// Category Archive for: Movies

Today In Pop Culture: The Movie Ratings System and Why We Should Kill It

By Jeffery X Martin

The way we rate movies in America is confusing and arbitrary at best. The stranglehold the Motion Picture Association of America has over artists and the way they present their art is unconscionable. It is an outdated, lopsided system which falls apart when you apply even the least amount of thought to it.

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Blu-Ray Review: I Am Thor

By Tim Murr

There is no good reason Thor weren’t bigger than KISS. Oh, sure, there were reasons, but not good ones. Starting out in the body building world before moving on to rock and roll, Jon Mikl Thor made a name for himself with feats of strength and great stage presence. His first serious foray into rock as Thor was a glam classic (Keep The Dogs Away, 1977). It should have been huge. It was not.

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Movie Review: One Floor Below

By Sachin Hingoo

The most cursory viewing of Radu Muntean’s One Floor Below reveals a very banal, uninteresting portrayal of a man who does nothing, and frankly, that’s the point. Examining the Romanian thriller beneath the surface, however, provokes some hard questions about what it means to exist in society and the responsibility we have to each other in times of tragedy and danger.

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Farewell, Tall Man: Angus Scrimm and Phantasm

By Tim Murr

It’s only been a few days since actor Angus Scrimm died at the age of 89. Though he also worked outside of the franchise, it was the Phantasm series, in which he played the Tall Man, that made Mr. Scrimm a horror household name. His final film, Phantasm: RaVager, is set to be released sometime this year.

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VHS Visions: Rawhead Rex (1986)

By Tim Murr

“Get upstairs, fuck face! I can’t keep God waiting!”

Recently, Arrow Video released a gorgeous Hellraiser box set. In 2014, we finally got the director’s cut of Nightbreed.  But still, on the film’s 30^th anniversary, there is no news of a DVD/Blu-Ray release of Rawhead Rex!

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Today In Pop Culture: The Black Dahlia Is Discovered In Leimert Park

By Jeffery X Martin

Trigger Warning: graphic descriptions of murder

Leimert Park is a funky little neighborhood in South Los Angeles. It was planned in the 1920s, and the architecture is mostly Spanish Colonial Revival. Now, it is known for its music, its food, and its embracing of African-American culture. But Leimert Park is known for something else, too: one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history.

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Movie Review: The Forest (2016)

By Lisa Anderson

The horror genre loves a good controversy, but not all controversies are created equal. The Forest, from director Jason Zada, has taken criticism not for violence and gore, but about whether it exoticizes its Japanese location or trivializes the problem of suicide. As it turns out, though, there’s more than that to dislike about this sub-par movie.

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Why the Star Wars Prequels Aren’t THAT Bad

By Tyler Hodg

Star Wars: two short words that mean a great deal to a lot of people.

Yet, until December of 2015, half of the series was generally panned by fans and critics alike. How can something be so beloved and despised at the same time?

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David Bowie: 1947 – 2016

By Jeffery X Martin

When I went to sleep, David Bowie was alive. When I awoke, he was not. Strange, the way things slip.

Knock on the walls. Flick your coffee cup with your fingernail. Stomp on the floor. Do you hear it? Something’s missing. There is a hollowness to the world now, with Bowie gone.

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Movie Review: Cherry Tree

By Tim Murr

The weight of the world is on the shoulders of 15-year-old Faith. She’s forced to go to school and act like everything’s normal while her father is dying of leukemia. Faith rages at the unfairness and hopelessness of it all until her new field hockey coach, Sissy, approaches her with an offer to cure her father, using intimate knowledge of ancient witchcraft. In exchange, Faith only has to have a baby for Sissy.

These sort of things always work out, right?

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