(2004) dir. Alexandra Cassavetes
viewed: 08/28/06
This film, which I stumbled onto in Netflix and seems to have been an IFC production, turned out to be a fascinating documentary about Z Channel, an early cable network dedicated to cinema in its truest sense. Run by Jerry Harvey, a mentally ill and personally challenged genius of film appreciation, [...]
Archive of entries posted on August 2006
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
El Dorado
(1966) dir. Howard Hawks
viewed: 08/27/06
I, as I often have stated here, hate watching movies on broadcast television and almost utterly refuse to do so. So, why I decided to watch Howard Hawks’ El Dorado, I can only say that I happened to catch it coming on and decided to stick with it. AMC used to [...]
Snakes on a Plane
(2006) dir. David R. Ellis
viewed: 08/26/06 at Metreon, SF, CA
Motherfuckin’ snakes on a motherfuckin’ plane.
This film delivers on its premise and promise, which is essentially just that. It’s totally ridiculous and it doesn’t have any pretentions that it’s not. It’s downright laugh-out-loud funny, especially with a hyper hyped-up Saturday night audience that is still buzzing [...]
Mau Mau Sex Sex
(2001) dir. Ted Bonnitt
viewed: 08/23/06
Despite the luridness of the title, this film is actually a pretty simple documentary about David F. Friedman and Dan Sonney, two pioneers of the Exploitation genre. The title comes from a quote by Sonney who says that a film that they were trying to release called Mau Mau didn’t have [...]
Monster House
(2006) dir. Gil Kenan
viewed: 08/14/06 at Odeon Derby, Derby, UK
Second film that I watched in England on this holiday (annoyed again by the nearly half hour of garbage advertising that preceded even the trailers) was again straight out of Hollywood, and like the Pirates film, it was actually a very good example of what Hollywood [...]
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
(2006) dir. Gore Verbinski
viewed: 08/05/06 at Odeon Derby, Derby, UK
I haven’t seen a film in England in five years or more, I reckon. Not that it’s a particularly different experience from the states. Years ago, the UK was the first place that I ever saw commercials in the cinema prior to the film, though that [...]
Black Hawk Down
(2001) dir. Ridley Scott
viewed: 07/31/06
Despite the fact that I do not particularly like War films, I had had this movie in my rental queue for almost four years. The incident that it depicts, the downing of two Black Hawk helicopters in the city of Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, was a turning point in the Clinton administration [...]
