The Best of Arnold
I was a child of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and as a result I was weaned on action movies, particularly the glorious works of Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and, OF COURSE, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Watching these films still imbues me with a sort of visceral delight, an upsurge of joy and contentment within the universe. I couldn’t tell you what percentage of my delight comes purely from nostalgia, and what percentage comes from the fact...
Ultraman: Episodes 1&2
I was thrilled this weekend when I glanced through a $3.99 movie bin at Albertson’s and pulled out the most random inclusion I could find: Volume One of the 1966-7 Japanese TV show ULTRAMAN: A SPECIAL EFFECTS FANTASY SERIES. One look at the cover art and I knew I’d be in for a treat. A quick glance on Wikipedia confirmed my excitement. It has some of the same creators as Godzilla. The monsters all have names like Greenmons, Alien...
Sam’s Cosmic Movie Peeves
We’ve all got our little pet peeves when it comes to movies and television. Sometimes it stems from our areas of expertise (“Well I’M a fighter pilot and there’s no way I’d do it like that”) or sometimes we just learn some trivia and can never look at those troublesome scenes the same way again. Sometimes it’s plain common sense! At best, the following scenes make me roll my eyes and ignore them. At worst, I open my mouth to complain,...
B-Movie: Rock N Roll Nightmare
Review by Sam Wood Jon Mikl Thor, the Legendary Rock Warrior, has had an expansive career spanning back to 1973 and continuing on in the present day. According to his VERY self-aggrandizing website, “THOR first made waves in the bodybuilding world, becoming Mr. Canada and Mr. USA, always using heavy music as an intensive training tool. He blended his powerful physique with powerful rock, and thus began this amazing cult legend’s long...
A Chinese Torture Chamber Story
My little column turns twenty posts old today, and what better way to celebrate than by reviewing the most ridiculously sleazy Hong Kong exploitation film I have ever seen? “A Chinese Torture Chamber Story” exemplifies the concept of a guilty pleasure film. It is as hilarious as it is disgusting. The first time I watched it I was by myself—and I still felt embarrassed to be watching it. It is shameless torture porn, and while that is...
Presidents in Film
I was puttering around the Box Office Mojo website recently and came across an interesting comparison: the domestic box office gross of films about U.S. presidents. This includes documentaries, fictionalized accounts, and accounts that are entirely fictional in the first place. Here are the fifteen top-performing presidential films (rounded to the nearest million): Independence Day – 300 million Air Force One – 173 million...
Holiday Cards
In lieu of an article this week I thought I’d provide something special for all the procrastinators out there. If you haven’t sent out Christmas cards this year, but you vaguely intended to do so, and now you’re looking at the calendar and realizing there is no way in hell they would arrive in time: then these are for you! Not only are these delightful holiday e-cards, which can be saved to your computer through the power of...
Solarbabies
From the moment the title screen flew at my face, I knew I was in for something special. And I was right! “Solarbabies” is not just special, it is exceptional, mind-blowing, earth-shattering (sometimes literally). The movie has a whopping 0% approval rating on Rottentomatoes (though in its defense there are only 10 accumulated reviews, and none of them is mine). The film takes place in the year 41 of the New Time, when the...
My Favorite Aliens
Guys, I have a confession to make. I am really excited about the upcoming “Cowboys and Aliens.” Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell? Um, cowboys fighting aliens? I’m a little nervous though, because often when Hollywood raises my expectations with a fun concept they are planning some prank to dash it all away again. The cowboy half of the promise will undoubtedly be paid in full. But what about the alien half? I haven’t seen...
Old School Movie Review: The Hobbit
I was initially planning to do another B-Movie review this week, but decide to do an old-school movie review instead. There’s a fine distinction between them sometimes, but in this case I couldn’t classify the film in question as B-grade material. Mostly it’s just… horrible. Plain horrible. Just not due to budgetary reasons. Purportedly this thing cost 3 million dollars. I am, as the above banner indicates, talking about the 1977...
