I didn’t hear about it until 1986, though because I think I read it in Maximum Rock’n’Roll, and I mention this because this is one of the things that strikes me about the film and [...]
The Unholy Three
(1925) dir. Tod Browning
viewed: 07/16/06 at the Castro Theatre
I saw this film as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival which just played at the Castro Theatre over the weekend. Despite the fact that an acquaintance of mine is the chair of the festival and I have been attracted to it in years past, [...]
