Music Review: Love, Poetry and Revolution – A Journey Through The British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes 1966-72

By Melissa Bratcher

In just six short years, British Psychedelic bands went from singing songs about tea to songs about witches. Love, Poetry and Revolution: A Journey Through The British Psychedelic and Underground Scenes 1966-72 is a recent three-disc boxed set that plumbs the depths of the psychedelic revolution and collects these little-heard rarities alongside thoughtful, witty liner notes from compiler David Wells. Forgoing the more easily accessible, overplayed songs, Wells gives the listener gems by bands that never landed a recording contract, or perhaps only put out one album, alongside demos and alternate takes of more familiar artists like The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown and The Spencer Davis Group.

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Blu-Ray Review: Argento’s Dracula 3D

By Brad Henderson

Let me start off by saying that I’m a huge fan of Dario Argento. Huge. He’s been a big influence in my life and is one of my favorite directors of all time. I’m sad to say this is the first Argento flick that I’ve disliked. (Yes, I like Giallo, so don’t bother asking.) Still, I didn’t go into this film with high hopes but it has Rutger Hauer and Asia Argento so I was thinking what could go wrong with something like that?

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DVD Review: Dark Touch

By Brad Henderson

It’s hard to keep up with horror films because there are so many. Between all of the indie and mainstream horror movies released, it is next to impossible to determine what to watch and stay away from. That is why there are people like us to help you decide what you need to watch right away or take your good ol’ time to get around to seeing.

Dark Touch is a film that I recommend that I actually didn’t care all that much about. Weird, right? I know. I’m one of those people that will recommend a film even though I disliked it because I can see many people digging this film and enjoying it quite a bit. The plot is very intriguing and it immediately got me interested: A little girl is the survivor of a massacre that took place at her home. The cops suspect vandals broke into the home and killed her parents but the little girl knows the truth of what happened on that horrific night.

My main problem with the story is that we know the truth of what happened right away. This kind of ruined the film for me because I would have rather been on the other side of the table with this one. The film is beautifully shot and well done, but that wasn’t enough to save Dark Touch for me personally. Even though it wasn’t for me I think this film will find its audience quickly . . . or not.

Dark Touch was released on DVD by IFC Midnight on January 28.

VHS Visions: Never Too Young To Die (1986)

By Brad Henderson

In 1986 a film was born. That film was Never Too Young To Die. It’s sad that many haven’t seen it, but that’s the point of this review. George Lazenby, Vanity, John Stamos, and Gene Simmons (yes, from Kiss) star in this magnum opus and give the best performances of their entire careers . . . I’m joking, but it isn’t that bad.

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DVD Review: Stonados

By Brad Henderson

I often wonder how people come up with an idea for a disaster film. Not only do we have volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and everything else but also we now have other things combined with these normal disaster films. Just about every week it seems that there is either a weird shark film or a disaster film on television and it gets old. I know there’s a small market out there but where do they actually find the producers of these films? If someone handed me a script called Stonados I would laugh. I even laughed when I got an email about the release of the film, but since I’m a film geek I gave it a chance. I give anything a chance.

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DVD Review: Devil’s Pass

By Brad Henderson

Renny Harlin has brought us many great films throughout his career, making a name for himself through action films. So what happens when Harlin wants to do a found footage horror film? I’m down. Recently Harlin brought us Devil’s Pass, a.k.a. The Dyatlov Pass Incident, which was inspired by true events.

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DVD Review: The Banshee Chapter

By Brad Henderson

There are countless horror films released in a year and most of the good ones go unnoticed by the general public. Unless a horror film is in theaters these days, people just don’t see them. Thankfully VOD is getting more popular and the general public now has access to all the films that we film geeks love and try to promote. The VOD industry is very much like the home video boom in many ways. Independent and low budget films didn’t stand a chance at the theater in the days of the home video boom (and they still don’t), but once these movies hit the video store it became an equal playing field. The same goes for VOD these days: Indie flicks are in the same row as your big budget blockbusters.

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Waxing Nostalgic: Nada Surf, “The Plan”

By Jeffery X Martin

Music in the Nineties wore its heart on its flannel sleeve. Once you got past how things smelled or how evenly they flowed, Nineties rock was a veritable LiveJournal of emotions. There were earnest, honest lyrics depicting difficult emotional situations, sometimes couched in the friendliest of music, sometimes buried under layers of compression and distortion.

Nada Surf had a bit of a different sound. The guitars were fuzzy and discordant, but singer Matthew Caws’s vocals were clean and clear; no Cobain mumble, no Cornell voicerobatics. When he poured out his angst, it was inescapable because it was right there. You could almost envision him in front of you, two shots into a bottle, hand shaking with frustration while his voice never quavered.

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Movies: 20 To Watch In 2014 (So Far)

By Less Lee Moore

Under The Skin

This year looks to be a fantastic one for movies across multiple genres, and we’re only at the end of January. No doubt more will be added to this “must see” list within the next few months, especially when the Toronto International Film Festival announces its schedule. The films below are listed in order of release dates; where no release date is available, they are listed in alphabetical order.

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DVD Review: You’re Next

By Less Lee Moore

“Bidding war” are two words that filmmakers sometimes wait years to hear. In the case of You’re Next, though, it also meant that audiences would have to wait years to see the movie that caused the stir in the first place. If you saw You’re Next at TIFF’s Midnight Madness a few years back and wondered what happened to it, you’re in luck. It’s now out on DVD after a brief theatrical run at the end of last year.

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