Monday, October 29, 2012

Can we call a moratorium on calling the following movies "underrated"?

- From Dusk Till Dawn
- True Romance
- Office Space
- Event Horizon
- Once Upon a Time in the West

It'd be great if we lived in a world in which people weren't talking about goddamn Event Horizon all the live-long day, but we gotta play the cards we're dealt.

The Fonts

Enter the Void (2009)
dir. Gaspar NoƩ


All of the Lights (2010)
dir. Hype Williams

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Those 35 westerns - any thoughts?

Anyone seen a few and think I'm full of shit?

Anyone seen a few and think I'm THE GREATEST MAN ALIVE?

Anyone else notice how cool the opening credits of To the Last Man are? More movies need to introduce actors with lower thirds.

Anyone else notice how much The Good the Bad and the Ugly bit the opening scene of A Man Alone?

Anyone else jazzed for Leviathan after Sweetgrass?

Anyone else madly in love with Betta St. John in The Naked Dawn?

Anyone else feel the Dreyer influence on Track of the Cat?

No? Just me?

The White Whale


Moby Dick illustration (1930)
Rockwell Kent


Moby Dick illustration (2011)
Matt Kish

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Hyperbaric Chamber

Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
dir. Brian De Palma


Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
dir. Irvin Kerschner


Aside from the obvious, notice the vocoder box on the chest flashing with lights. Thanks wyoming for the screencap.

The Jungle Cat

Bringing Up Baby (1938)
dir. Howard Hawks


The Hangover (2009)
dir. Todd Phillips


from Dr. Puppykicker, who synopsizes both films as: "We have to get to the wedding, but we've lost something important and are saddled with a crazy person and a jungle cat!"

Monday, October 22, 2012

The Trader

Rose Marie (1954)
dir. Mervyn LeRoy


How the West Was Won (1962)
dir. Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall, & Richard Thorpe

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Here's a fantastic and comprehensive set of comparisons between Young Mr. Lincoln and the surprisingly smart Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter courtesy of Oscar Moralde.


http://imgur.com/a/3GSAu

The Fear


"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." 
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
dir. George Lucas



"In the beginning there is ignorance. Ignorance engenders fear. Fear engenders hatred, and hatred engenders violence. Violence breeds further violence until the only law is whatever is willed by the most powerful."
Cloud Atlas (2004)
written by David Mitchell



from CptMiller

The Baldie

World on a Wire (1973)
dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder


Brazil (1985)
dir. Terry Gilliam


from Magic Hate Ball

The Unfortunate Backdrop

The Simpsons "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala-Annoyed-Grunt-cious" (1997)
dir. Chuck Sheetz


30 Rock "Leap Day" (2012)
dir. Steve Buscemi

Monday, October 15, 2012

Doing some work out in Ohio. Don't expect many updates until after Election Day.

Keep the home fires burning and watch some of those westerns. Throw me some comments or emails if you do.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

35 Great Westerns

Y'all might not have noticed, but I like westerns. And the thing about westerns is that there's just a whole lot of them out there. It's hard to know which are gonna be good - I mean who would've guessed a movie called Five Deadly Graves would be as bad as it is? Or that one called The Lusty Men would be fantastic!

So I've made a list of some great westerns that I feel slipped under the radar. Using my patented "stolen from Esquire" format, I'll tell you why you should watch and because I am GREAT, where ever possible I've included links to the full films online. Anytime the title is a hyperlink, you're one click away from watching.

No obvious classics like Shane here, or even minor hits like The Tall T. These are the lost westerns, the ones left in the attic.

These are...

35 GREAT WESTERNS THAT YOU MAY NOT HAVE SEEN


Allow me to introduce a phrase into the curriculum.

I was reading this German article about westerns that was Google translated into English. There was talk of director Richard Fleischer. One film was dismissed as merely another "Fleisch-filmen [sic]." The man meant Fleischer, but his typo is a beautiful thing because "Fleisch-filmen" translates to "meat-film."

As in:


 Merely another meat film.


my god, what a sentence.


Natural instinct here it to apply that term to horror movies, but they got enough of a special vocabulary. I submit meat film is meant to describe something else - the banal, unremarkable, churned out Hollywood bill-fillers. The sausages of the film industry.


Meat Films.

Monday, October 8, 2012

The Mask

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
dir. Tobe Hooper


Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson "The Acquaintance" (1979)
dir. Igor Maslennikov

The Train Ride

House (1977)
dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi


Advertisement poster (197? - 198?)
Hiroshe Konno



Konno poster from 50 Watts

Sunday, October 7, 2012

The Plague

Magnolia (1999)
dir. Paul Thomas Anderson


Sex House "Dr. Sex" (2012)
dir. Geoff Haggerty


from Dr. Puppykicker, who adds: "A disparate group of people, most of them in show business, are brought together by a Biblical plague of frogs."

Watch Sex House, which in its entirety is easily one of the best movies of the year.

Friday, October 5, 2012

The Ride

Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
dir. Stanley Kubrick


Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
dir. Michael Bay

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The War Crime

 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
dir. Michael Bay


Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
dir. Michael Bay



I'm late to the party on this one, but Prime is probably the most disturbingly violent hero I've seen in a mainstream movie.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012


New Lincoln trailer owns - Jared Harris and Joseph Gordon Levitt look to absolutely uncannily own their parts. This shot also promises a glimpse at the River Queen meeting, the only meeting between Lincoln, Sherman, and Grant (Admiral Porter was there too but everyone kinda forgets about him).


The Coffin Escape

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Bargaining, Part 2" (2001)
dir. David Grossman


Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
dir. Quentin Tarantino



from Jim

The Villain

Trailer Park Boys "Conky" (2004)
dir. Mike Clattenburg


The Dark Knight (2008)
dir. Christopher Nolan

MEGATRON

Transformers 2 livetweet, tomorrow, say 8ish EST.

@jodamico1

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Girl

Men in Black (1997)
dir. Barry Sonnenfeld


Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
dir. Michael Bay



from SuperMechagodzilla. Best on the whole site???

The Invasion Fleet

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)
dir. Hajime Sato


Mars Attacks! (1996)
dir. Tim Burton