Carpenter Brut teams up with Seth Ickerman once again to create another visual and sonically pleasing masterpiece. If you haven’t already, check out the film “Blood Machines” by Seth Ickermen, and the music video to Carpenter Brut’s “Turbo Killer”. Both solid pieces of work. Watch the new Carpenter Brut video below:

† CARPENTER BRUT – SPEED OR PERISH † Directed by Seth Ickerman (Official Music Video)

This month’s movie pick is probably in bad timing. But, “f*ck all that feelings sh*t”. This movie is probably not to some of yous taste or interest. You will probably be entertained or annoyed or you just might be like me and be on that timing. No, I’m not gonna give a whole Big Boss monologue. This is the Retro Movie of October 2025.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a 1973 action crime–drama film based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee. It is both a satire of the civil rights struggle in the United States of the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of Black militancy. Dan Freeman, the titular protagonist, is enlisted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its elitist espionage program, becoming its token Black person. After mastering agency tactics, however, he becomes disillusioned and drops out to train young Black people in Chicago to become “Freedom Fighters”.

Directed by Ivan Dixon, co-produced by Dixon and Greenlee, from a screenplay written by Greenlee with Mel Clay, the film starred Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League, J. A. Preston, and David Lemieux.

Sometime in the 1970’s in Chicago. After the approval rating in the African American community takes a nose dive for a U.S. Senator, the Agency decides it would be good optics for the government as well for itself to go out and publicly recruit African American males to join the CIA. With no intention of passing any of them they begin scouting in the inner city. To their surprise one recruit actually makes it through the training. Dan Freeman who unbeknownst to the Agency (Nowadays this would be impossible with social media and digital footprints), Freeman happens to be a Black Nationalist.

The idea of the Agency recruiting from the population isn’t hard to believe. There have been numerous occasions of people being covertly recruited or claim to have been recruited since the beginning of the Cold War. Especially with all the projects such as MK ULTRA.

Back to the plot – Freeman is a Black Nationalist and the Feds don’t know it. After passing his training, Freeman impresses his handlers. However, he is placed in the basement as file clerk and routine tour guide for visitors to project the image of inclusivity. This doesn’t last long before Freeman comes to the reality that he is a Token. (To be honest he most likely was aware this would happen from the start). Freeman keeps a low profile as he completes the Guerilla Warfare training in weapons, subversion, communications and you get the point. When he learns what he needs to learn he quietly resigns and returns to social work in Chicago.

Freeman has the intention of using what the government has taught him and turning it back on them. This is called BLOWBACK. He starts training local youths the same techniques he learned from the government and begins his insurgency for Black Liberation.

After its release the film was pulled from theaters and banned for a time by the FBI for its political tones and themes. Especially since the Civil Rights movement was still fresh in the minds of the inner cities and there were a lot of African American veterans returning home to a country they fought for and  experience the same racism and poverty that existed before the war; a lot of veterans with military training in guerilla warfare and weapons. The idea that this film might spark the idea for revolt and self-determination was just too scary for the powers that be that happen to be Ofay. Shame because, I wish this flew below their radar and more people were able to watch it.

“Tim Reid, whose company helped to release Spook on DVD, said to the Los Angeles Times in 2004: “When you look back at the times…Martin Luther King was assassinated, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy. Black people were really angry and frustrated; we were tired of seeing our leaders killed. What do we do? Do we have a revolution? There is nothing that comes close to this movie in terms of black radicalism.””

I mean if you remember how the proto-dudebros were all charged up after watching 300 for the first time enough they adopted it’s imagery, themes and masculinity(?) like cosplay, tribal tattoos and fake muscles shirts. It would’ve been interesting if THIS film had a longer life in the theaters – Could’ve been interesting.

Regardless of their attempts, enough people did watch it and it gained Cult status over the years before the original film reels were found and restored for the public.  

“Nina Metz wrote in the Chicago Tribune: “For years it was only available on bootleg video. In 2004, the actor Tim Reid tracked down a remaining negative stored in a vault under a different name (‘When they want to lose something, they lose it,’ Reid told the Tribune at the time) and released it on DVD.”  In a 2004 feature for NPR, Karen Bates reported that the director of the film, Ivan Dixon, admitted that United Artists would not show the film in a way that would allow its political message to come through when clips were viewed prior to the film’s public release. “Dixon says when United Artists screened the finished product and saw a Panavision version of political Armageddon, they were stunned.””

So f**k all that interference and here is for your pleasure or discomfort is the controversial, thought provoking and inspiring – 1970’S The Spook Who Sat by the Door, directed by Ivan Dixon.

Stay free, Stay Strapped, Read more, Learn Real History, Build your bodies and Minds, Question authority, Buy physical media, practice your aim, sharpen your punches and conceal your knives, know the law and the law won’t trick you. Stay fresh, smart and always keep your finger on that damn REWIND button.

Movie link: https://youtu.be/HG-56GKbPtk?si=C53B1Pwf0122h5IU

• How is this not a Troma film?

Flesh Eating Moms directed by: James Martin. Starring: Robert Lee Oliver, Donatella Hecht, Neal Rosen, Valorie Hubbard and Marie Michaels.
Year of release: 1988
Runtime : 88 min / 1.85:1

Pardon my French but “these b*tches is crazy”. What the hell did I just watch? 90 minutes of lucid insanity and I needed it. Please just take me back to the eighties and the nineties, please. Take me back to the BMX ramps in the cul-de-sac, the yellow school bus with the nicotine stenched driver. The Pizzeria run by a guy named Sal next door the breakfast diner that served beer after 7pm. The shitty box television set with the knobs and the furniture with the plastic coverings. The Late, Late Movie on channel 7, frozen orange juice in the freezer, the leaves of autumn, the imaginary Leave It To Beaver music that played in your head on the way to school, the rotary phone with the two foot cord, walkie-talkies, lazer-tag, Saturday mornings, 25cent juices, the girl next door, the creepy van that was always parked down by the river, the haunted house on the corner, the sketchy guy at the park, the Ice Cream man with the sailor tattoos, stranger danger, DARE, the danger of razors in the candy, the rocks that addicts smoked, “No-that wasn’t candy”, MSG, the OTB, phone phreakers, NYNEX, book reports, BOOKS, Nintendo, VHS, A Current Affair, Unsolved Mysteries, the Cold War and the threat of impending doom with every slice of pizza & fruit punch. I was lucky enough to find this on youtube while researching conspiracy threads and documentaries online; there I was taking a break from learning about the Sabbateans and I noticed this title pop-up in my feed (no connection).

• PLOT
  Somewhere in some corner of New Jersey, the mothers have come down with a sickness and have turned into savage cannibalistic fiends. Nothing is off the menu when these hotwives go feral and start ripping into their neighbors and loved ones. The kids are stoned and freaked out trying to get to the bottom of the madness. The chief of police knows more than he says. The local medical examiner is barely over five feet tall and even he smells something is fishy going on.
  

This film was shot on a shoe string budget and enough imagination, humor and not-a-care in the world attitude to make this something special. I’ve already watched this film twice and still laugh my balls off. All shot on location in west bumblef*k.

• “It’s so damn bad it’s great. How is this not a Troma film.”

The limited budget was obviously focused on what special fx they could put together and “YES” the gore is here; almost reminiscent of early Peter Jackson type body horror courtesy of special effects artist Carl Sorensen (Child’s Play, Tremors). There is so much red stuff dripping here you could stock a Nathan’s Hot Dog stand and film an entire MaxiPad marketing campaign. The script is witty, tongue-in-cheek and crass. The cannibal virus itself has a nice original plot twist to it.
The acting? The acting is pure public-access meets Loyd Kaufman shot on film and smeared together inside the frame of an episodes of MONSTERS. I can’t say I recognize any of these actors aside from Marie Micheals who was one of the mob wives in Goodfellas and Donatella Hecht (The Manhattan Project 1986). I LOVE THIS. This is why I review these forgotten gems of analog entertainment when life was simpler, less sanitized and fun. Gen X wasn’t just an era it was a friggin attitude and I was fortunate enough to slide down the tail-end of that generation into the birth of the millennial before everything just became cookie cutter and redundant.

Flesh Eating Mothers is also available in Blu-ray format from Vinegar Syndrome presents, freshly restored in 2K and featuring a new batch of exclusive extra features.

You been fluffed enough now. So click the link below and watch with some friends and some pizza rolls, soda pop, whatever the hell you smoke and your significant others Hot Pockets. Just remember to take it easy, be dangerous, be cool, keep your finger on that Rewind Button and Yippee-ki-yay and F the Law.

• DECODER (1984) directed by Muscha & starring: FM Einhert a.k.a. Mufti (Einstürzende Neubauten), Bill Rice (The Offenders (1980), The Big Blue (1988), Manhattan Love Suicides 1985, Coffee&Cigarettes), Christiane F., Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic-TV) and featuring William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, Junkie, Queer, Drugstore Cowboy, Dead City Radio) whose writing was an inspiration for the film.
  * The film featured this month is very avant-garde, subversive and punk-af. It is not meant for children under the age of 18 years of age and contains images of nudity, drug use, chaos magick, surgical footage, sexual situations and ideas of delinquency and anti-authoritarian themes.
  Language: German with Spanish subtitles.
  
  

In 1970 the collection of essays by Beatnik and Underground art icon William Burrough was published. In it Burroughs meditates on the written word and its evolution into the spoken. That language is something unique to the Human experience as it can exist both in image and sound. That the written language can enable the writer to cheat time and space and project thoughts, ideas, emotions, through time and affect readers in the future. Language regardless if it’s written on a medium or spoken has power; it is magick; no different from the sigils in a magician’s grimoire or the crystal ball, energized and imbued with power. How with the write configuration of words, images, sounds and their meaning can influence, control, infect and gestate inside the psyche very much like a virus.  

Decoder is a 1984 West German cyberpunk film that you’ve probably never heard of. I was fortunate to find it one late night while in one of my insomnia periods.

The story follows FM as he works for a fast food chain to make ends meet but, spends his evenings making compositions of abrasive industrial music. When FM starts noticing how passive and docile the customers at his Burger joint are when the Muzak playlist is cycling over the speakers. He figures that perhaps there might be something in the Muzak that’s making people compliant. That it’s the muzak that’s lulling people into submission in a world where visceral reality is almost a cheap thrill (a kink), something you tuck under your mattress when the relatives come home; a world where we just accept subjugation into an authoritarian corpo system where fascism bridges the gap between military and corporate corruption. FM also spends his free time with his girlfriend (Christiane) a peep show girl that works in the red-light district.

One night while working on music, FM starts to manipulate one of Christiane’s frogs and records the screams. FM realizes that he can use abrasive sound to instigate destructive impulses in people that listen to his music and cancel out the corporate muzak. He strategically places tape recorders, like sonic I.E.D.’s, at different well-known fast food establishments armed with his music. These subversive recordings cause riots, destruction of property, violence and social upheaval. After sometime these terrorist incidents earn the attention of the corporate overlords who hire an assassin (Bill Rice) to find who is creating these tapes and execute him. Bill Rice’s character a weary hitman more preoccupied with haunting the red light district and infatuated with a peep show girl who just happens to be FM’s girlfriend.

DECODER is low-budget, analog, cyberpunk with a Cold War edge to it. Lush lighting and a noir dread drip heavily here. The soundtrack features SoftCell, Psychic-TV, THE THE and Einstürzende Neubauten. The basic plot of the film is summarized here in this review so all you have to do is follow the visuals and vibe. Not suitable viewing for anyone under-the-age of 18.

Stay dangerous, stay underground, stay out of sight, stay away from bootlickers, magahats, democrats and anyone that tows the company line, puts blinders on, shuts up and takes it right up in there deeply (and without even a kiss or dinner to eat), drinking the government kool-aid. Stay aware, stay armed and get angry and keep your G*ddamn finger on the REWIND button.

Movie:

https://youtu.be/vdCXssmZLdw?si=PDidB4yL53XRVpXv

Bonus: Soft Cell – Seedy Films (Official Video Release HD)

Fishscale/V/: New.Entry-Transmission.Whatever.Wetnightmares.
Screamscapes.and.corporal.malfunctions//The movie theater has gone dim. The Kodak camera has lost its reel. The Mall is shuttered. The video store is closed. The soundtrack plays on the tape deck, scrambled. The Pyrex takes a nap for the evening. The national anthem plays after dusk behind a scrambled pornographic transmission. The ICE is out tonight and the night is on fire. The sky looks like a dead screen. No stars in the sky. No whistling wind. No connection. No firmware in a pushup brazier to tune into the right nocturnal frequency. Just dead space and a static filter, not even the air could be trusted with authenticity. Media never sleeps. The television stays on. It’s always on and watching us, omnipresent and instigating, a rabble rouser and a shit talker galvanizing the masses into herds and stampedes at the press of a button. A planned reaction to the insurgency of law. What have I walked into? They say revolution is out in the streets but, it’s all a mixer, a munch, a social fellatio, what have I walked into, a gaggle of geeks, gooners, meat pacifiers and skin socks – repeating what the TV eye and the cardboard says. All in step and out of order. For sincere reasons and free will – although dictated in silent vibration from the overseers Morse code. Engineered resistance to a problem that will be solved and locked down with dystopia and monitored by A.I. screws. Then. Here come the star fuckers and the vampires the celebrities and leeches. Lead by the pimps. The publicists. Celebrity cameo appearances in the back rows of protest. Kissing babies. Shakin’ hands. Only there for the photo-op and never joining rank at the frontline. Pretenders; actors; slaves to corporate rations and privilege; no gunplay, no backbone, just a game in the end. A hologram of a leg-wit-ammo, a box of blanks, rambling his gums into the void for a star on the avenue. Not here. It’s just another dead night and about this same dead time every night. They reenact and replay the same playlist and cosplay their childhood dreams. A boulevard of vapid dreamers, chipping away at the surfaces and hurling the city like feces at pigs, drones, naysayers and the npc. Nothing more but performance art against the machine. Showroom Dancers. With color commentary by your favorite content creators; jesters and critics feeding off the algorithm. Crossing their palms with silver traded in from your attention and likes; bunch of Svengalis and pied pipers in the new preachers clothes not like them but living a karaoke life in sheeple skin. A generation nursed on instant gratification through an umbilical usb cord detached from the contaminated coarse weather of reality and living one TikTok moment after another in some perverse REM sleepwalk. All copyrighted and sponsored by your elitist fascist overlords full-throttling their plans into a doomsday reset scenario and the birth of the new religion. Sponsored by oligarchs. You are all sleeping. Make it a better dreaming. Get into your phalanx formations. Red Dawn. Bravehearts. Look to your brother-in-arms. And behold leading the ranks. Not random protagonists. Imagine, just imagine under those hoods in the front. A fantasy.  – unveiled is the avengers or at least those that play them. Imagine yourselves rejuvenated with angst and righteous rage as those performers now possessed by the spirits of the IP that propelled their public image holding the line. As Christ Evans with trash lid in one hand and the stars & stripes in the other raised high; RDJrD2 in his aluminum foil iron armor inspiring courage in you. As descending from the rooftops with karambit gloves and fury in his teeth screaming to the heavens that “this is our ENDGAME!” is Hugh Jackalman too. Tears in your eyes and love swelling up in your frail chest and throats, “They’re here!” “The Avengers are here”. ”This is it!” A moment of our lifetimes when all men can lock shields and crush the oppressors under the tidal wave of change. freedom. and a better tomorrow. Something Aragonidus would say. What a dream that could be, Teen Wolves. Fleeting. Transitioning. Remixing. Getting carried away on a channel surf. The sequence again scrambled. The channel switched on everyone. All because the common man has lost his remote control. It’s been in the hand of the bad men this whole time. The bloody bag men. The usurpers. The adversary. The ones who remake, mutilate and remaster our memories and script our futures. The sky is a dead screen. The stars are blacked out. It’s just us in here and the movie rolls on. The show goes on. The empire strikes back. As everyone plays Sophie’s Choice every week on which Hot Topic to rally behind next. From the killing fields to local inconvenience. These aren’t freedom fighters this is the mob. And Rome knows its mob. How to fatten them up and keep them occupied with spectacle and gossip. The enemy knows the system. And the only responsible response is too crash the system. Crash N’ Burn. Hack the dream and make it yours.
Then. Then, I woke up. And the theaters were screening, the video store was open, the soundtrack restarted and the sky was in high resolution. What a beautiful sunset. The TV dinner smells amazing. That’s when I woke up. And forgot what I was dreaming about. //////….then WW3 began.
SamHaiNe

• Bonus: Chinatown (visual video) HaiNesVille:

I am breaking night again. Sleepless and restless yet bored and tired of the hamster wheel of square living; lost in the ether of the surface web again. I’m just here vegetated and binging on information and entertainment to numb the nerves and relax me as I float and drift with spontaneity. It looks like there’s an abundance of skullduggery and cloak & dagger schemes occurring in the world – more than the average citizen or loiterer could fathom. There is just so much information to process, to extrapolate, to synthesis and to summarize with such short time left. Information is more important than necessity; without information you have no access and avenues to proceed in society. You cannot arm yourself mentally and physically without information and the access to it.

That is what compelled me to present 1992’s Sneakers and luckily someone on YouTube was cool enough to have it uploaded.

Sneakers directed by Phil Alden Robinson, screenplay co-written with Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker. Starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn.

A successful movie from the creators of the 80’s classic WARGAMES, and the 20^th highest grossing film of that 1992, Sneakers is a crime thriller that if made nowadays would be considered cyber-noir. It’s another film that Roger Ebert didn’t get and gave a low review when released but, he had a knack for disliking movies before they found their audience.

The films plot revolves around a group of security penetration testers or “Pen Testers” that are recruited by men claiming to be NSA agents to retrieve a Russian black box that they are looking for. After successfully retrieving the item, the team learns that they have walked into something bigger than any of them could have imagined.

Filmed in multiple locations with a really good script and a stacked ensemble cast of heavy hitters, Sneakers has just enough humor and intrigue to keep your attention for the whole journey. A moment in time capsule for real-life cyberpunks of an analog time when things were more hands on. I definitely recommend this film for you the viewer.

Interesting sidenote:

• Leonard Adleman was the mathematical consultant on this movie. The character of “Bernard Abbott” was named after Robert Abbott, the so-called “Father of Information Security,” who was also a consultant for the film. The character “Whistler” was based on Josef “Joybubbles” Engressia and John “Cap’n Crunch” Draper, well-known figures in the phone phreaks and hacking communities.  “Donald Crease” was based on John Strauchs, a former CIA officer who founded the security consulting firm Systech Group.  Dan Ackroyd’s brother Peter supplied conspiracy material on “UFOS, cattle mutilations, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the staged moon landing, JFK, [and] Marilyn Monroe” that was used to “spice up” his character.

• The film’s press kit was accompanied by a floppy disk containing a custom program explaining the movie. Parts of the program were quasi-encrypted, requiring the user to enter an easily guessable password to proceed. It was one of the first electronic press kits by a film studio.

I know you’re probably out there in the wastelands feeling it right now: living check to check, angry, scared, dejected, detached, and trying to find some kind of escapism from reality. I hope my retro movie choice can give you some form of escapism from the madness and noise. Movies are an escape. Movies have a beginning and a definitive conclusion with all the drama and conflict playing out made digestible by the dialogue, characters and exposition, unlike reality. Reality sucks for everyone. But just know that you’re not alone out there in the storm. Stay safe, live reckless, question everything, dress smart and always keep one finger on that Rewind button. Til’ Next time.

You can’t say that Spielberg doesn’t know how to make an arresting intro to his films. In contrast to its predecessor, Temple of Doom opens big with a logistically impossible but rousing song-and-dance number of “Anything Goes” at a Shanghai nightclub in 1935 (we’re entering prequel territory). Here Spielberg introduces our leading lady, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). The scene is followed by a smooth, stair-descending entrance of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), dressed like he stepped out of a James Bond film. Given the origin of George Lucas’s character, it makes sense; he is an American-bred Bond who relies more on intelligence than luck. Soon, a double-cross situation with gangsters unfolds, followed by an escape through the window with Willie in tow and a meeting with Short Round (Ke Huy Quan), the second sidekick who, unlike many films featuring young performers, doesn’t irritate the older audience members. They’re soon on a flight to India, where the rest of the adventure takes place—perhaps destiny brings them to a downtrodden village to the titular temple of doom, and from there, the ride on the reel rarely slows down.

This plot sounds like exciting material for a new adventure for a beloved character, so what are the complaints and issues that have been lobbied at the film? Let’s first look at the “Willie Scott problem.” We know that Willie Scott is no Marion Ravenwood; however, why should she be? Yes, Willie is shrill, lacks toughness and adaptability, and is often plain annoying. That’s what a pampered nightclub singer would be like, dropped into the remote regions of colonial India. Yes, Spielberg did exaggerate her character traits during certain sequences. However, how would we act if we saw strange dining, insect infestation, and ritual sacrifice carried out by supernatural means? Somehow, I don’t believe that most of the audience would have the calmer demeanor of Jones and Short Round.

This brings us to the next often-raised criticism of the film: the depiction of Indian culture. First, this film is a spiritual sequel to the Cary Grant-helmed Gunga Din of 1939. Just as the villainous Thuggees (the etymology of the commonly used “thug”) of that film don’t represent all Indians, neither do the Thuggees and the evil leadership of the superb villain, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), represent anthropological studies either. Critics will often protest the banquet scene, mentioning that most Indians have a vegetarian diet, but then they will fail to reason why it’s there as an introduction to the palace’s atmosphere. It’s not there to portray the average Indian as bizarre diners, but it’s to show the audience that something off and nefarious is going down at Pankot Palace, though the influence is then unknown. Let’s not forget that this picture is a throwback to the adventure films of the 1930s. Those films were of a different period, often quickly plotted, and didn’t allow much room for nuance. We’re not watching a documentary with Temple of Doom. Furthermore, the more serious-minded Gandhi came out two years before and won multiple Academy Awards, but you can easily guess which film is being discussed decades later.

What issue is with Temple of Doom? I believe that Spielberg felt that the film was too thematically dark during the production process and not after the release. This is why I believe there are too many humorous elements that are incongruous with the sinister atmosphere and deeds of the villains. While Raiders has incidental comedy, tinged with irony, it feels that Spielberg put in superfluous gags to lighten the mood, and most of these deliberately call back to Raiders. Thus, while Mola Ram is intimidating and perhaps the singular memorable villain of the series, his lackeys often seem to be just fodder for the sequential shenanigans. When Mola Ram is not on screen, opposite Jones, I never feel that our hero is truly in danger. Somehow, Spielberg has turned the menacing, cult-like presence of the Thuggee followers of Gunga Din into a weaker performance, resembling Three Stooges antics. Maybe he was adding another 1930s genre to the earlier mix of adventure, screwball comedy, and musical.

Harrison Ford’s acting is impeccable, even when confronted with silly antagonists. Because he’s accompanied by two companions with differing personalities and he’s brought to his lowest point in the series, he must display a range of emotions through body language and facial expression. Although Ford appears more comfortable portraying a stoic disposition, a sly grin, or righteous indignation in his roles, he is capable of going beyond these expressions to take Indy on this character-changing journey. Compare the scenes of the spike pit booby trap, when he realizes the dire situation of the enslaved children, and when he comes under the influence of the “blood of Kali”—it’s no wonder Ford was later praised for his roles in less fantastic fare, such as Witness and The Mosquito Coast.

Finally, John Williams’s score contributes much to propel the characters through the film’s various set pieces. The memorable scenes of the inflatable raft escape, journey to the temple by elephant, Mola Ram’s Kali ritual, mine cart chase, and the climatic rope bridge confrontation would still be lessened without the music. The “Raiders March” will always be the most identifiable Indiana Jones theme, but pieces like “Short Round’s Theme” and “Slave Children’s Parade” bring a new sense of grandeur and wonder to the adventure.

I remember when Temple of Doom was verboten by my parents. There was a time when I was at Montgomery Ward, and one of the electronics displays showed the film’s ending, followed by the credits rolling a few minutes later. I ran to my parents, excitedly telling them that I had just seen part of the film. Soon after, I watched the film in its entirety at a friend’s house. The mystery and ambivalence around this entry still exist in the world, but time has diminished those sentiments. Spielberg may no longer appreciate the film, but the viewer must acknowledge it when a creator goes in a new direction with a popular property, especially when contemporary family films have become numbingly safe.

The film begins with a common trope of 80s teen dramas: the move to a new city. Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and his mother, Lucille, are westbound from New Jersey to the “dream destination” of Los Angeles. Dream destination for Lucille because she has a hot new career; more of a nightmare for Daniel as he’s leaving the familiar Italian American East Coast culture for a world of blonds, beaches, and bullying. (It may be surprising to youths today, but there was a time when California was imagined as a new world, almost separate from the rest of the U.S., instead of an off-putting land that people are escaping from to return to their roots.). By drawing the attention of dream girl Ali (Elizabeth Shue) at the beach, he invites the wrath of her ex-boyfriend Johnny (William Zabka) and his gang of fellow karate students, who are trained by the no-chill Cobra Kai dojo owner Kreese (Martin Kove). Daniel knows some karate, but not enough to make a difference. Fortunately, after multiple instances of violence against him, a friendly maintenance worker, Mr. Nariyoshi Miyagi (Pat Morita), who has gotten to know Daniel and his mother, intervenes, and thus starts a journey where not only does Daniel develop his skills to defend himself, but he grows in qualities that are important even if he loses interest in karate.

What makes this film interesting is less because of the action and more because of the characters’ personalities and relationships between the characters. The director John G. Avildsen doesn’t direct sports films. You may be saying to yourself, “Hey, didn’t he direct Rocky?” Yes, he did, but Rocky is not a sports film. Yes, the MacGuffin is Rocky’s boxing career and his shot at the Heavyweight title, but the meat of that film is Rocky’s relationship with Adrian, Paulie, Mickey, and himself. We even find out more about Rocky and Apollo outside of the ring during their pre-fight interactions than we do when they’re pummeling each other through the rounds. Similarly, while the fight sequences are competent (I prefer the two action sequences where Daniel is targeted by the bullies to the end tournament; there’s only so much you can do to make points-based, contact-limited martial arts tournaments exciting), the heart is in the dramatic scenes. We see Daniel as a sure, street-smart kid on first arrival to California, but it’s hard to forget his humiliated look following his first takedown by Johnny, when he’s been abandoned by his new friends and is left to be diminished, as he sees it, in the eyes of Ali. Another emotional scene involves Daniel’s trashing of his bike after another beatdown: it’s short, but it conveys all that Daniel hates concerning his situation—he’s a stranger in a strange and privileged land, and there seems to be nothing that he can do about it.

Ralph Macchio is not the only one that gets to give a good performance. In fact, one might say that Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi often steals the spotlight. Being a film featuring martial arts, Mr. Miyagi could’ve been portrayed as an unworldly, mystic master, especially since such archetypes were predominant up to that point. However, while Mr. Miyagi is wise, he’s also human. His relationship with Daniel is often more like that of a father and son than sensei and student. It’s not through specific karate skills that he teaches Daniel self-discipline but through household chores. Only later does Daniel see how such mundane activities contribute to his martial arts training. Obviously, the centerpiece scene is Mr. Miyagi’s drunken breakdown due to his reflection on a tragic (personally and nationally) event from decades before. A son would usually not want to see his father in such a state, and a father, especially one known for self-discipline, would not want to put on such a display. However, Daniel and Mr. Miyagi have both opened up to each other at this point. Mr. Miyagi is no longer just the firm teacher or provider of quips but is a person of vulnerability just like Daniel.

Even the antagonists have depth that a lesser movie might skip in exploring. Yes, the Cobra Kai are relentless in the tormenting of Daniel. However, we come to see that this aggression is fomented by the teaching of Kreese. (Daniel also doesn’t help himself by his cocky attitude at times). Why might Kreese have been so angry? Did his military experience in Vietnam inform him? (I haven’t watched Cobra Kai, but apparently, it goes more into detail about his past, and my speculation is confirmed). We see levels of compassion in Johnny’s fellow Cobra Kai when Johnny escalates matters, and by the end, he no longer has complete faith in Kreese’s teachings.

No film is perfect, even “perfect films.” I did find it convenient that every activity that Daniel was interested in, Johnny and the Cobra Kai were involved in. Daniel meets up with them during soccer tryouts; he’s already had some karate training while they’re all members of Kreese’s dojo; he rides a regular bike while they roar through the scenes on motorbikes; and Johnny just broke up with Ali, and she is ready to be on the rebound with Daniel at first sight. It’s understandable that there need to be scenes for conflict, but it makes Daniel seem more than fated to walk into trouble no matter where he goes in Reseda. Speaking of Ali, Shue gave a decent performance with the material given. However, there’s not much there. It’s hard to see what she sees in Daniel at first besides his being the opposite of Johnny in almost every way. People were surprised when she didn’t return for the sequel. Given the nature of high school relationships and the love-at-first-sight attraction between the two, I was not.

I’ve not said much about the music and don’t have much to say except that it’s adequate for the film’s aspirational nature; the pan flutes are a nice touch and don’t overwhelm the atmosphere, unlike a lot of Asian-themed movies. Most people remember Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best,” but I believe that Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer” best epitomized the L.A. culture. Too bad it wasn’t included on the soundtrack album.

Today, moviegoers can watch all types of martial arts styling. It’s often included in typical action and comic book movie fare. What you don’t get is a story where karate is not an end, but a means for self-development. There are a lot more exciting tournament movies that you can watch. Here, the tournament is the dessert, the logical conclusion of a journey that begins when Daniel arrives unwillingly in Reseda. The meat and potatoes is the growth of Daniel under the paternal guidance of unassuming Mr. Miyagi, and this is still relatable years later.

Without ceasing to meditate during the journey, and in a kind of state of self-disgust, I very soon reached the conclusion that it was this identity which made it possible for every man to be loved neither more nor less than every other, and that it is possible for even the most loathsome appearance to be loved, that is, to be cared for and recognized–cherished.

Jean Genet What remains of a Rembrandt torn into four equal pieces and flushed down the toilet

‘I have abandoned my child, I have abandoned my child, I have abandoned my boy’, hollers Daniel ‘oh-how-delightfully-mis-fitting-his-last-name-is-for-the-incoming-cavalcade-of-words’ Plainview A.K.A. Daniel Day-Lewis, who not that long ago still kept pretending on the silver screen to make a living. Contrary to his explosive admission, I have no regrets that I have become deaf to letters, to the wild and restlessly reshuffling ABCs sprouting from the Deleuzian Baroque house metaphor, to my own concept of the Mansion of Litera(p)ture, to novels which constituted its hypnotic, oftentimes convoluted entrails, its obfuscated crystal-clear interior, its rapaciously enrapturing floor plan – I have none. I have lost my way before. Every single time it was worth it. And I know it will be so in the future. Because losing is always a mode of finding another type of wandering, meandering, zigzagging. It’s taking five to take a hike. But some things just have to be SEEN THROUGH. They simply have to.

I’ve had a rather unexpected conversation the other day with someone who is very fond of giving space. As I conversed with this Space Giver, let’s call him that, about movies which are of no relevance here, he struck upon a peculiar note, or, rather, a theme. Inexplicable rules was it, and what it entails fits like a glove to the current situation with my Swan Opera. In the century overly fecund with unhealthy and straightforwardly damaging overexplicity, subduing oneself to unnameable rules feels surprisingly refreshing. Do it just because. ‘Just because’ has this air of innocuous innocence of children playing around in a kinder garden backyard in a somewhat dilly-dally-ish, somewhat dilettant-ish manner. But I digress…

Anyway, I donned myself in my grossly undersized and slightly shabby clothes of “just because”. I put on my “just because” sweatpants, my “just because” t-shirt, a pair of my “just because” sneakers, and went to see the Mansion of Litera(p)ture again. And upon seeing it, momentarily I knew the Space Giver was right – the mansion needed to be seen through. THAT was the inexplicable rule. Without hesitation, I came closer and reached for the door knob. The main entrance was locked. I looked around the porch and its immediate vicinity for some useful utensil to overcome this untoward nuisance. Fortunately, or, rather, precautiously, I had a jemmy on me, just in case, and with its invaluable aid I broke and entered the premises again.

The Litera(p)ture of Ontological Passion

So where were we? Oh yeah, we stepped in and out of an “unmansionable” intrusion, humbly bloated with a post-existential gloom. Before that we had climbed the staircase up, down and sideways, fondled and fumbled within the obsessive confines of the crawlspace, wined and dined in the desirable fusion of kitchen and home cinema, and, last but not least, we sauntered around the enchanting vestibule. Not being all too keen on falling into the same rabbit hole of referencing our previous route in total, I’ll try to outdo myself and keep this unrelenting necessity as concise and precise as possible.

Our last purely litera(p)turing pit stop was a staircase a ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky summoned up with his deontologized diary. He went sideways into somewhere where every duty, obligation and imperative is deprived of its “should-y” nature, where every phenomenon is exempt of its haughty ontological necessity to boast about that it is (‘I AM,’ they holler, just like Daniel Day-Plainview does, ‘I HAVE BEEN,’ as if they expected some prize for having the ontological ability not to cease temporospatially, ‘I WILL BE,’ oh, knock it off already, will you!), where the relation of a human being to reality shuts up at last, and it is possible to hear the ever so elusive sound of silence and the ensuing ever so subtle roar of infinities unfolding, frothing, and fuming incessantly. Nijinsky checks out his new dance moves on an infinitesimally elusive and exclusive dance floor, metaphysically uncharted territory, topologically indefinable dimension. And he is full of one of the most bifurcated and “ambidexterously” ambiguous feelings one is capable of having – limerence. Besotted with the reality he surreptitiously tries to encapsulate on a couple of hastily penned pages, he almost forgoes all that made him connected with the world before. He is able to hear the silence, and feels voracious drive towards the mute plane of infatuation with the infinite, yet he stays firmly grounded in its finite apparitions. He hasn’t scissored the upper floor of his Baroque house by “unfolding” the frequency and intensity of his own dark and minute perceptions. It (the upper floor) simply has been redraped according to its in-itself topology preconfigured by the incompossibility, itself bordering on being impossible. That’s why he seems to be simultaneously secluded within himself and abject from another variance or mode of folding within the reality (the said ‘variance’ taken here as another human being like his wife, daughter, etc.), yet he exudes the notion of having been permeated with the world’s essence, resembling a whirlwind inside a vortex. Deleuze writes:

Such are the monads, or Leibniz’s Selves, automata, each of which draws from its depths the entire world and handles its relations with the outside or with others as an uncoiling of the mechanism of its own spring, of its own prearranged spontaneity. Monads have to be conceived as dancing. But the dance is the Baroque dance, in which the dancers are automata: there we have an entire “pathos of distance,” like the invisible distance between two monads (space); the meeting of them becomes a parade, or development, of their respective spontaneities insofar as their distance is upheld.

So, if Nijinsky, our incompossible dancing monad, remains convergently ‘imbibed’ by the limerence towards everything, although having redraped his upper floor beyond conceivable recognition, and therefore manifesting within the world in a rather incomprehensible way, resembling a spaced out yet tangible phantom (a ghost ballooning from the world-membrane, pullulating as yet another multi-fold of highly indiscernible knots, loops and manifolds), where does the Clarice Lispector’s protagonist situates herself, then? How is she able to surpass Nijinsky on our lovely spectrum, and in what part of the Mansion of Litera(p)ture do we end up trailing along her passion?

The Monadic Calamity

In order to reorient ourselves on the floor plan of the Mansion of Litera(p)ture, to which we have not yet fully grown accustomed, we have to apply the Baroque house allegory on ourselves, or to put it simply, go back to basics. Why don’t we (re)turn to Deleuze again:

It is the upper floor that has no windows. It is a dark room or chamber decorated only with a stretched canvas “diversified by folds,” as if it were a living dermis. Placed on an opaque canvas, these folds, cords or springs represents an innate form of knowledge, but when solicited by matter they move into action. Matter triggers “vibrations or oscillations” at the lower extremity of the cords, through the intermediary of “some little openings” that exist on the lower level. Leibniz constructs a great Baroque montage that moves between the lower floor, pierced with windows, and the upper floor, blind and closed, but on the other hand resonating as if it were a musical salon translating the visible movements below into the sounds above.

Since the Baroque house has two stories, however abstract or even body-horror-ish they might look, it also has the fold as a border which separates the upper floor from the lower, stretching, snaking, wreathing according to two different orders. The fold coils, unfurls, and is generally subjected to all sorts of inflection planes. It is a den from which a sort of two-way convergent piping or, as Deleuze puts it, “cords or springs” sprout forth, constituting and decorating both floors. Every oscillation in the lower floor generates the resonance in the draperies in the upper. Now, imagine this: what would happen, if one of the cords from the lower floor oscillated so wildly that it shattered a part of the fold, cracking open the upper floor? Or better yet, what if it pierced the latter, and barged in with its obtrusive air of total ontological de-calibration? That’s exactly what happened to the protagonist of The Passion According to G.H.

Lispector, the Passionate Inspector of the Metaphysical

Constraining myself just the way I like it, just like contorted boa constrictor crushing a careless capybara for dinner, plot-wise, I am going to give you only what is unavoidable. The nameless protagonist of Lispector’s tour de force, who is known only by her initials, G.H., is a rather well-to-do sculptress who lives on the last floor of an apartment complex in a finely furnished penthouse. A refined woman, a woman of all human predicaments (here, taken as broadly as possible), she crosses the backrooms of her apartment to take care of the room vacated by the recently dismissed maid. Stumbled by the barren condition of the chamber – with blinding, sun-soaked, whitewashed walls, one of them being doodled with speculative and crude outlines, Keith Haring style, of a man, a woman and a dog – her complete set of beliefs and ontological constitution is soon to be turned upside down by an enormous cockroach which is unintentionally almost released from a dilapidated wardrobe…

The interaction, altercation, the silent encounter with the cockroach wrecks G.H. so profoundly that she is forced to redecorate the perforated upper floor of her Baroque house. Like houses of two not so diligent pigs, her entire worldview crumbles and is blown down by a big bad wolf of fierce, totally unexpected, raw metaphysics, completely incommensurable with everything she has believed up to the point of fateful confrontation with the shattering crustacean. A metaphysics of such a pervasive intensity, raw nakedness and insurmountable power as to strip down all cultural and/or civilizational accretions, causing them to dwindle and wither in the liberating pureness of the profound ontological blast. Or rather a particular dimension of the metaphysics we all intuitively know and, under the skin, sense that it’s true, but which is obstinately obscured by its blatant counterpart with the tendencies to overshadow and to take the credit for what it simply shouldn’t. Frankly, so penetrating is the shock the cockroach induces in G.H. that she reaches a certain point, where the restrictive plane, the hindering boundary between phenomenal and noumenal–itself a profoundly peculiar space, where the being allegedly acquires “translative” powers to turn the bifurcated incompatibility of externality and internality into seemingly comprehensive and corresponding mutuality–reveals its true nature. The primordial ferocity with which pure life non-differentiates itself within the world exempt of all conceptual contaminations and misappropriated appearances, unfolds itself as a neutrality full of unquenchable thirst to depersonalize, desist, and distance itself from everything to the point of reaching non-being. For only on this level of non-existence, absolutely full of life, miraculously pure and existentially barren, G.H. claims one may fully and truly experience what passion towards everything genuinely means. Taking with a pinch of salt the literalness with which she names the clichéd three-lettered wholeness of the passion through which she becomes a oneness with everything, nothing and the ominously clandestine raw modes of in-betweenness, Lispector dives into infinity, perhaps not headfirst per se, but her dive has divine repercussions which simultaneously cannot be called that, for the words bear the stigma of a past full of complacent timidity of an everyday well-organized life. For life, as very few know it, is extremely close to (and ‘with’, too) infinity. Sometimes, perhaps, it is all too close. And when it opens, there is a gasping gaping and a spasmodic panting which both leave our gobs agape. Oh, but am I all but foreshadowing again?

Squeaky Clean Bathroom in a Shaken Attic

So, where did we end up in the Mansion of Lite(r)apture? The room is dark, only a frail smudge of light pierces its interior as if a stray ray of unknown luminescence mimicked the décor of the dreaded drapes, still in shock from their recent defilement. The meager illumination suffices for us to see we are in the bathroom. It must have unfolded right there, at the moment of impact. Its walls made of glass bricks, mocking the orificial nature of the lower floor, invoke images of a certain inaptitude of rules that must have redefined themselves in order to create surfaces which allow seeing through. The bathroom fittings and piping, threaded wildly throughout the files, ascertain the whole room must have been (re)decorated hastily, as if adapting strenuously, an invasive bubble within the hapless realm of punctured enclosure. Its bizarre aura of authenticity and falseness intermingled together in an unprecipitable solution convinces us it touches the true essence of life. The quintessence of it, in itself, unexpectedly as welcoming as possible.

For it is bathroom, no matter how otherworldly furnished or refurbished would it be, where we are most likely to shed our masks of dealing with life, the world and ourselves. How many of you have ever read a book while having a bath? Soaked inside an intentionally frothy and fragrant multiverse of escapism, you shed your outer selves and plunge into the opposite of you, forgetting about one ontology in favor of the other, conjured up by the text. Or, on the other hand, how many of you have ever been so absorbed in a so-called “moment of truth” in front of the mirror–staring into the abyss all too “post-” it didn’t want to stare back anymore–so much so you jumped on the other side of yourselves into the pure absence of every “I” you could have at that moment constituted? It is the silent triumph of the overshadowed, clandestine realm of metaphysics. It is how the Bathroom attempts to regain its intrinsic ability to reverberate and resonate with the oscillations from the different parts of the Mansion. But it forgets, just as we forget while donned in a foamy “sumo suit” of being somewhere else, or gone through the looking glass of our quasi-enlightenments. It was born out of the jolly nature of contingency, a fortunate aberration. The fold – which serves as a ceaseless beginning and fateless end to the unbreakable continuity of the feeling-spectrum – we surf upon while relocating ourselves on the premises of the Mansion of Litera(p)ture must have gotten an ontological hiccup. Just as the infinitely “loveful” neutrality, which has revealed its ineffable nature before G.H., is tautologically taut, immovable, unshakable, and, thus, impalpable neither by word nor any concept (yet Lispector is able to touch upon it somehow, using this abominable all-too-human invention like prose), so is the quietude of our realization that, surprisingly, this bathroom is already different.

Exit through the Toilet Drain Pipe

Surprisingly, this bathroom is already different. It is sterile, insipid, susceptible to perfect anonymity, as if belonging (to) “somewhere” else. The shelves are empty, the drains aren’t clogged with a stinky gooey mass made of rotting strands of hair and a defoliated outer skin. There is no piece of used dental floss lying on the rim of the wash basin. Water splashes, which precipitated into nameless constellations of semi-translucent matte grey-ish blotches, are nowhere to be seen, neither on a mirror nor on the files in its immediate vicinity. A little trash can containing the holy trinity of hygiene disposability- tampons, cotton buds, and makeup remover pads with the accompanying wrappings – still awaits its first meal. The bathroom is so unbearably pristine, unfathomably spotless that the parts of its interior lose their ability to uphold the meaning of concepts which designate them. It is dirty with pure unrecognizability. The unglued names drop on the floor and smash, their “re-lettered” shards and splinters creating a thick layer of grit, as if a bunch of stray cats have frolicked in a litter box for hours without end. The bathroom’s ultimate unCORDiality begins to show. The interior “re-drapes” itself, the fold origamis into another pit-stop within a series of differences and repetitions. Or perhaps the purely monadic upper floor is reclaiming its territory, unabashedly conquered by the ontology of a different metaphysical “flavor” beforehand? The piercing with which the Bathroom was able to unfold, if only for a brief, fleeting passing of time, a tacky tic tac toe of ticklish tick-tocking, just like G.H.’s passionate revelation, wasn’t MEANT to last forever, just as our impressions on a feeling-spectrum aren’t. Among the pulses liquefying and coagulating, throngs of creases crescendoing, throes of the fold transubstantiating, we look around, half-astounded, half-enthralled, for an exit. We reach for the door and open it. Nothing in there, just more fabrics of the upper floor flapping around, fluttering as if to flee from the ever so fallible fantasm. The only way out is to flush ourselves out. With the bathroom walls folding onto us, we take a deep breath and jump headfirst into the toilet, just in time to pull the cord, mid-air, dangling from the elevated cistern right above the bowl. The thunderous roar of whirlpool within a whirl within a vortex of pure passion towards the litera(p)ture drowns out our heartbeat…

Amonne Purity

How’s everyone doing out there? Are you doing well or just getting by during yet another disastrous presidential term. Seems like the whole western world is dragging everyone else down in a flaming shopping cart full of fireworks down a thumbtack water slide of energy drink into oblivion and the third-world. It’s not even 2077 and life is just cyberpunk (af) or at least a Temu version of it. What does this have to do with this months movie- absoultely nothing. Nothing except the mood of dispair in the air.

Spoiler Alert: This is Violence Jack and the sequel to Devilman; both created by Go Nagai.

This the final OVA in the series. The other entries are unedited and thus I can’t share with you here. However, fortunately or not, this version is the VHS edited version.

The Plot:
Sleepy town in the wastelands of Japan where a village is determined to pick up and rebuild their way of lives in the afterbirth of the apocalypse. A young hopeful teacher is kidnapped by the Hell’s Wind biker gang. Strapped to a ticking time bomb her only hope is the mysterious and freakishly gigantic antihero known as Violence Jack and his superhuman strength and size.

More backstory:

The series takes place in the ruins of the Kantō region, after a massive earthquake (which in the OVAs was triggered by a Comet strike) dubbed ‘The Great Kanto Hellquake’. Cut off from the rest of the world, the survivors of the disaster are divided between the strong and the weak, and the land becomes a haven for criminals and renegades from around the world. Violence Jack is uncovered among the rubble and demolished granite by the inhabitants of a ruined city, asking him to help the weak people and helping them destroy what, in most cases, are the strong groups commanded by killers and rapists (this is the story line of “Violence Jack: Evil Town”). In the three OVAs, Jack is requested to help different groups, such as the Zone A (later he ends up helping Zone C women) or a small town, as shown in “Hell’s Wind”. As for the manga, the stories change drastically, the first being the story of Violence Jack helping a group of female models in a tropical forest in Kanto by possessing a boy living in said forest in order to fight off a roving tribe of bandits. Although Jack maintains a ruthless facade, he often helps the weak, and expects nothing in return. However, Jack’s unpredictable nature means that bystanders get injured or even killed on occasion as a consequence of his vicious fighting style.

It’s not the longest but it’ll do the trick. I know she said that but, I meant this movie. If you are interested in the further adventures of Violence Jack I recommend finding (if you can stomach it) the other unedited OVA’s in the trilogy as well the mangas. Or you can go and revisit the Devilman animes including the Devilman Crybaby anime that is still on NETFLIX.

sO in ThE meantIme, stay vigilante, stay angry, learn h0w the shoot, con, build networks, put money away, don’t be a dumb maga or dumb blue maga, be yourselves, persevere and keep your damn finger on that ReWind Button.

#1 DUNE part 2:

#2 Shogun (FX series)
Based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell, previously adapted into a 1980 miniseries. the ensemble cast includes Hiroyuki Sanada, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow, and Fumi Nikaido. Featuring a mostly Japanese cast with majority of the dialogue in the Japanese language, Shogun is different. When I say “different”, I mean Different. The writing on this series was out-of-this-world. The production, the cinematography – oh my.

#3 X-MEN 97’
The return of the X family! I was already withdrawn from any hope or confidence in Disney. The aches and pains of super-hero fatigue was set into the muscles like knots and Charlie horses. Marvel or the MCU had abused my fandom with endless insults to character I’d grown up reading from the Mandarin, to Black Panther even the Midnight Sons before you even saw the Midnight Sons. It was all just an endless reel after reel of jokes, flashing lights and 2-dimensional storylines. However, my depression was thrashed against a cliff when X-MEN 97 premiered. It was everything I didn’t know I needed and improved upon. The Summers Family fractured and reunited, Magneto proved right by the season finale, Storm cementing her position as an Omega level goddess and humanity always destined to betray themselves and be prey to their own prejudices. 10 out of 10.

#4 Longlegs
The highest grossing independent film of 2024, directed by Osgood Perkins and starring Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt. A police procedural horror film set during the nineteen-nineties that follows an FBI investigation into a serial killer that is behind a series of murders involving fathers that murder their entire family before themselves. Osgood’s last feature film Blackcoats Daughter already established him as a new voice in the horror genre with moody tones, color pallets and storytelling. Recommended for fans of X-Files, Kolchak, Millennium and Angel Heart.

#5 MAXXXINE
The heavily anticipated direct sequel to X and Pearl came like a peeper in an x-rated booth. This final entry in the trilogy is full-blown 80s degeneracy: pastels, dayglow, hairspray, porn, vhs, sex cults and cocaine. I have one disagreement with anyone that has reviewed or critiqued this film – this is not just a slasher film, this is Giallo. Giallo (Italian: [ˈdʒallo]; pl.: gialli; from giallo, lit. ’yellow’) is a genre of murder mystery fiction that often contains slasher, thriller, psychological horror, psychological thriller, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements. Mia Goth is front and center once-again delivering a knockout performance.

#6 Late Night with the Devil
The new Halloween cult classic. If I had seen this film on youtube, I would have sworn that this was a lost episode of Tales from the Darkside. It’s always good to see David Dastmalchian (Suicide Squad, Dark Knight, Animals) in a leading role. He is a very talented actor and always brings a worth-watching performance to his characters. The film is as analog and minimum as you can get up until the film act, prior to that this is a great paced chamber play about the foils of success and the price of one’s soul. Watch it.

#7 Terminator Zero
Let me tell you. Let me tell you. This is the only anime on my list and I loved it. Let us be real and honest, Terminator movies haven’t been good since T2. All of them suck. The Sara Connor chronicles and Dark Fate gets a light pass but, it’s been a dead franchise for decades. That is until now. Terminator Zero has a fresh setting, new characters, new possibilities, and a more philosophical examination of Judgement Day. I loved it. Loved it. If they do make a new season I’ll be there (for better or worse) but, if this is a one and done – I am okay with that. Animation services were provided by Production I.G under the direction of Masashi Kudō. The eight-episode series premiered on August 29, 2024.

#8 Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
Finally a movie that respects Michael Keaton enough to revisit one of his more iconic roles unlike the recent Flash movie that wasted the return of 89’ Batman to a throwaway character.  Beetlejuice 2x is a fun sequel to a beloved Halloween film from our childhoods. Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara anchor this Psycho-comedic romp with refreshing performances by Jenny Ortega and Justin Theroux. A definite rental.

#9 Alien Romulus
Claustrophobic, sci-fi horror is back. A good mixture of practical effects, digital effects, mood, setting and performances certifies this as worthy Alien film. Romulus isn’t a perfect movie or a great movie. It is simply a good entry in the franchise that tries to bridge the mythos of the Alien and Prometheus timelines together once and for all. Biggest criticism might be the final boss but, most definitely the shoehorning of Ian Holms android model from the original alien film. Overall a 7 out of 10. Biggest question yet to be answered – Where the hell is David?

#10 Love Lies Bleeding
A tumultuous, lurid, gritty, unwashed yet absurdly abstract crime film and queer romance. This is the eighties that people don’t talk about. The rural out of town trailer park eighties, when the furniture had plastic on the cushions with cigarette burns to match the stench in the air and stains on the wall in the family room. Pickup truck heaven and lunch always came fresh from a can of frank n beans. Kristin Stewart stars in this glittery backdoor love story as a young adult dealing with a dysfunctional and criminal family and working at the local gym, mopping floors, cleaning toilets and hustling juice to her clientele. Her options seem dire until she meets Jackie (Katy O’Brian) a transient body builder with her own past and demons. Both fall in love and try to break out of the cycle of violence that plagues them both. Also starring Ed Harris, Dave Franco and Jenna Malone.