Music Review: The Woodentops, Granular Tales
Published on February 28th, 2014 in: Current Faves, Music, Music Reviews, Reviews |
After a 25-year recording hiatus, The Woodentops have reappeared with Granular Tales, a pleasing return to form. The amazing thing? They don’t sound at all like a band that’s not recorded in a quarter of a century. Granular Tales is, for the most part, vital and alive and inventive.
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Music Review: Big Ben Tribe, Lè Travo, Victrola (Dark Entries Reissues)
Published on February 21st, 2014 in: Current Faves, Music, Music Reviews, Retrovirus, Reviews |Dark Entries has quickly become one of my favorite labels, via both their new releases as well as their reissues of more obscure New Wave and dance music from the ’70s and ’80s. Their most recent reissues are from Big Ben Tribe, Lè Travo, and Victrola.
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Music Review: Temples, Sun Structures
Published on February 21st, 2014 in: Current Faves, Music, Music Reviews, Reviews |
When the time comes move with the feeling,
Lend your young ears to the sound of day.
—Temples, “Move With The Season”
Upon a first listen to Sun Structures, the debut album from Temples, it’s tempting to wonder if they’re time travelers. Sun Structures is drenched in late ’60s and early ’70s psychedelia, full of fuzzy, chiming guitars, phase shifters, mellotrons, faux sitars, and harps. Certainly there are curmudgeons out there who would roll their eyes at “England’s premier retro-futurists,” sputtering the names of a long list of bands from whom these four young men are blatantly stealing. Yet Temples cheerfully admits to their influences, with dozens of YouTube clips posted on their Facebook page indicating who has provided inspiration.
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Blu-Ray Review: The Doll Squad/Mission: Killfast
Published on February 21st, 2014 in: Blu-Ray, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Movie Reviews, Movies, Retrovirus, Reviews, Underground/Cult |
Ted V. Mikels is one of the best things to ever happen to film. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but Mikels did have a couple of cool films back in the day that have recently been released in a collection from Vinegar Syndrome: The Doll Squad and Mission: Killfast. Vinegar Syndrome put these two films in a beautiful Blu-Ray combo and it is definitely the highlight of my year so far. Until they released this Blu-Ray, I had seen Mikels’s film The Corpse Grinders, but nothing else, and now I want to seek out everything that he has ever done.
DVD Review: The Legend Of The Psychotic Forest Ranger
Published on February 21st, 2014 in: Comedy, DVD, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Horror, Movie Reviews, Movies, Reviews |
Eighties throwback films are getting more and more popular every year. Some of these films are pretty incredible while others fall flat and just don’t hit the notes. You sometimes have a film that falls in between and that is exactly where The Legend Of The Psychotic Forest Ranger ends up.
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VHS Visions: Deadly Dreams (1988)
Published on February 21st, 2014 in: Horror, Movie Reviews, Movies, Retrovirus, Reviews, VHS, VHS Visions |
Back in the ’80s there was an actress named Juliette Cummins who has remained one of my favorites until this day. Bringing up her name probably won’t ring a bell, but she was in such flicks as Friday The 13th Part 5: A New Beginning, Psycho 3, Slumber Party Massacre 2, Running Hot, and Deadly Dreams. (Psst. . . this post is about Deadly Dreams.) Ever since I can remember, Juliette Cummins has been a favorite of mine and I love every film she is in. Yeah, the films are pretty badass to begin with, but she makes the films better.
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Music Review: Clan Of Xymox, Matters Of Mind, Body And Soul
Published on February 21st, 2014 in: Current Faves, Music, Music Reviews, Reviews |By Hanna
Matters Of Mind, Body And Soul is the first Clan of Xymox studio album in several years, since 2012’s cover album Kindred Spirits. Because of this, and their sudden and short recent return to L.A., there has been some tradgoth excitement about this release. The result is safe but not boring: on the one hand, this album sounds like their music has always sounded; on the other, it’s new and varied.
DVD Review: Birth Of The Living Dead
Published on February 14th, 2014 in: Current Faves, Documentaries, DVD, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Horror, Movie Reviews, Movies, Reviews |
When I was little, one of the first films that I can remember seeing and buying on VHS was Night Of The Living Dead on the Blockbuster Exclusive label. You know the one; the one with the big red label on the side. . . Night Of The Living Dead is one of the most important and influential films that exists. It has impacted not only the film industry but also the world, inspiring many people along the way. First Run Features recently released a documentary based on the events leading up to the making of this important film. Birth Of The Living Dead sheds a lot of light on the making of Night Of The Living Dead including stories of its successes and mishaps.
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VHS Visions: Valet Girls (1987)
Published on February 14th, 2014 in: Comedy, Movie Reviews, Movies, Retrovirus, Reviews, VHS, VHS Visions |
Sex comedies are my forte. I’m in love with them, even the bad ones. It doesn’t matter to me if they’re bad because I find something enjoyable out of each of them. There are a lot of sex comedies but there are some real gems hidden about all the boobs and sand. One of those flicks is Valet Girls.
With these films you can’t go on expecting a plot. Usually there’s a very simple story with lots of boobs and running from the villain or trying to overcome some obstacle and having to raise money for it. Valet Girls is about a singer who wants to make it big so she becomes a valet girl? What?
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DVD Review: Concussion
Published on February 7th, 2014 in: Current Faves, DVD, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, Feminism, LGBTQ, Movie Reviews, Movies, Reviews |
The tagline on the DVD for Concussion is the kind of lurid text that implies we’re going to watch a Lifetime movie from the 1990s: Wife. Mother. Escort. When you examine the plot—middle-aged wife and mother gets hit on the head and then creates a secret life as a prostitute—it doesn’t do much to dissuade that notion. Yet Concussion isn’t a cautionary tale and the head injury doesn’t produce dissociative fugues; no one gets blackmailed, kidnapped, or murdered. It’s a frank examination of dissatisfaction and desire that could easily be transposed onto a heterosexual relationship, but in Concussion the married couple are lesbians with two kids.
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