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- Created: 31 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
Sometimes a classic film - or one we now consider a classic of its genre - underwhelms in its original run. This is the curious case of Breakheart Pass, a film that continues - every five years or so - to garner more interest in it as it reaches new audiences thanks to Charles Bronson’s ...
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- Created: 05 July 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
Here’s a bit of life advice. Never trust the remote village that no one has ever heard of, especially if it puts on a pagan celebration that even fewer are aware of. I promise, you’ll thank me later for this. ...
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- Created: 29 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
It is said that when a woman fights for a man, she is like an ANIMAL! Vanessa Windsor (Hedy Lamarr), a spoiled Hollywood star, and her daughter, Penny (Jane Powell), fall head over heels in love with the same man, Chris Farley (George Nader), and they aren’t even aware of the other’s interest in him! Tabloid...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II: The Female Animal (1958)
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- Created: 03 July 2019
- Written by Christopher Symonds
Making any film is a tricky endeavor, let alone a film in a franchise that shows no duds. Added to which, this latest incarnation has been balanced carefully between ...
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- Created: 06 August 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
Lady Luck has no heart at all in this morality tale! The Lady Gambles begins with a stunning beatdown as its star, Barbara Stanwyck, is repeatedly attacked, smacked, and punched by a couple of thugs who feel cheated by her use of loaded dice in a ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III: The Lady Gambles (1949) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 28 June 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
A good movie always begins with a killer premise. And Yesterday, the new film from director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis has a great one. It takes on the idea of what our world would be like today if The Beatles never existed ...
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- Created: 07 August 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
The drugs! The coppers! The crimes! And the Femme Fatales! It's all here in The Sleeping City! Sometimes, as is the case with 1950’s The Sleeping City, Film Noir offerings are notable for one thing entirely: their use of their location. Okay, okay, so The Sleeping City - which has ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III: The Sleeping City (1950) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 04 October 2019
- Written by Christopher Symonds
Ca-Ca-Crazy lives here and, if you are anything like me and my warped sensibility, you are gonna love it ...
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- Created: 07 August 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
“Mommy, can we come home?” With those words, Cookie (Melissa Leo) and her kid brother Tim (Randall Batinkoff) plead to return to their mother’s house. They’ve been kicked out because her new man hates them both. Their request is denied, so the two wander the bus station as ...
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- Created: 23 September 2019
- Written by Michelle Duy
In 1991, New York biographer Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) finds herself in dire straits: she has lost her job, fallen 3 months behind on rent and can’t afford the vet bills for her beloved sick cat. Her agent (Jane Curtin) is less than helpful, ignoring Lee’s phone calls ...
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- Created: 28 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
In which the nuns get it done! Thanks to the crackling cinematography of William H. Daniels (Six Bridges to Cross, Harvey, Winchester ‘73) and the performance of Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary who is haunted by the past, Thunder On The Hill roars off the screen with a fury that is relatively unmatched ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume II: The Price of Fear (1956) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 23 September 2019
- Written by Christopher Symonds
Octavia Spencer has been a staple in movies for years. She’s a talented, larger than life actor that almost always stands out in an ensemble, or kills it in a cameo. Quite rightly, she has been campaigning for a lead role in something that steps out of what she’s usually offered and ...
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- Created: 24 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
It is no understatement to suggest that Bruce Lee’s return to Hong Kong, after America refused to make him a star, was the best thing for his career. Lee was pissed off; frustrated by Hollywood’s inherent racism and refusal to put any faith in the idea that an Asian could ever carry a profitable film ...
Read more: Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits (1971 - 1978) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 11 August 2019
- Written by Loron Hays
Your new favorite monster movie, clocking in at a zippy 75-minutes, will have you stomping your way toward extinction thanks to laughing so damn hard at its rubber-suited antics, its 1980s shock and schlock kicks ...
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- Created: 23 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
What has the world come to when the director of Sasquatch at the Mall can't get a gig? That's what horror auteur Harry Penderecki is wondering. Once considered a horror legend, with a string of hits like Bowel Movement, People Pesticide and I'll Take the Ring Back and the Finger Too, he now finds himself ...
Read more: Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 16 May 2019
- Written by Christopher Symonds
John Wick is one of those franchises that seemingly came out of nowhere. Keanu Reeves (deservedly) has maintained a level of currency through his lengthy and stellar career, but if we’re to be honest, his star was on the wane when he signed on to the ...
Read more: John Wick: Chapter Three - Parabellum - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 23 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
In which the nuns get it done! Thanks to the crackling cinematography of William H. Daniels (Six Bridges to Cross, Harvey, Winchester ‘73) and the performance of Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary who is haunted by the past, Thunder On The Hill roars off the screen with a fury that is relatively unmatched ...
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- Created: 14 June 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
The #metoo movement wouldn’t stand a chance in John Shaft’s world. The most badass private detective to ever don a leather duster gets a modern-day update in Tim Story’s revisit to the Shaft franchise that kicked off the blaxploitation movement back in the early ’70’s ...
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- Created: 22 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
The mystery! The murder! Corruption inside America’s Bible Belt! That’s the territory of Black Rainbow as writer/director Mike Hodges blends genres, creating a movie that takes on chemical plants and spiritual links to the After Life ...
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- Created: 24 May 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
Whether for good or bad, we were all labeled in high school. And whether we liked it or not, one of the most awkward times of our lives undoubtedly became the indelible forehead stamp that each of us has tried to erase ever since ...
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- Created: 21 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
Make no mistake about it, The Flesh and the Fiends is a righteous horror film, drooping left eye and all, as experimental vivisections rule the day. Lost men! Lost souls! With no apologies issued to the dead, The Flesh and the Fiends begins in a spooktacular fashion as a body is torn free from ...
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- Created: 07 June 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
One of the toughest challenges faced by screenwriters when developing a sequel – especially to a wildly popular animated film – is how to best capture the same spirit and vibe of the original while also taking the story and characters we love to new ...
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- Created: 20 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
Because not everyone can be saved. Inspired by the Great Brink's Robbery of 1950, Six Bridges To Cross makes its targets known early: trigger-happy cops and unrepentant criminals. Civil unrest. That’s what happens when a police officer (George Nader) shoots a kid during a robbery ...
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- Created: 03 June 2019
- Written by Christopher Symonds
Creative writing courses talk about where that spark of an idea can come from, and how to nurture that possibility into something bigger. One of the catalysts most often encouraged is to pose a question. Writers Brian and Mark Gunn have most definitely asked a question in their creation of Brightburn ...
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- Created: 20 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
An Act of Murder, in which a very uncompromising and stubborn judge learns a tough, tough lesson about guilt and morals, is perhaps one of the most forward-thinking film noir offerings in that it comes from the point of view of a man who defends a very strict and outdated view of law and ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume IV: An Act of Murder (1948) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 10 May 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
The new comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson called The Hustle is an almost identical remake of the 1988 classic comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which starred Michael Caine and Steve Martin - itself a remake of Marlon Brando’s Bedtime Story. I say “almost” because ...
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- Created: 19 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
...in which the Golden Age of Radio meets the Chiller Comedies of the 1940s. No wonder Haunted Honeymoon was a box office bomb, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be ignored. The film, with over-the-top characters and spooky atmospheres, is damn funny ...
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- Created: 17 May 2019
- Written by Frank Wilkins
The only thing more difficult than making a feature documentary film may be running a farm. But farmer/filmmaker John Chester does both in his new film, The Biggest Little Farm, a sweet little documentary that chronicles the near-decade-long struggle of he and wife Molly’s plan to leave the city life behind and ...
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- Created: 17 July 2020
- Written by Loron Hays
“Two gin slings . . . with ice.” With that famous line, Alan Ladd (Shane) as American pilot, Neale Gordon, begins to fall for Virginia Moore (Gail Russell, The Uninvited). He doesn’t want to, but he can’t help himself. Hell, one look at her engaging beauty and I would, too. Holy cow is she a looker ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume IV: Calcutta (1946) - Blu-ray Review
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- Created: 01 June 2019
- Written by Loron Hays
The King has returned - along with 17 other classic Titans - but, hey, long live the King! Continuing the plot of 2014’s Godzilla and 2017's Kong: Skull Island as far as the Monarch Corporation is concerned, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a creature-centered film that wastes little time in giving ...
Read more: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) - Blu-ray Review
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