In 1996, John Carpenter essentially pulled a Sam Raimi with one of his key creations, Snake Plissken. While “Escape from New York” is a great scifi action film, Carpenter is this time given a bigger budget and decides to cover a wider field of his mythology, cramming in as much as he could with this sequel/remake. While I wouldn’t call “Escape from LA,” it manages to rise above the rest in Carpenter’s ouevre with some very good concepts, and Kurt Russell doing a bang up job, as always.
Mondo Balordo (A Fool’s World) (1964) [Blu-Ray]
There are some films you can sense where everyone put their best foot forward. And then there are some films where it’s obvious people were just running out the clock to get a paycheck. With “Mondo Balordo” you can sense Boris Karloff would shamble in to the studio, record his narration for this monstrosity and then leave back to his home. The absolutely awful “Mondo Balordo” is one in a series of pseudo-documentaries that exploit their topics to a certain degree.
A Girl, A Guy, A Space Helmet (2012)
Director-Writer Mike Timm’s passion project is a movie that jumps back and forth between fantasy and reality. It’s a very avant garde work of art that takes on the typically broader spectrum of the romance comedy and adds some creativity to it. While “A Girl, A Guy, A Space Helmet” has every chance to be a trite tale of a man and a woman falling in love, Timm’s unique direction and self awareness make it a worthwhile cinematic experience.
The Bootleg Files: Hollywood
BOOTLEG FILES 733: “Hollywood” (1980 British television documentary series).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On VHS and LaserDisc.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Difficulties in clearing the rights to the films in the series resulted in its absence from DVD and Blu-ray.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe someday it will occur.
One of the most impressive documentaries on film history was Kevin Brownlow and David Gill’s “Hollywood,” which was produced by Britain’s Thames Television for broadcast on ITV. Spanning 13 50-minute episodes, the series included interviews with many of the on-screen and behind-the-camera talent who were active in film production before the coming of the talkies.
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Useless Humans (2020)
A group of friends reunites at a countryside retreat to celebrate a birthday, once there, their secrets start to come out as they fight for survival against a mysterious creature and its device.
Interview with “Relic” Director Natalie Erika James
Photography credit: Ashley Mustow (https://cargocollective.com/ashleymustow)
With the recent limited theatrical and VOD release of critically acclaimed horror film “Relic”, Cinema Crazed had the chance to talk to filmmaker Natalie Erika James, who makes her feature film debut courtesy of IFC Midnight.
1BR (2020)
Going in to “1BR,” its pretty clears that director David Marmor takes pages from Ira Levin’s psyche, reflecting many themes and ideas the author was known for. Director David Marmor builds a simplistic but absolutely harrowing thriller that confronts similar feminine themes. “1BR” feels so much like a movie torn out from 1979 and altered for modern times. That element works for the movie, as the lack of more modern constructs gives his thriller a very timeless displaced feeling. This sense of aesthetic contributes to the sheer claustrophobia and alienation that character Sarah experiences.