Five Faves: Final Girls
Published on October 1st, 2015 in: Feminism, Horror, Listicles, Movies, Top Five Lists |
The Final Girls (review) is a film about… what else? The hallowed halls of heroines in horror movies (how’s that for alliteration?) have many portraits hung on their walls. Here are a few fave Final Girls that you might not have yet considered, but who are still worthy women.
Top Five: TIFF 2015 Picks From Brendan Ross
Published on September 11th, 2015 in: Film Festivals, Listicles, Movies, Top Five Lists |By Brendan Ross
Green Room
As much as I enjoy watching Willem Dafoe movies and crazy 1980s music videos on YouTube, sometimes I need to break out of my comfort zone. Here are my fave choices from this year’s TIFF lineup. P.S. I may or may not have a man-crush on Ben Wheatley.
GREEN ROOM:
Patrick Stewart as the leader of a white supremacist gang. Do you really need to hear more?
THE LOBSTER:
Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos is back with a film that looks set to satisfy all my existential surrealism AND John C. Reilly needs.
ANOMALISA:
It’s an animated Charlie Kaufman movie for Christ’s sake!
YAKUZA APOCALYPSE:
Because I really want to know what goes on in a Yakuza knitting circle
HIGH-RISE:
Anybody have an extra ticket?
Top Five: TIFF 2015 Picks From Less Lee Moore
Published on September 11th, 2015 in: Film Festivals, Listicles, Movies, Top Five Lists |
Men & Chicken
I tried to pick movies that I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see in the multiplexes. Also, I’m a sucker for the Vanguard and Midnight Madness programmes at TIFF.
MEN & CHICKEN:
Writer/director Anders Thomas Jensen hasn’t let me down yet, and neither has Mads Mikkelsen. As great as he is as Hannibal Lecter, he’s equally great in Jensen’s twisted black comedies.
DER NACHTMAHR:
A young woman is haunted by a deformed creature that no one else can see? Sign me up.
THE MIND’S EYE:
Joe Begos’s Almost Human was the movie that 1982’s Xtro should have been, so I know his latest will be a wild ride.
THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS:
Great cast, including Katherine Isabelle and Mitch Pileggi, in a film about serial killers and starfuckers that’s lensed by Dean Cundey. That’s like catnip to a horror junkie.
THE DEVIL’S CANDY:
Satanic possession movies are kind of my thing and Sean Byrne is the kind of director genre fans kill for (but not literally, OK?).
The Five Movies I Would See If I Were Actually Going to TIFF (Which I’m Not)
Published on September 11th, 2015 in: Film Festivals, Listicles, Movies, Top Five Lists |
Baskin
If you’re looking around town and noticing a lack of Beautiful People, don’t be alarmed. This week, they’re all in Canada for the Toronto International Film Festival. They’re hobbing their nobs, going to movies, shaking hands at fancy parties and sleeping in theatre lobbies to make sure they don’t miss an anticipated showing. Obviously, I’m not there. I’m not beautiful enough. I’m sitting on my couch watching wrestling matches from the mid-nineties. But man, if I were there at TIFF, with all of those pretty folks, these are the five movies I would punch Stephen Harper in the balls to see.
BASKIN:
This Turkish movie about police officers who stumble upon a Satanic cult looks dark, unsettling and bloody. The hope is that this one gets truly weird, and early buzz is good.
THE WITCH:
Early American rural homesteaders fall prey to religious frenzy and grimy evil befalls them. The preview plays out like a mud-covered sequel to The Village.
HELLIONS:
A pregnant teen is the victim of a home assault led by creepy trick or treaters. It looks like a great combination of the French movie Ils and living in Detroit.
PORTAL TO HELL!!!
In his final film role, my personal hero, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper fights Cthulhu. If that doesn’t sell you on the movie, nothing else I could possible say will.
THE DEVIL’S CANDY:
An artist moves his family to Texas and gets possessed by Satan. I imagine that’s what happens when you move to Texas, anyway.
Someday, I’ll get to go Toronto and walk around with filmmakers and movie stars, and that will be amazing. In the meantime, oh, look! It’s a ladder match! Time to start drinking.
The X List: Found Footage Films
Published on May 23rd, 2014 in: Found Footage, Horror, Listicles, Movies, Top Ten Lists |
The Bay, 2012
On the evening of May 20, 2014, Jeffery X Martin was asked to write an article on the best ten found footage films ever made. He told his wife he was about to start work on it. After a few hours of furious typing, and a couple of stiff drinks, he went to bed to dream his little dreamy-dreams. The next morning, this list you are about to read was found on Martin’s desktop. After a furious search, Martin was discovered in his living room, eating soft-boiled eggs and watching professional wrestling matches from 1987. He sent the article in to his editor, who presents it to you now, as she received it.
Waxing Nostalgic: The Five Eighties Bands You Should Still Be Listening To
Published on March 28th, 2014 in: Listicles, Music, Top Five Lists, Waxing Nostalgic |
I’ve been writing this column for a year now, completely immersing myself in coming up with new words about old music. A lot of it, frankly, just doesn’t hold up. It’s the aural equivalent of parachute pants. Why did we like it? Why did we buy it? What were we thinking? Were we all mad? Nobody would be caught dead in parachute pants these days.
Some bands still make the grade, though, and are still insanely listenable after all these years. Following are the bands I implore you to listen to again, or maybe for the first time.
Waxing Nostalgic: In Front of a Live Audience
Published on March 21st, 2014 in: Listicles, Music, Top Five Lists, Waxing Nostalgic |
I’ve talked to people who can’t get into live albums. The recording is rarely clean. The crowd noise can be a distraction. It’s obvious when someone screws up. They don’t like to hear the in-between song banter.
I understand how those things could detract from one’s enjoyment of the music, but man, when a live album is done right, it’s pure dynamite. That aural snapshot of a band at a specific point in time fascinates me. It’s a time capsule. When the crowd is into it, clapping and screaming at all the right times, a live album is truly the next best thing to being there.
In chronological order, here are some live albums from older artists that stay on rotation in my personal earholes.
The Five Scariest Robots In Movies
Published on October 31st, 2013 in: Halloween, Horror, Listicles, Movies, Science Fiction, Top Five Lists |
Science fiction gets short shrift in the Halloween season, with so many slashers and bashers running about through summer camps and the dreams of teenagers. Truth is, there’s some pretty creepy sci-fi out there. On an existential level, what’s scarier than something pretending to be human? The concept of mechanical creations with feelings, some of them homicidal, is strangely abhorrent. Humans can’t bear the thought of obsolescence. Take a gander at some terrifying robots. How do you say “trick or treat” in binary?
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Five Amazing Horror Movie Soundtracks That Aren’t The Music From John Carpenter’s Halloween
Published on October 31st, 2013 in: Horror, Listicles, Movies, Music, Soundtracks and Scores, Top Five Lists |
If Halloween has a theme song, it’s probably the familiar interval-switching chromatic scale from the seminal 1978 horror film, Halloween. Even people who haven’t seen the movie recognize that music as soon as they hear it. It ushers in autumn and signals the beginning of Trick-or-Treatery. But the Halloween soundtrack isn’t the only one you can use for your holiday mood setting. Give these other soundtracks a listen! They’ll either warm your cockles or raise your hackles.
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Old Italian Horror Movies? Yes, Please!
Published on October 22nd, 2013 in: Culture Shock, Halloween, Horror, Listicles, Movies, Top Five Lists |
Halloween is coming. You will watch horror movies. You will do so for reasons you yourself do not comprehend. You will do so because the leaves have turned colors. You will do so because fear is now a corporate commodity. You will do so because it is what society demands.
This year, make a small stand. Put some effort into your scary movie watching. Do not pretend an unkillable man-child in a hockey mask is scary. Do not act like slow zombies are a threat to you in any way. Seek out something new, even if it is a few years old.
This year, go Italian.
The great New Wave of Italian Horror has been over for a while, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great movies in there that a lot of people haven’t seen. Here are some I think you’ll enjoy, because I personally know you so well and have all of your best interests in mind.
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