The gap between what’s just a machine and what’s a genuine human experience is gradually shifting and closing. Every year technology is evolving to where it’s almost sentient, and while technology needs human input to process and obtain information, how long will it be before it can simply drop in to the internet and form its own thought patterns and make its own decisions? “Her” is an exploration of that mind set, except it examines the relationship between human and technology as something of a spiritual and very loving symbiosis. It’s not so much a cautionary tale, but a fantasy about what is living reality and what’s merely experiencing programming and binary.
Category Archives: Collector’s Den
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) [3 Disc Blu-Ray/CD Combo]
What is it about Ruggero Deodato’s vicious masterpiece that continues to elude horror fans and film enthusiasts to this day? Surely, it’s a shocking film with immense gore, but “Cannibal Holocaust” is about so much more than splatter and bloodshed. It still holds a volatile resonance in a day and age where the world is obsessed with voyeurism. “Cannibal Holocaust” is still such an enormous master work from Ruggero Deodato whose own film has pretty much guaranteed to outlive its creator. As well, it’s inadvertently posed as the template for all of the found footage films currently storming the box office. It’s a film about the media exploiting and demoralizing a primitive culture for the purposes of entertainment. It’s a film about entitled young Americans intruding on a foreign soil to manipulate their civilization. It’s also movie about how humanity is often a destructive and vicious force of evil consuming one another for nefarious purposes without conscience.
The Jungle (2014) (DVD)
On the back of the DVD box for “The Jungle,” there’s a picture of a hunter draped in camouflage pointing a gun, while a giant monster with devil horns lurks behind him with large teeth, prepared to pounce. Drink the image in as much as possible, because that’s the only glimpse you’ll get of an actual monster in the entire damn movie. Sure you see glowing eyes, and hands, but “The Jungle” lacks an actual point for existing. There are men hunting a monster, but no actual monster.
42nd Street Forever – The Peep Show Collection Vol. 1 (DVD)
The previous library of 42nd Street Forever” collections were DVDs and Blu-Rays that focused on compiling some of the more interesting and famous grindhouse movie trailers, where as “The Peep Show Collection” is an entirely different animal. Rather than collect porn trailers, this is instead a compilation of short porn and stag films from the seventies. These were often seen in peep shows and most likely dime booths that allowed limited viewing time for customers, and the like. All of the shorts here are comprised of 8mm video shoots with no sound, but are perfect for collectors of this kind of entertainment.
The Chambermaids (1974) (DVD)
Impulse Pictures apparently restored “The Chambermaids” from a nearly destroyed theatrical print, and boy does it show. Despite the attempts to keep it pristine, “The Chambermaids” still looks like it was carried over from a projector. But for folks that appreciate the faux grindhouse aesthetic, it might add to the experience. What’s more entertaining is the inadvertent comedy, bad acting, really bad sound looping, and shadows of crew members during certain scenes. “The Chambermaids” is only seventy minutes long and wastes absolutely no time establishing its plot. Or what little there is.
Honey Buns (1973) (DVD)
One of the most disappointing aspects of “Honey Buns” is that is boasts the incredible Uschi Digard, who plays a key role in this goofy porn film, but she never really does much the entire time she’s on-screen. Granted, she appears in a skimpy purple dress, and doesn’t mind showing off her gorgeous body, but she disappears for the remainder of the movie, entirely. Not that Ms. Digard’s fleeting albeit stunning presence ruins the experience of “Honey Buns.” But it’s the principle, damn it.
Ravenous (1999) [Blu-Ray]
I’m one of the many fools that didn’t give “Ravenous” a chance when it premiered in 1999. In fact I openly avoided it for many years, convinced it was just a splatter film and nothing more. True, while it is a classic cannibal movie and survival film, “Ravenous” is so much more. It’s a layered and very unique satire on America’s consumption of the world, and how that becomes very much a practice for one general who is convinced that consuming his fellow man will give him power to conquer the world and also select who is fit to survive in his world.