Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Emilie Black

“Belladonna of Sadness” is an animation film from 1973 which had not been released in the US until now for multiple reasons, one most likely being due to the nudity and sex. The style of animation is reminiscent of watercolor paintings with a touch of 70s/80s anime. The film is a mix of painted images being panned across and moving parts which makes for mesmerizing visuals. The restoration looks fantastic and the attention to details put into it show the work thousand of hours spent on it brought in terms of colors, visuals, and feelings.

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Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2016) [Blu-Ray]

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

The consistent utterance of Dominique Swain’s character to herself of “Crap on a Cracker,” just about sums up Jim Wynorski’s latest turkey that mixes “Con Air” and “Tremor.” No doubt tailor made for airing on late night cable television, “Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre” is a goofy PG-13 crime thriller with a bunch of land roving sharks that apparently make their victims explode upon contact. This is the kind of movie cable television dreams of. It stars a host of gorgeous women, many of who scamper around in conveniently handy bikinis, and whose prison garb are short shorts and clinging tank tops. They also never actually have sex or drop F bombs.

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NSFA: Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990)

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Growing up in the nineties, I would watch cartoons all day long during the weekdays; hell I pulled seven hours at school and was a grade A TV junkie, so I watched a ton of television. During the cartoons, between the toy and candy commercials, there were about thirty anti-drug and alcohol PSA’s played between the hours of three and six. Hey, mock me all you want, but those PSA’s worked and worked well on me. It’s not enough that I always found the idea of drug use disgusting, but the PSA’s that would air on television scared me straight, just as they intended.

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Total Performance (2015)

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Director and Writer Sean Meehan’s drama is so well written and original I wouldn’t have minded watching three hours of the story of character Cori working her way through her unusual career. Cori Sweeney is an aspiring actress who works for the private company Total Performance. Personally hired, she works with clients to help them learn how to argue and deal with conflict that typically involves firings, and individuals breaking up with their significant others.

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Dirty Books (2016)

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

“Dirty Books” is really one of those short films that could have benefitted from a longer format, or at least twenty more minutes of story. On its own, it’s a pretty solid drama comedy about a young students’ last grasp to instill some sense of relevance and popularity in his soon to be defunct school newspaper. Noah Bailey plays David, a young reporter who is called in to his principal’s office to discuss the inevitable death of the school newspaper.

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How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town (2016)

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

It’s pretty remarkable how so many good actors can be in such a sub-par unfunny situation comedy. It’s also pretty surprising how a movie centered around sex and orgies really ends about as blandly and vanilla as pound cake. “How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town” is yet another of those slice of life dramas, where a city bound thirty something protagonist goes back to their old town to re-visit the ghosts of their past and discover something about themselves. We saw it in “Garden State,” “Beautiful Girls,” “Junebug,” and about a hundred other dramas since the early nineties.

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Bedeviled [Kim Bok-nam salinsageonui jeonmal] (2010)

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I’ve never seen such a soul sucking and soul crushing film as “Bedeviled” in my life. That’s not at all a negative remark about Jang Cheol-soo’s drama thriller. It’s just my warning that if you go in to “Bedeviled,” be prepared for a film with absolutely no silver lining or hopeful plot twist. Like “Martyrs,” it’s a trip down the darkside of humanity, but you know, unlike “Martyrs,” this is a great film from beginning to end. It’s not often that Asian revenge pictures are given a sensationalist tone, but Cheol-soo’s drama is gut wrenching and really offers a glimpse at a small chunk of the world where sadness is pretty much a way of life.

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