Category: Reviews

The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

the initiation of sarah

My current plan is to try to repost 3 of my old reviews per day and then link to three reviews I’ve written over at Cinema Sentries. I’m not entirely sure of how many reviews I’ve written in my life, so I have no idea how long that process will take.

I will be writing new reviews pretty regularly both over at Cinema Sentries and possibly just here. I’ve also got a whole lot of journal entries of the year I spent in France that I’d like to repost at some point. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do that, so it may be a while before you see those thoughts.

There are also some old bootleg reviews, something I used to call Random Shuffle (I’d put my music collection and shuffle and then tell stories about what the songs reminded me of), and lots of other old stuff I’ll eventually repost.

I’m thinking about writing new bootleg reviews pretty regularly and I’m still pondering how best to upload and post new shows. There are all kinds of ideas floating around in my head about what to do with this site, but nothing had quite solidified.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I recently wrote a review for CS about a movie called The Initiation of Sarah. It isn’t a very good movie. It is basically a rip-off of Carrie. But you can read my review here.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema VIII

film noir

Beyond horror, I am a huge fan of film noir. That’s a particular type of crime drama was made in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. They use expressionistic black and white photography, a dark, cynical point of view, and usually a hard-boiled detective and a beautiful femme fatale.

Kino Lorber has been regularly putting out nice boxed sets of film noir featuring lesser-known titles in the genre. I recently reviewed one of those sets for Cinema Sentries and you can read it here.

Hell High (1989)

hell high bluray

Yesterday I spoke of the joy of reviewing Blu-rays in that it enables me to discover interesting new movies I might have otherwise overlooked. The underside of this is that I sometimes I have sit through (and review) really terrible movies. Hell High was one of those. As you’ve probably figured out I’m a big fan of horror movies and the slasher subgenre of horror. Hell High is a late-period slasher that tries to have fun with the genre’s tropes, and pretty much fails miserably. If you want to know more (and I know you do) then you can read my review here.

The Righteous (2021)

the righteous

One of the joys of reviewing movies for Cinema Sentries is that I sometimes get a chance to see something I might not have watched were it not for them. Our cinematic world these days is so filled with multi-film universes and blockbuster franchises that smaller, independent films often get blocked out, when they are even made at all.

I recently got to see The Righteous, a movie I’d never heard of before the Blu-ray landed in my mailbox. I’m glad it did. Not because it is perfect, but because it at least tries for something different. Anyway, click here for my review.

Dreamin’ Songs – “World Leader Pretend” By R.E.M.

Our air conditioner is broken again, and as it was 86 degrees inside our home last night, the wife and I decided to take a trip to some fine air-conditioned air in the local Barnes and Noble. As most of our CDs are now locked inside cardboard boxes we were limited in our music choices for the drive.

We wound up choosing REMs major label debut, Green. I say we, but it should be noted that in fact, the decision was really nothing but my wife putting it in the CD player. I make that distinction as I probably would not have chosen that particular album. It turned out to be a good choice, as it is an excellent album. A fact I tend to forget.

I say all this to point out the sheer simplicity of understanding why “World Leader Pretend” floated back into my brain this early morning.

It is what I would call an underrated classic.“Pop Song” and “Stand” tend to get the glory from this album, or even the beautiful “You Are Everything” but “WLP” should get high praise as well.

Musically it is a little mid-tempo number with lilting guitars and a bit of a cadence on the drums. It sounds a little military – well military with background vocals by Mike Mills. The sound fits the lyrics which use a great deal of military language to discuss deeper, personal ideas.

It juxtaposes the concept of governments raising walls and preparing their defenses with the singer’s own emotional walls and defenses, proclaiming at last that he raised these walls and he will have to be “the one to knock it down.”

That’s a pretty universal sentiment and one that has struck large chords with me at various times in my own life when I raised my own defenses.

It is also, I believe, the only time REM has printed the lyrics of a song in their liner notes.

Transformers (2007)

transformers

It has been a good long while since I did a proper movie review. The blog has turned into something totally different than I had ever intended. Since the invention of the China connection my world has turned a little lopsided and haggard and busy as crap. I try to post regularly with snippets of interest from the web or youtube or the occasional life story, but proper reviews and really interesting stories have kind of fallen by the wayside. I hope that once China really gets going, I shall be able to get back into regular writing, for real.

All this is to say I am going to give a smaller version of a movie review for Transformers – call it movie review-lite.

Though we couldn’t really afford it, my wife and I decided to watch movies with friends for the Fourth of July celebration. My friend, Daniel, had his heart set on Transformers, whereas my wife wanted nothing but Ratatouille. Truth be told I would have rather seen the cartoon rats, but Daniel had already seen them and like a dutiful friend I saw the cartoon transforming automobiles.

Transformers was pretty much what I expected from a live-action movie based on an 80s toy product directed by Michael Bay – lots of action, little sensible plot.

The plot involved a group of warring robots who have come to Earth in search of this Rubix Cube that will ultimately change their war-torn planet into something nice again, or if you are a Decepticon (bad guys) it will destroy the planet or the good guys or something. It isn’t really made sure why they want the box, but darn do they want it.

To add a human element there is a story about a young, nerdy boy trying to get the popular hot chick. It works better than it ought to, but ultimately it is just filler until we get to the robot battles.

There is a very traditional Michael Bay subplot involving a soldier and his wife and his never-before-seen baby. They add absolutely nothing to the plot, are cardboard things, and only serve to allow Michael Bay to believe he can write real stories and for sentimental parents to cry a little bit in a movie about giant robots.

Oh and there is some conspiracy theory jumbo involving a top-secret government agency (with sadly, John Turturro appearing for a paycheck.)

The Transformers are pretty kicked arse though. They look super cool, they transform in really brilliant ways and they fight like mad. The fight scenes are well worth the price of admission although throughout most of the film I had no real idea who was fighting who as when the bots are transformed into humanish form, they look mostly like each other.

Hearing Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime was admittedly the bomb, even if I am a bigger GI Joe freak than Transformers.

It was worth watching and I’m glad I caught it on the big screen, though I still would have preferred the cartoon rats in Paris.

I jokingly said to my wife before going in that she was going to have a theatre full of screaming children, while I would have a theatre full of screaming middle-aged men. The fanboys were out in full, but it really made for a better experience overall.