Five Questions “Batman & Robin” Left Me Asking

Posted on by

It’s been twenty years since “Batman & Robin” was unleashed in theaters, prompting a lot of folks that were there in 1997 to think back on what is easily one of the most unwatchable movies ever made. And I don’t mean unwatchable in that you can see it with a laugh, or unwatchable in that it hurts so good. I mean it’s unwatchable. The last time I popped in a Blu-Ray for “Batman & Robin” I had a very difficult time making it through the first half hour, and I admittedly shut the movie down right when Barbara finds the conveniently placed suit Alfred made for her.

1997 was a big year for me, and one of the most memorable of my life, it was a year of big movies, big music, and big changes and “Batman & Robin” is that movie that’s remembered for being so unbearably awful. What was once a childhood favorite is a movie that hasn’t aged well. At all. It’s putrid. But in honor of the twentieth anniversary of Joel Schumacher’s toy commercial, I thought I’d ponder on five questions the movie’s badly written script left me asking.

Continue reading →

post

Jan-Michael Vincent: Hollywood Tragedy

Posted on by

In the 1970s, Jan-Michael Vincent was a young and handsome actor that seemed on the verge of movie superstardom. But personal demons and professional disappointments derailed his life.

On this episode of the SoundCloud podcast “The Online Movie Show with Phil Hall,” film historian David Grove, author of “Jan-Michael Vincent: Edge of Greatness,” details the meteoric rise and painful fall of this remarkable personality.

The episode can be found here.

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2017)

Posted on by

Most horror fans agree by now that most creative minds have pretty much tapped the zombie well dry, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of filmmakers still trying to reinvent the wheel. “Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies” does not re-invent the wheel and probably won’t change anyone’s mind on zombie movies, but for devotees of the sub-genre, there’s a lot of fun to be had. There’s some good music, a brisk pace, and a different setting beyond the typical country farm house or city back drop. Two snowboarders head out to the Swiss Alps with their manager Branka to film a publicity video for their corporate sponsor. When snowboarder and slacker Steve botch’s the filming altogether, the trio are left on the mountain, stranded.

Continue reading →

post

The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)

Posted on by

In concept, the 1970 endeavor to enable Japanese daredevil skier Yuchiro Miura to become the first athlete in his sport to descend Mount Everest seemed like an expensive folly: a $3 million budget that initially involved 850 men and 27 tons of equipment. And documentary footage covering this adventure seemed destined to become a standard-issue travelogue, at least in its initial journeys through too-picturesque stretches Nepal.

Continue reading →

Quadrangle – A Short Film by Amy Grappell (2013)

Posted on by

Director Amy Grappell digs deep in to her childhood and touches upon a part of her young life that normally might hurt others or inspire discomfort. In 1969, Amy Grappell moves from Brooklyn to Long Island with her mother and further. Both parents were struggling with their own marriage and were working hard to stay together. After meeting another couple at a local beach club, both her mother and father Paul and Deanna eventually found kindred spirits in Eleanor and Robert, both of whom were also struggling with their own marriage at the time.

Continue reading →

Pitchfork (2017)

Posted on by

I can’t help but appreciate the inherent ambition behind the production of “Pitchfork.” Director and Writer Glenn Douglas Packard delivers a slasher film that offers the classic tropes, while also feeling like something completely different. He also manages to concoct a premise that’s actually original and doesn’t feature the same old idiot teenagers looking to party who get stranded or whatnot. He actually sets out to deliver a unique premise, and gives our characters their own motivations. It’s also not often we get slasher movies with final boys, but “Pitchfork” creates one who is not only genuinely heroic, and selfless, but facing his own dilemma when we meet him.

Continue reading →

We Are the Flesh (Tenemos La Carne) (2017)

Posted on by

Emiliano Rocha Minter’s “We Are The Flesh” is arthouse, horror, fantasy, surrealism, experimental. It’s also droning, boring, and at barely eighty minutes goes on way too long. “We are the Flesh” begins as something of a post apocalyptic tale where two wandering Mexican teenagers find a demented older man living by himself in isolation as a hermit in a humongous building. Everyday he forages for resources, and makes new resources which he trades for food by some unseen entity behind a wall. The minute the pair finds him, they’re taken in to his bosom, and are dropped in to demented world that is either Eden or Damnation. Quite clearly, Emiliano Rocha Minter seeks to take all kinds of imagery and use it as a sense of multipurpose provocative metaphor and symbolism, and pretty much all of it is a chore to sit through.

Continue reading →