// Category Archive for: Movies

Book Review: Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood, By Curtis Harrington

By Chelsea Spear

Before Guy Maddin, there was Curtis Harrington. Like Maddin, Harrington made byzantine features that served as a love letter to early cinema at a time when it was mildly unfashionable to do so. He frequently cast dwarf actors and other nontraditional talents alongside the kinds of grandes dames that Hollywood forgot. His films incorporated outmoded narrative and technical elements that, when used well, could hypnotize audiences. Unlike Maddin, who is recognized by his peers as a true visionary, Harrington had worked his way through the studios during the New Hollywood era, when the kind of work he was doing was on its way out, and he never got the recognition he quite deserved.

Harrington’s posthumously published memoir Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood reads a bit like history as told from the perspective of someone who had the talent and drive but not the aesthetic. Though Harrington would hate the phrase “lovable loser,” his point of view and self-deprecating sense of humor mitigate any pity one might feel towards his series of near misses.

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Ten More Horror Movies For Kids

By Paul Casey

Read the introduction and the list of the first ten movies.

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Ten Horror Movies For Kids

By Paul Casey

Poltergeist, 1982

Age ratings—whether from state censorship or from voluntary censorship outfits like the MPAA—remain an irritation in my life. They are, at best, an imprecise attempt to prevent ideas and images from reaching individuals who are not able to process them in a reasonable fashion. I do not trust anyone who claims that they were better off in their early years by adhering to such restrictions. Those who do not step over to have a look at what they are told is sure to scar them for life are not only invariably dull people, but also those who end up a blubbering stain when confronted with ideas which do not conform to the guiding hand of the censor. Such people become greater sexual deviants and violent criminals and are a drain on the resources of our fine society.

This fear of cinematic behavior seems to forget how horrifying even an average, moderately resourced human being’s life can be. Genre movies, particularly those on the lower end of credibility, suffer worst. Of these lower genres, none suffer so badly as Horror. Horror, we’re told is the thing from which children should be kept from at all costs. Children and teenagers though can benefit greatly from an early entry into the genre, for it is in Horror that life’s most awkward and disturbing issues can be tackled in relative safety. For those things a person is likely to experience in life, or perhaps already has, Horror can help address them in a way which the safer genres cannot.

There are many Horror movies that children should watch that don’t fall under my selection criteria. Of course you should watch Psycho, the original Dawn of the Dead, and John Carpenter’s The Thing. To qualify for this list though, movies had to be oriented towards the younger viewer. This meant focusing on those films with young protagonists, movies that had something important to say about growing up or the parent/child relationship.

Additionally, any movie with harsher violence or sex had to have a helpful resolution that a younger person can use. Though there are plenty of happy endings here, few are easy or safe. There are also some decidedly unhappy endings. The hope is that these movies will serve as a primer for the adventurous child or young teenager. I also hope that the movies are of benefit in a way that the parade of IT WILL BE ALRIGHT REALLY mush cannot offer. There are horrible things waiting for you. It is worth preparing for them.
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Assemblog: July 5, 2013

Big Bad Wolves

New this week on Popshifter: Ann celebrated Pride Month with a review of Hirsute Pursuit’s Tighten That Muscle Ring; Julie thinks that Dave Davies’s I Will Be Me is mostly excellent; Cait takes umbrage to the word “twee” in her rapturous review of The Three O’Clock rarities compilation The Hidden World Revealed; Lisa has some offbeat suggestions for Fourth of July movies; Jeff time travels with Tesla’s Real to Reel; I recommend Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me for fans and not-yet-fans; Paul gifts us with a beautiful, touching article on the significance of music; and an anonymous contributor has some stern words for convention (non)attendees.

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Movie Review: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

By Less Lee Moore

When I first heard Big Star, I wondered “Why weren’t these guys huge?” like all their other fans have been wondering for the last 40-plus years. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me answers the why, but their lack of mainstream success still boggles the mind. When Brian Wilson sang “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times,” he could have easily been singing about Big Star.

The story of Big Star is full of both good things—talent, camaraderie, ambition—and terrible ones—bad luck, personal demons, and death. This mixture of the bitter and the sweet is a good metaphor for Big Star’s music, which fuses the two in an unforgettable aural and emotional experience. This is what drew fans and critics to the band and what continues to characterize their legacy.

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Ten Films For The Fourth Of July

By Lisa Anderson

True Colors, 1991

On Thursday, the United States observes its Independence Day. Many Americans will celebrate with cookouts, fireworks, or parades, and many of them will also kick back with a favorite, seasonably appropriate movie. The movies one usually thinks of on the Fourth of July are generally war movies or historical films, like Saving Private Ryan or Patriot, and those are perfectly valid options. However, I thought I’d suggest a few more offbeat choices for films to watch while escaping the heat on the Fourth.

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Assemblog: June 28, 2013

Among The Living (image from Twitch)

New this week on Popshifter: Chelsea reviews new albums from Dessa and Bosnian Rainbows; Julie puts the music of Dream Affair into a musical context; Paul explains why Christy Moore’s “Delirium Tremens” has multiple meanings; Jeff lifts up his lighter for Styx’s Big Bang Theory; Cait reminisces on Big Star and their soundtrack for the movie Nothing Can Hurt Me; and I try to describe the somewhat indescribable film The Rambler.

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Blu-Ray Review: The Rambler

By Less Lee Moore

The Rambler is like a Jim Thompson science fiction novel adapted into a film. Its panoply of bizarre characters could be interpreted as either being influenced by David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky or just pretentious. Yet, most of the seemingly random bits make a strange kind of sense in the world of an already nonsensical film. Everything is so specifically odd that it must mean something and not be an accident. There are only a few times when things appear to be weird for the sake of it. These scenes persist for so long they transform from disgusting to hilarious. Perhaps that’s the point.

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Assemblog: June 21, 2013

Elysium

New this week on Popshifter: Melissa remarks on the good and bad in The Cary Grant Film Collection on DVD; Chelsea loves El Valiente, the new album from Piñata Protest; Jeff finds little to love in Ozzy’s covers album, so cleverly titled Under Cover; Paul remembers some of the great roles from James Gandolfini; I have great things to say about iLL Manors, the debut film from Ben Drew; discuss the horror bona fides of Donna Davies’s documentary Nightmare Factory; and am impressed by The ABCs of Death, now on home video.

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Movie Review: Nightmare Factory

By Less Lee Moore

There’s a fantastic quote from the mother of special effects wizard Greg Nicotero in Nightmare Factory, a new documentary from filmmaker Donna Davies. When she was pregnant with her son, Mrs. Nicotero says, she read a lot of “blood-curdling” novels, all the ones she could find. “It was fun and exciting to be scared,” she adds. This is why horror junkies are horror junkies. The obsession with the craft of special effects is what’s explored in Nightmare Factory, but it’s clear that the fear factor is the spark that ignites the flame.

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