// Category Archive for: Reviews

Blu-Ray Review: A Cat In The Brain

By Jeffery X Martin

Italian horror movies are a strange and different beast. American horrors rely mostly on jump scares and urban legends, things that go bump in the night. Italian fright flicks don’t care about your childhood scary stories. In fact, they don’t even care about linear storytelling. Most of them are simply a pastiche of set-pieces, offering gross-out after gross-out, with the barest thread of a plot holding everything together. It’s the visuals that matter, not the story.

That makes A Cat in the Brain all the more interesting. Lucio Fulci, king of the Italian gore movies, went straight up meta with this movie.

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TV Review: Outlander S2 E03, “Useful Occupations and Deceptions”

By Laury Scarbro

Perhaps it was just the fact of real-life obligations getting to me, but it seemed to me that this episode dragged. I’m not even kidding; it took several hours to work through it from start to finish. But I got through it, and it’s worth the watch. Much of what takes place is plot-building rather than action or character growth.

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Netflix Review: Team Foxcatcher

By Tyler Hodg

The chilling story of “philanthropist” John du Pont and his shocking murder of Dave Shultz is eerily depicted in the Netflix original documentary, Team Foxcatcher. The story was previously fictionalized in the five-time Academy Award-nominated film simply titled Foxcatcher. (more…)

Book Review: Cult Cinema: An Arrow Video Companion

By Christine Makepeace

I like the idea of collecting the musing and essays from individual Arrow releases into a single bound book. In theory, that is. In reality, if I’m interested in reading analysis on a specific film, like Dressed to Kill, wouldn’t I already have that Blu-ray in my collection?

There’s a chance the answer to that tug of war will color the amount of value you’re able to find in Cult Cinema: An Arrow Video Companion. I flip-flopped on this as I meandered through its pages. When faced with a piece on Zombie Flesh Eaters I struggled to muddle through. Perhaps a mix of topic and writing style, I just couldn’t commit to paragraph after paragraph on a movie I didn’t have much interest in, and that was my reaction to the majority of this book.

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Movie Review: Doglegs

By Sachin Hingoo

Doglegs co-founder, and star of the film, Shintaro Yano (ring name “Sambo” Shintaro) strikes a fighting pose. © Alfie Goodrich

Japanese wrestling or “puroresu” is a tradition that goes back to the 1950s, and is most closely associated with a more realistic, hard-hitting “strong style” than we normally see in Western pro wrestling, which is far more choreographed. Strikes usually land for real, though the intention is still primarily to put on a show, not actually hurt one’s opponent. The style is tough on the performers, and those that thrive in the competitive landscape of “puro” are considered some of the best and most resilient wrestlers in the business. Still, the style is often hard to watch, given what we know now about concussions and other injuries that can be commonplace in puro.

You can imagine, then, how hard it is to watch a puro match, not between able-bodied athletes in peak physical condition, but with disabled wrestlers. Heath Cozens’ Doglegs, a documentary about an eponymous group of mostly disabled Japanese wrestlers, is certainly difficult to sit through, but is ultimately worthwhile for its ability to wring triumph from tragedy.

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Podcast: TV or GTFO Episode 5, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”

With some technical difficulties preventing us from talking about a certain Warrior Princess (stay tuned for this one, though) on this week’s TV or GTFO, Sachin and Gary decide to talk about a Prince instead. A Fresh Prince.

If, for some reason, you haven’t somehow sussed out our subject for this week, we’ll be talking about the Will Smith vehicle The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which aired for six seasons between 1990 and 1996. It’s a story all about how Smith’s life got flipped—turned upside down. So take a minute, sit right there, because we’ll tell you how he became the prince of a town called Bel Air. This was a show that both of us enjoyed a lot while it aired, so we’d hoped that it would hold up better than it has.

Why doesn’t anyone experience any growth or change on this show? What happened to the original Aunt Viv? Where did Nicky come from? WHY DOES NOTHING HAPPEN IN THE SERIES FINALE?? Find out on this week’s episode of TV or GTFO!

Find us on iTunes, your favorite podcast app, or download the episode directly here!

Concert Review: Odonis Odonis At Velvet Underground

By Less Lee Moore

Post Plague Record Release Show
June 24, 2016
Toronto, ON

At last year’s NXNE, Odonis Odonis played a show with A Place To Bury Strangers and Iceage and despite both of those bands having huge reputations of being incredible live, the Toronto trio more than held their own. This past Friday’s show was even better. The band has an impressive light show to accompany their newer material and this time, they weren’t plagued with the technical issues that threatened to overpower last year’s Opera House performance. In fact, they almost literally blew me away. But more on that in a minute.

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TV Review: Outlander S2 E02, “Not In Scotland Anymore”

By Laury Scarbro

With the second episode of season 2, it becomes evident that Jamie is not fully healed, neither mentally nor physically. Jamie, Claire, and even Murtagh come to the realization that things in France are quite different from what they’ve experienced in Scotland.

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Movie Review: The Fear of 13

By Tyler Hodg

Some say life is stranger than fiction; The Fear of 13, a documentary by British filmmaker David Sington, is a whirlwind collection of unbelievable anecdotes told by Death Row prisoner Nick Yarris, which seem too crazy not to be true. Now available on streaming giant Netflix, the film publicizes humane perspectives of criminals, and those often unfairly tossed aside by society.

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Music Review: Vallens, Consent

By Less Lee Moore

After several years paying her dues in various Toronto bands, Robyn Phillips was visited by a vision. Adopting the name of Isabella Rossellini’s character from Blue Velvet, Phillips began writing songs informed by this persona, eventually gathering other musicians to complete a full band. Vallens’ first album Consent is out today and it reveals that Phillips’ commitment paid off: it’s a stunning debut.

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