Skinhead Requiem (2013)

skinhead-reqDirector Jason Victor Everett’s short dramatic thriller “Skinhead Requiem” is a powerful and compelling short look at two men on the cusp of realization in their lives that they will take with them to their graves. Director Jason Victor Everett takes a startling transformation as the ultimate extremist skinhead, while the legendary Tom Noonan plays a priest speaking with him as he prepares to leave for his execution.

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Return of the Jedi (1983)

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While “Return of the Jedi” has its legions of fans, it’s also a film that helps support the idea that third parts of film series are usually terrible. While “Return of the Jedi” is not the worst movie ever made, it’s a flimsy, and pandering final installment to a series that started off quite well. It’s very well documented that by the time “Return of the Jedi” came around, director George Lucas was a millionaire thanks to merchandise, and he used “Return” as a means of selling even more toys. Thus characters come back through contrived manners, villains are offed in the goofiest ways, and Lucas follows up his dark and mature “Empire Strikes Back” in favor of a more watered down film starring knee high teddy bears.

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Street Fighter (1994)

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1994’s “Street Fighter” represents the mentality of pretty much every studio head. Just throw a bunch of crap on screen and hope the audience doesn’t notice the movie sucks. In this instance “Street Fighter” throws a lot of the characters from the Street Fighter games on-screen and hopes no one notices that the movie is really damn awful. We noticed. Trust me. We noticed. Even at eleven years old I couldn’t understand why this was so bad while the games were so incredible.

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Sins of the Dragon (2012)

It’s not often the heart and enthusiasm for a genre can carry over in to an indie production. “Sins of the Dragon” is obviously made by people who have a love for the martial arts and action genre, and thankfully they turn that love in to an entertaining and very creative short fantasy thriller about redemption, and traveling warriors.

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Smashed (2012)

Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead has maintained a steady stream of notable genre work for many years and has shown herself to be a very good actress with enough charisma and enthusiasm to help carry genre gems like “Sky High” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.” On the flipside, Winstead has also garnered a huge fan base (me included) thanks to her model work and her incredible beauty and sex appeal. With “Smashed” Ms. Winstead seems intent to not only show that she’s much more than a pretty face, but proves to her audience that she’s so much more than a passable actress. Her performance in “Smashed” is Oscar worthy.

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Saturday Morning Massacre (2013)

Only many, many years later did Hanna Barbera begin presenting the Mystery Machine gang with actual supernatural threats once their audience matured. But even when facing actual zombies, and demons they were never really in actual danger. Director Spencer Parsons completely dodges copyright infringement while cleverly spoofing the iconic cartoon show with his own version of Scooby Doo. This time he offers up a more realistic group of crime solvers in a world where crime is very dangerous, and the police kindly ask them to “fuck off” whenever they solve a case on their own.

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Song of the South (1946)

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It’s become well known that Disney has an immense history with creating some of the most racist characters of pop culture. There’s their noted hatred toward the Jewish religion, and even the infamous lyric to “Arabian Nights” in “Aladdin” that reads: “Where they cut off your ears if they don’t like your face,” and that film came out in 1992. But many of them are considered rather irrelevant when you bring up the name Uncle Remus.

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