Many people look back with scorn at the 1980s. When they think about that time, they see leg warmers, hear the lyrics to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and a cold chill runs down their spine when they even hear the words “1983 yearbook.”
I hate to break to you people, but the 1980s were f*$king awesome, and the 1983 film Valley Girl stands as an upturned-collar-reminder of just how awesome it was.
Fanboyism is not my thing. Though at times, after long stretches of not shaving, I can look a little bit like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, I promise you I am not him.
And so, when Samuel L. Jackson, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. made a cameo at the end (the very, very end) of the first Iron Man film, I did not ejaculate. I smiled, because that’s what Sam always makes me do. But I also winced just a little, because I knew in that short bit the seeds had been sown for the potential creative downfall of a promising film franchise.
As it turns out, I was right.
My knowledge of Yorkshire pretty much begins and ends with pudding.
If the Yorkshire created in the trilogy of films known as Red Riding is at all accurate, I’ll stick with the dish. And while the second helping in the series (1980) may not be quite as tasty as the first, it still manages to serve up a meaty dish of police corruption with a side of serial murder.
All you really need to know about seeing the newest exercise in torture-porn from Dutch director Tom Six is that, depending on your nature, you will either have a good laugh or you will leave the theater after about 20 minutes.
Either way, I can’t say I blame you.
Has it been 26 years since Freddy Krueger first invaded our collective sleep?
Back then, few things were scarier than the burned man with razors for fingers. Today, thanks to the phoned-in direction by Samuel Bayer and the empty acting by, well, pretty much everyone in the “remake” of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy offers all the chills of a man who’s discovered a library of loud sound effects.
If you could go back in time and spend a day with any historical figure, who would it be?
Chances are, you didn’t answer Charles Darwin, and yet his contribution to our understanding of nature and the world around us is hard to overestimate.
But while the recent Darwin biopic Creation offers a great performance by Paul Bettany, it feels far too centered on the romance (or lack thereof) between Darwin and his wife Emma to really deliver a compelling image of the life of a great man.
There are westerns, you know, where the sheriff faces off against the villain at high noon?
And there are spaghetti westerns, which generally involve twisted moral codes and shifting allegiances in pursuit of some kind of treasure.
The Good, The Bad and The Weird would have to qualify as a “kimchi western,” a mash-up of classic western elements with high-energy action sequences, all set in 1930s Manchuria.
And it will leave your head spinning.
When you hear the phrase “student film,” you probably get about as excited as when you hear the word “colostomy.”
But, as it turns out, student films don’t have to be painful exercises in navel-gazing. As “When It Will Be Silent” proves, they can be suspenseful, moving and powerful, even without a word of dialogue.
Watching other people’s wedding videos is a pain like no other. Hell, for most people watching their own wedding video is about as much fun as a visit from the in-laws.
Of course if your “wedding video” was anything like City of Lakes, the latest narrative/event film from filmmaker Kevin Shahinian, you might feel differently.
Say what you want about bad movies, I mean the worst of the worst, films that combine ineptitude at all levels of craft. There are some who consider Troll 2 to be the worst movie ever made, and it certainly may be.
But as the new documentary Best Worst Movie proves, even a film rated at 00% on Rotten Tomatoes can inspire and move audiences in ways that hardly seem possible.
