http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 04 Feb 2008 09:53:28 -0500 en-us http://impossiblefunky.com/ Rare videos from around the globe, specializing in Japanese art flicks and other obscurities. mwhite@impossiblefunky.com (Mike White) (c) Copyright 2008, Mike White Entertainment http://metrotimes.com/screens/story.asp?id=14326 Scenes are crosscut with 1961 Adam in Tel Aviv, where he's confined to a mental institution with other Holocaust survivors. This section shifts from Patch Adams bathos to Awakenings pathos (though Robin Williams is nowhere in sight). 13 Sep 2009 20:50:45 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/screens/story.asp?id=14326 http://metrotimes.com/screens/story.asp?id=14326 Sex with an attractive girl with no emotional strings attached? Sounds like what dreams are made of for many dudes — just look at Craigslist. If that hot girl was actually more room temperature and discovered bound in the basement of a mental hospital, this might present a problem for some dudes ... but not all. 13 Sep 2009 20:49:37 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/screens/story.asp?id=14326 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/09/surveillance-movie-review.html Surveillance would have felt more at home in the early ‘90s as a fast follow-up to her initial outing, Boxing Helena, as many of the characters feel as if they’ve been taken from her dad’s playbook. 11 Sep 2009 15:03:26 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/09/surveillance-movie-review.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/09/alien-trespass-movie-review.html Opening up with a newsreel that sets up Alien Trespass as a “lost film” from the ‘50s, viewers will find that R.W. Goodwin’s film is a faithful recreation of sci-fi films from the era. 03 Sep 2009 12:35:54 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/09/alien-trespass-movie-review.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/09/absurdistan-movie-review.html Taking a cue from the Lysistrata playbook, the women of the village put the brakes on the lusty behavior of the men folk until the water flows again. Laziness, however, proves a greater force than lustiness. 01 Sep 2009 17:00:18 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/09/absurdistan-movie-review.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/08/mutant-chronicles-movie-review.html Based on a Swedish role playing game, Mutant Chronicles feels like an epic tale whittled down to a “made for TV” length, sacrificing story and sense in an attempt to make a rip-roaring action film. 31 Aug 2009 13:21:24 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/08/mutant-chronicles-movie-review.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/08/chaos-experiment-movie-review.html Six actors are locked a steam room. This sounds like a good set-up for a joke or a new R. Kelly song but it doesn’t make for too good of a movie. 27 Aug 2009 12:58:31 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/08/chaos-experiment-movie-review.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/08/inglourious-basterds-movie-review.html The script has a group of Jewish soldiers going after Nazis with a vengeance during WWII. Lead by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), his “Basterds” strike fear in the hearts of German soldiers due to their merciless tactics and their love of scalping victims. 25 Aug 2009 00:50:30 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/08/inglourious-basterds-movie-review.html http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=14049 From its inflammatory title, Witch Hunt (narrated by Sean Penn) pulls no punches in presenting 1980s paranoia in Kern County, Calif., where a dozen people were accused and falsely convicted of child molestation. 10 Jun 2009 13:22:58 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=14049 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13979 You can't be in a French torture porn flick and not be a chick with a bad haircut. That's what Haute Tension, Frontière(s), and now Martyrs have proven. Like those previous Midnight Madness entries, Martyrs is trés pretentious and trés boring. 20 May 2009 00:01:00 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13979 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13916 It doesn't take long for the action to get under way in this 2008 horror Western, and there's a mystery afoot even before the opening credits. The film opens in the Dakota Territories, 1879, with the slaughter and kidnappings of members of two plains families. Those native savages are behind it ...or are they? 29 Apr 2009 12:54:12 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13916 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13896 A by-the-numbers cop flick with sci-fi elements, this French policier is tired, hardly the slick thriller it so wanted to be. Car crashes, cracking gunfire and fistfights attempt to break up the monotony that the four script writers (yes, it took four people to write this thing) cobbled together. 22 Apr 2009 12:39:22 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13896 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/03/willie-dynamite.html It isn't every host of your favorite childhood show that can keep his pimp hand strong and make you believe it but that's what Roscoe Orman did in Willie Dynamite. Yes, "Gordon" from Sesame Street walks the walk as Willie D, the baddest pimp in town. 30 Mar 2009 14:34:29 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/03/willie-dynamite.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/03/choke.html This being the second film adapted from a Chuck Palahniuk novel, the comparisons to Fight Club have to be made. Both stories have protagonists plumbing their own depths via self-help groups and feature a big M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end. 27 Mar 2009 13:14:19 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/03/choke.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/03/celluloid-closet.html Kind of a That's Entertainment of homosexuality, The Celluloid Closet tells the tale of gay and lesbian characters in Hollywood cinema. Based on the book by Vito Russo, directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman use a bevy of clips to show open, closeted and "coded" homosexual characters from the early days of cinema 25 Mar 2009 16:49:23 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/03/celluloid-closet.html http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13784 While watching The Outrage, you can almost hear a studio exec chomping his cigar and growling, "You know what would make that Rashomon movie better? Will Shatner, that's what." Sure, a little Shat often makes things a whole lot better, but he can't help Outrage. 18 Mar 2009 13:06:23 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13784 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13784 There are two distinct storylines in Emiko Omori and Wendy Blair Slick's 2007 documentary: the history of technology used to aid female orgasms and the story of Joanne Webb, a Texas woman who was actually prosecuted in 2004 for selling vibrators. That's right, prosecuted. 18 Mar 2009 13:05:34 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13784 http://detour-mag.com/2009/03/13/rob-schneider-can-van-dammage-your-career/ If you’re an action star, you should run (not walk) away from Rob Schneider. Only three years after he was the “comedic” sidekick slung like an albatross around Sly Stallone’s neck in Judge Dredd, he teamed up with Jean-Claude Van Damme during the Hong Kong phase of his career. 13 Mar 2009 18:00:40 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/2009/03/13/rob-schneider-can-van-dammage-your-career/ http://detour-mag.com/2009/03/10/the-original-mr-blue/ If you aren’t aware of it, let me let you in on a little secret… Walter Matthau kicks ass. Known more for the Neil Simon comedies he did with Jack Lemmon, Matthau should best be remembered for a trio of films he made in the early ’70s. 10 Mar 2009 19:02:57 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/2009/03/10/the-original-mr-blue/ http://detour-mag.com/2009/03/09/pray-for-corey-haim/ There were several rollerblade flicks to grace screens in the late eighties and early nineties (Solarbabies, Rollerblade 7, Roller Blade Warriors), but only one had the vision to cast one of the Two Coreys. 10 Mar 2009 16:29:22 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/2009/03/09/pray-for-corey-haim/ http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/02/movie-review-fanboys.html If you've ever seen a road comedy movie, then you've seen Fanboys. It takes the lesser parts of Todd Haynes's Road Trip and Blair Hayes's Bubble Boy mixed with Peter Haynes's 2003 short film Fanboys which shares the same name and a similar plot. 26 Feb 2009 22:48:16 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/02/movie-review-fanboys.html http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13728 Even if you don't know the name, you've certainly seen the conspicuous 3-by-5-inch pamphlets at the local shopping mall, bowling alley, library or phone booth. These so-called "Chick Tracts" are the brainchild of comic artist Jack T. Chick. 25 Feb 2009 15:43:19 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13728 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/02/graphic-sexual-horror.html That there can be beauty found in torture proves to be the troublesome core of Graphic Sexual Horror, a look at Insex.com, a website that pushed the boundaries via its use of extreme bondage and anguish. 23 Feb 2009 02:19:53 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2009/02/graphic-sexual-horror.html http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13667 Set in 1972 Los Angeles, Viva is a heavily saturated and slightly sedated homage to Radley Metzger's winning and slinky skin flicks. Writer-director Anna Biller stars as the titular Viva, a frustrated housewife who goes on a sexual odyssey with her best friend, Sheila. 04 Feb 2009 13:50:41 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13667 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13667 The films of Minoru Kawasaki are unrepentantly silly. Featuring masked wrestlers, crazed monsters and soccer-playing crabs, Kawasaki has a flair for the absurd. Synapse Films recently unleashed three of Kawasaki's most outrageous films on the American public. 04 Feb 2009 13:49:47 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13667 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13538 The line between Japanese samurai films and Italian Westerns (that'd be "spaghetti" in the West and "macaroni" in the East) has been blurry from the days of Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone. 17 Dec 2008 16:31:45 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13538 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13538 This soggy saga stands among a select few films whose troubled productions and bloated budgets still haunt Hollywood. Jokingly referred to as "Fishtar," the film is more accurately derided as Kevin's Gate, in reference to director Kevin Reynolds and star Kevin Costner. 17 Dec 2008 16:31:12 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13538 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13538 Kristy McNichol's Julie Sawyer accidentally nails a dog with her car on a lonely California highway. The beautiful white German shepherd lives and she falls for him, and, of course, he for her. The little guy becomes her companion and protector — once going after an intruder with vigor. 17 Dec 2008 16:30:40 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13538 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/10/going-full-retard.html The film-within-a-film, Simple Jack, serves to exemplify the lengths to which some actors go for Oscarbait. Rather than being offended by Simple Jack or the discussion of past performances of famous screen personae the real offense stems from the overwrought paroxysm’s displayed. 09 Oct 2008 15:01:05 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/10/going-full-retard.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/10/double-fantasy-deaths-of-john-lennon.html In what’s become a standard bit of movie synchronicity, two films that tread the same ground were premiered less than six months apart. The two Mark David Chapman films haven’t captured many headlines or broken box office records. 01 Oct 2008 22:14:09 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/10/double-fantasy-deaths-of-john-lennon.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/09/tiff-2008-day-6.html You can't be in a torture porn movie in France without being female and having a bad haircut. That's what Haute Tension, Frontière(s), and now Martyrs have proven. Like those previous Midnight Madness entries, Martyrs is trés pretentious and trés boring. 09 Sep 2008 03:18:03 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/09/tiff-2008-day-6.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/09/tiff-2008-day-1.html After torturing audiences with unnecessary remake of Swept Away and metaphysical mobster flick Revolver, some feared that Guy Ritche's once-promising career had nose-dived into the shitter. 05 Sep 2008 04:53:12 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/09/tiff-2008-day-1.html http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13217 The glut of horror film remakes in the 21st century has seen far more failures than successes. Luckily, Jeremy Kasten managed to make an exception to the general rule with his 2007 work, The Wizard of Gore. Rather than going for scares, 03 Sep 2008 22:54:27 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13217 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13191 At the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony host Jon Stewart observed that "normally when you see a black man or woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty." These progressive presidential portrayals are a staple of science fiction. 27 Aug 2008 14:47:40 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13191 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13191 Written by Boll and Bryan C. Knight, everything about Postal is meant to entertain by being offensive. Boll's compared his film to "classic Monty Python" though it's closer to "current South Park." There's also a bit of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker in the mix. 27 Aug 2008 14:45:38 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13191 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/353.html “Death Race” is a three day event wherein a handful of drivers square off on the circular track at Terminal Island prison. 26 Aug 2008 01:24:41 -0500 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/353.html http://www.wildsidecinema.com/350.html A production of the Jacobson clan, the film was co-written by and stars Shane Jacobson as Kenny Smythe. He heads a work crew at Splash Down, one of Melbourne’s premiere porta-pottie companies. He delivers and maintains units delivered to everything from posh race days to rowdier beer-swilling events. 26 Aug 2008 01:23:37 -0500 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/350.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/08/brand-upon-brand-guy-maddin-2006.html Similar in structure to Maddin’s Cowards Bend the Knee, Brand Upon the Brain is “a remembrance in twelve chapters” featuring Guy Maddin (Erik Steffen Maahs) returning to his childhood home—an orphanage his parents ran on a remote island; a gothic setting if ever there was one. 20 Aug 2008 15:00:35 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/08/brand-upon-brand-guy-maddin-2006.html http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13158 The most lavish project director Peter Watkins has tackled, Privilege tells the story of Steven Shorter (Manfred Mann frontman Paul Jones), whose stage act enjoys national prominence in Britain; it's a cathartic experience that placates and manipulates the youth (keeping them out of politics). 20 Aug 2008 13:08:14 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13158 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13106 By 1977, World War II films were out of vogue. And that year's Inglorious Bastards is simply a derivative reworking of elements from classic WWII fare such as The Great Escape and Kelly's Heroes. The film culls most from The Dirty Dozen with its mixed bag of criminals undertaking one final, redemptive mission. 30 Jul 2008 13:19:53 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13106 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13106 A black car rolls into a coastal town. While waves crash on the rocky shore, three men slip out and enter a nearby bank. It's nearly closing time and the gun-toting gents are there for a withdrawal — as much as the staff can provide. 30 Jul 2008 13:19:24 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13106 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13106 Computers can do anything! If you've seen cyberthrillers like Untraceable, The Net or Antitrust, you know that for a fact. We've come a long way from 1983's seminal computer flick WarGames where teenager David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) reached out and phreaked the system. 30 Jul 2008 13:05:37 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/film/story.asp?id=13106 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/328.html Nothing pleases Max (Michel Piccoli) more than busting criminals. He spent his early years as a judge where he saw too many crooks get off on technicalities and bad police procedure. He gave up the bench and took to the streets as a level-headed cop, investigating major crimes. 28 Jul 2008 18:12:48 -0500 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/328.html http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13068 Far above the sprawling urban squalor looms the palatial home of Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), an executive in National Shoes. Working his way up from nothing, Gondo prides himself on being a self-made man and providing a good home to his family. 16 Jul 2008 12:49:46 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13068 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/315.html French crime films originate from a rather small gene pool. A handful of series noir writers provided its characters that were portrayed by a limited number of actors in films helmed by a select group of directors. Claude Sautet’s Classe Tous Risques exemplifies the cross pollination of talent. 15 Jul 2008 01:09:01 -0500 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/315.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/07/review-what-your-point-honey.html In all likelihood Hillary Clinton isn’t going to be the first female vice-president of the United States. A combined effort between The White House Project and COSMOgirl, Project 2024 has been working to put a woman in the White House in 16 years. 14 Jul 2008 21:29:07 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/07/review-what-your-point-honey.html http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13034 Directed by Lollywood film expert Omar Khan (thehotspotonline.com) and produced by the bizarro movie connoisseurs Mondo Macabro, Hell's Ground is a case of too many good things coming together to cancel each other out. 02 Jul 2008 15:43:45 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=13034 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/296.html Stuntman turned actor/director Hal Needham provided one of Golden Harvest’s biggest hits with The Cannonball Run which blended disaster film-style casting and coast-to-coast racing. His follow-up project, Megaforce didn’t quite manage to attain the same heights. 30 Jun 2008 12:53:08 -0500 http://www.wildsidecinema.com/296.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/once-more-into-porn-dear-friends.html Rounding out the Star Wars rip-off cycle is the second porn parody, Sex Wars in which the verbose Brinker Duo and his slightly seen sidekick Mark Starkiller come across Princess Layme, who hires them to help find her sister, Princess Orgasmo. They quickly find themselves the prisoners of Lord Balthazar, a limbless pervert. 25 Jun 2008 12:43:02 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/once-more-into-porn-dear-friends.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/turkish-delight.html The most blatant of the Star Wars rip offs, Çetin Inanç’s work actually uses clips from Lucas’s film in the opening sequence of The Man Who Saves the World. The clips are run forwards, backwards, and even upside down! 24 Jun 2008 12:54:05 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/turkish-delight.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/to-infinity-and-back.html There’s a lot of groaning to be heard when watching William Sach’s 1980 flick Galaxina. Starring Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten, you’d hope that the groans would be coming from the screen with scads of softcore sex scenes. Alas, the groaning is all from the side of the audience as they suffer corny jokes. 23 Jun 2008 13:06:50 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/to-infinity-and-back.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/spaghetti-space-operas.html For the production of Luigi Cozzi’s 1978 film Starcrash, more money was spent on eye makeup than for special effects. The film’s protagonist, Stella Star (Caroline Munro) wears gobs of mascara and not much else. And, in each scene, she’s wearing a new collection of “not much else.” 20 Jun 2008 12:57:53 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/spaghetti-space-operas.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/japanese-whispers.html In Wakusei Daisenso, a team of United Nations astronauts climb aboard the Gohten and head to Venus to rescue June, who’s been outfitted in a pair of leather panties and bustier while held captive by self-proclaimed “Emperor of the Galaxy” Commander Hell and his oversized wooly space demon. 19 Jun 2008 13:23:15 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/japanese-whispers.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/from-brazil-with-love.html One of a long series of films starring the Trapalhões, a Brazilian musical “comedy” troupe, this painful flick has the group helping Prince Flick find the other half of a “brain computer” to defeat the evil Zuco (who wears a Darth Vadar meets leatherman outfit) and retrieve Princess Mirna. 18 Jun 2008 12:46:28 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/from-brazil-with-love.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-cream.html Not surprisingly, it was the porn industry who first cashed in on Star Wars phenomenon. Known for quickie knockoffs of current hits (Edward Penishands, anyone?), Star Babe was helmed by actress-turned-director Anne Perry-Rhine and stars a trio of comely lasses—Star Babe, Milky Way, and Twinkle Toes 17 Jun 2008 12:49:57 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-cream.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-5-winter-kills.html Richard Condon penned Winter Kills twenty six years after he wrote The Manchurian Candidate. The latter serves as a fitting counterpoint to the former as Winter Kills is a fairly accurate, albeit fictionalized, recounting of the conspiracy to kill JFK. 13 Jun 2008 12:50:43 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-5-winter-kills.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-4-parallax-view.html The 1970s were a Golden Age for assassination films. The cynicism harvested by Watergate gave new life to conspiracy theories while mourning the loss of innocence that the Kennedy/King assassinations had come to signify. 12 Jun 2008 12:53:03 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-4-parallax-view.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-3-price-of-power.html Though Van Johnson may play a character named James Garfield and claims to be the twentieth President of the United States, that’s where the historical accuracy of Tonino Valerii’s The Price of Power ends. In real life, The film is a Spaghetti Western reinterpretation of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. 11 Jun 2008 13:02:47 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-3-price-of-power.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-2-suddenly_10.html Before Frank Sinatra was trying to foil an assassination attempt in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), he was intent on knocking off the Commander in Chief in Suddenly. As John Baron, Sinatra brings death to the little down of Suddenly, California. 10 Jun 2008 12:37:59 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-2-suddenly_10.html http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-1-tall-target.html John Kennedy doesn’t take shit from anybody. He’s discovered a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln on a stop in Baltimore on the way to his inauguration. When his boss at the New York police headquarters laughs him off, Kennedy quits and hops a train to Baltimore to personally foil the attempt on Lincoln’s life. 09 Jun 2008 13:58:53 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/06/assassination-week-pt-1-tall-target.html http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12933 Pity poor Renny Harlin. The Finnish director is still trying to recover from the 1995 debacle Cutthroat Island. His last few films have been lucky to even snag a U.S. theatrical release much less a festival screening. Harlin's latest star-strewn effort sneaks its way onto DVD this week. 04 Jun 2008 17:02:02 -0500 http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12933 http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12926 "How much of human life is lost in waiting?" asks Professor Harold Oxley (John Hurt) in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the case of the fourth (and newest) Indiana Jones installment, nearly 20 years have been lost since the action hero has graced the silver screen. 28 May 2008 13:38:04 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12926 http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12893 The whip cracks, a man moans; is it pleasure or pain he's feeling? Is there even a difference? Well, to any submissive worth his weight in salty tears, there isn't much. And the safe, sane, and consensual art of domination and submission (D/S) is, in its purist sense, absent from the silver screen. 21 May 2008 13:37:09 -0500 http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12893 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/05/indiana-jones-and-kingdom-of-crystal.html Hold on to your hats (and your whips and guns), Indiana Jones is back. The Jones saga has survived the near two decade hiatus, returning free of dismal comic relief, extraneous characters, and cutesy references that stop the story in its tracks 22 May 2008 12:48:06 -0500 http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/2008/05/indiana-jones-and-kingdom-of-crystal.html http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/09/first-run-speed-racer/ Monkeys are funny. Poop can be funny too. That said, Speed Racer must simply be hysterical since it has both. It also has a lot of pretty colors that dazzle the eyes and befuddle the mind. 09 May 2008 13:07:26 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/09/first-run-speed-racer/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/08/cult-flick-the-ninth-configuration/ Somewhere in the Northwest United States stands the creepiest castle on the continent. It’s become the asylum for a dozen or so washed-up soldiers who cracked under pressure. From out of the thick fog comes Colonel Vincent Kane (Stacy Keach), the new psychiatrist. 08 May 2008 16:43:13 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/08/cult-flick-the-ninth-configuration/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/07/retro-flick-zero-hour/ If you’ve seen Airplane! then you’ve seen Zero Hour, though you may not be aware of it. In the museum of 1970s disaster films, an entire wing is dedicated to airplane-themed films. 07 May 2008 17:47:42 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/07/retro-flick-zero-hour/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/06/cult-film-pretty-poison/ “The world has no place for fantasies,” learns parolee Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins) after he meets apple-pie sweet Sue Ann Stepanek (Tuesday Weld). He first spies her bearing the flag in her high school marching band as they run through a John Philip Sousa piece in the park. 06 May 2008 16:04:27 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/06/cult-film-pretty-poison/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/05/cult-flick-full-contact/ Hong Kong action meets Cannon Film sensibility in Ringo Lam’s Full Contact. The film opens with a robbery where audiences meet baddies Judge, Virgin, and Deano. A motley band of outlaws, Deano is a mohawked muscle man, Virgin is a drooling nymphomaniac, and Judge is a homosexual magical assassin in a snake-skin jacket. 05 May 2008 16:30:37 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/05/cult-flick-full-contact/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/02/first-run-iron-man/ Tony Stark makes you feel that he’s a cool exec with a heart of steel. However, he’s really a wounded loner who hides his hurt with booze, broads, and banter. Luckily, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man isn’t a pathos-filled whine fest about a misunderstood multimillionaire. 03 May 2008 12:51:02 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/02/first-run-iron-man/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/02/cult-flick-20th-century-oz/ Teenage groupie Dorothy is living in the land down under where she and her pal Jan spend Friday evenings at the local youth center catching unknown musical groups like Wally and the Falcons. Hitching a ride from the band, things go awry when their van goes in a ditch, sending Dorothy over the rainbow and into a dream realm. 05 May 2008 12:44:57 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/02/cult-flick-20th-century-oz/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/01/cult-flick-quintet/ The first thing a viewer notices about Robert Altman’s science fiction film is how dirty the camera’s lens is. The edges of the frame seem smeared, lending the film a dreamy, flashback quality. However, Quintet is not from the past but the future. It’s a post-apocalyptic film starring Paul Newman. 01 May 2008 16:23:38 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/05/01/cult-flick-quintet/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/30/cult-flick-dinah-east/ Released the same year as Michael Sarne’s Myra Breckinridge, this is a lower rent but far more successful interpretation of similar themes. When a lecherous mortician takes an opportunity to see Ms. East's naked corpse, he discovers that Ms. East had been living with a secret, she was a man! 30 Apr 2008 16:21:43 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/30/cult-flick-dinah-east/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/29/cult-flick-carnal-knowledge/ What the hell happened to Mike Nichols? The director once delivered consistent films that held up a mirror to American bourgeoisie society with such poignant fare as The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but that was before his bite became gummy with film s like Heartburn and What Planet Are You From? 29 Apr 2008 16:09:17 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/29/cult-flick-carnal-knowledge/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/28/cult-flick-american-cannibal-the-road-to-reality/ A mock-you-mentary about the business of so-called “reality” television, American Cannibal mixes talking head interviews with TV producers, writers, marketers, and stars with the story of an ill-fated reality show. 28 Apr 2008 17:12:59 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/28/cult-flick-american-cannibal-the-road-to-reality/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/25/cult-flick-the-cars-that-ate-paris/ Poor Arthur Waldo. The painfully soft-spoken man is deathly afraid of driving after accidentally killing a man, and then he has the bad luck to pass through Paris, Australia where the local economy is based on the goods taken from these car crashes they instigate via booby traps. 25 Apr 2008 13:16:37 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/25/cult-flick-the-cars-that-ate-paris/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/24/cult-flick-decoy/ This seldom seen film noir was recently rescued from obscurity by the 'Film Noir Classics Collection.' The film stars Jean Gillie and was intended to be a showcase for her talents by her husband, director Jack Bernhard. She turns in a great performance as spider woman Margot Shelby, who plays three men against each other 24 Apr 2008 17:33:35 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/24/cult-flick-decoy/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/23/cult-flick-over-the-top/ Cannon Pictures bet the farm on Over the Top, and it lost. The story of a trucker named Lincoln Hawk (Sylvester Stallone) reuniting with his estranged son, Michael, through a road trip and a series of arm wrestling bouts is one of the weakest concepts imaginable. 23 Apr 2008 17:32:35 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/23/cult-flick-over-the-top/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/22/cult-flick-living-dead-girl-la-morte-vivant/ “I’m not a goddamn photographer, I’m an actress,” screams American tourist Barbara at her husband Greg. Apparently he’s as unconvinced as the audience. 22 Apr 2008 18:01:00 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/22/cult-flick-living-dead-girl-la-morte-vivant/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/21/cult-flick-chosen-survivors/ Helicopters arrive, laden with the chosen few plucked from their everyday lives and allowed entrance to a secret bunker set into a mountainside. They’ve been hand selected as American’s next best hope of civilization in the face of nuclear Armageddon. 22 Apr 2008 14:11:24 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/21/cult-flick-chosen-survivors/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/18/cult-flick-hero-and-the-terror/ Danny “Hero” O’Brien doesn’t like to wait for backup, especially when he’s hot on the trail of superhuman serial killer Simon Moon. But if you were Chuck Norris, would you wait around for other cops to show up when there’s a bad guy to be kicked? 18 Apr 2008 17:18:29 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/18/cult-flick-hero-and-the-terror/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/17/cult-flick-crime-wave/ “Once a crook, always a crook,” is the belief of Lieutenant Sims (Sterling Hayden), the tough-talking cop who’s convinced ex-con Steve Lacey (Gene Nelson) has his hands in a filling station heist that went awry. Despite Sims’s suspicions, Lacey has been on the straight and narrow. 17 Apr 2008 01:55:13 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/17/cult-flick-crime-wave/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/15/cult-flick-queen-of-outer-space/ Planet Earth may be in mortal danger, and it’s up to Professor Konrad to uncover the perilous mystery that threatens us all. He’s being chaperoned to Space Station A by a three man crew: Captain Neal Patterson, Lieutenant Mike Cruze, and Lieutenant Larry Turner. 15 Apr 2008 16:57:10 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/15/cult-flick-queen-of-outer-space/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/14/cult-flick-kiler/ Poor Jurek Kiler (Cezary Pazura). He was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong gun in the trunk of his taxi. Now he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, son of a gun, accused of being “Killer,” the toughest assassin in Poland. 14 Apr 2008 18:13:31 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/14/cult-flick-kiler/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/11/cult-flick-mr-freedom/ The animosity between the US and France has yet to be settled. This longstanding rivalry between the two red, white, and blue countries is at the center of William Klein’s 1969 superhero farce Mr. Freedom. 11 Apr 2008 16:25:38 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/11/cult-flick-mr-freedom/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/10/cult-flick-cobra-woman/ Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes? Perhaps because snakes are the most phallic creature to crawl the Earth, and only the alluring Maria Montez can tame them. Montez stars as Tollea, a woman with a secret designated by the two puncture marks on her wrist. 10 Apr 2008 20:20:13 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/10/cult-flick-cobra-woman/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/09/cult-flick-blast-of-silence/ Asking a group of cinephiles what film ended the film noir cycle is akin to throwing raw meat to a pack of wild dogs. If you’re not careful, you’re liable to lose a finger. 09 Apr 2008 16:33:20 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/09/cult-flick-blast-of-silence/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/08/cult-flick-nightmare-alley/ Tyrone Power works the Ten-in-One as Stan Carlisle, a front man in a mentalist act. Not content to work for Zeena and her rum bum husband, Stan’s got plans of learning Zeena’s secret code and stealing away with Molly. Yet, even when Stan has a new and profitable act as The Great Stanton, he still has greater ambition 08 Apr 2008 16:29:22 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/08/cult-flick-nightmare-alley/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/07/cult-flick-reptilicus/ Japan didn’t corner the market on giant monster movies. This Danish entry into the genre stars a missing link, the titular Reptilicus. Looking like a sickly sea serpent, the creature’s tail was discovered in Finland. Flown to downtown Copenhagen, the tail regenerates into a full grown monster over a matter of weeks. 07 Apr 2008 18:58:36 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/07/cult-flick-reptilicus/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/04/cult-flick-battle-beyond-the-stars/ This guilty pleasure is a Roger Corman production that features a diverse group of talent, including director Jimmy T. Murakami and screenwriter John Sayles. One of the better films in the vast wake of Star Wars-inspired science fiction, Battle Beyond the Stars owes more to Akira Kurosawa than George Lucas. 04 Apr 2008 21:17:31 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/04/cult-flick-battle-beyond-the-stars/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/03/cult-flick-rififi/ Based loosely on a dense, argot-strewn novel by Auguste Le Breton, Rififi was co-adapted by director Jules Dassin while on the Hollywood blacklist in the US. Having blazed trails with film Noir favorites Brute Force, The Naked City, and Night and the City, Dassin pulled out all of the stops with Rififi. 03 Apr 2008 21:13:16 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/03/cult-flick-rififi/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/02/cult-flick-high-plains-drifter/ You can look all over the world and not find a bigger badass than Clint Eastwood, and in High Plains Drifter, he plays one of the toughest antihero hombres to ever squint at the screen. 02 Apr 2008 17:18:34 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/02/cult-flick-high-plains-drifter/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/01/cult-flick-a-boy-and-his-dog/ Accompanying a candy-colored montage of mushroom clouds is the ironic legend that “Politicians had finally solved the problem of urban blight.” This sets the tone for the wry post-apocalyptic tale of Vic (Don Johnson) and his telepathic dog, Blood. Playing Tubbs to his Crockett, Blood helps educate Vic. 01 Apr 2008 16:15:20 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/04/01/cult-flick-a-boy-and-his-dog/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/31/cult-filmskidoo/ Jackie Gleason stars as Tony Banks, a retired torpedo who’s tapped by God (Groucho Marx), the head of La Cosa Nostra, to bump off George “Blue Chips” Packard (Mickey Rooney) before he turns state’s evidence. In order to “kiss” his ex-pal Packard, Tony has to get himself jailed. 31 Mar 2008 16:42:04 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/31/cult-filmskidoo/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/28/three-the-hard-way-the-heroic-trio/ Gathering three of the hottest Hong Kong starlets (in looks and box office draw), The Heroic Trio is a superhero fantasy cum supernatural adventure. Anita Mui stars as Wonder Woman, a modern day superheroine who defies gravity (and electricity), uses a stash of darts, and kicks butt on a regular basis. 28 Mar 2008 17:14:41 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/28/three-the-hard-way-the-heroic-trio/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/27/the-landmaster-is-parked-in-damnation-alley/ Straight arrow Air Force Major Sam Denton and loose cannon Lieutenant Jake Tanner push the proverbial “button” that launches a counterstrike against the Soviet Union in the opening sortie of World War III. The wanton destruction is such that the earth is shifted on its axis. 27 Mar 2008 21:15:11 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/27/the-landmaster-is-parked-in-damnation-alley/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/26/johnny-mnemonic-is-actually-awesome/ In what other film will you see a pioneer of punk, the original gangsta, an avant-garde Japanese director, a Finnish scholar, and a teen heartthrob all act side by side with a dolphin? None other than Johnny Mnemonic. 26 Mar 2008 17:49:04 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/26/johnny-mnemonic-is-actually-awesome/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/25/myra-breckinridge/ Far worse than any disaster dreamed up by Irwin Allen, the end of the 1960s saw cinema often misguidedly attempting to embrace popular culture. Along with the LSD-laced bomb and the free love fest Candy, the transgendered farce Myra Breckinridge stunk up movie houses with its embarrassing attempt at being topical and hip. 25 Mar 2008 19:19:50 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/25/myra-breckinridge/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/24/chance-across-the-sand-rio-bravo/ A seminal Western, Rio Bravo is a terrific treatise on male friendship, loyalty, and pride. John Wayne stars as Sheriff John T. Chance, a former gunfighter who’s settled down in what’s normally a peaceful Texas town. Tensions rise, however, after he locks up Joe Burdette, brother of gentleman scoundrel Nathan. 24 Mar 2008 17:12:43 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/24/chance-across-the-sand-rio-bravo/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/19/steppin-out-darktown-strutters/ Written by George Armitage, Darktown Strutters is steeped in Blaxploitation tropes. Syreena, leader of the all-girl Darktown Strutters motorcycle gang, travels through a 1970s California landscape dripped with LSD visuals as she searches for her mama, Cinderella . The story’s told like a modern-day fairy tale. 19 Mar 2008 17:11:47 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/19/steppin-out-darktown-strutters/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/13/robot-schlock-cyborg-2087/ Out of a suppressive future ruled by robotic sentinels comes a man determined to change the past. It’s not easy — Killer cyborgs are in pursuit. But while on the run he meets a woman who believes in him and aids his quest. Sound familiar? 13 Mar 2008 18:03:32 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/13/robot-schlock-cyborg-2087/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/12/just-like-bunnies-night-of-the-lepus/ In the 1970s, America was under attack. Hordes of spiders, ants, rats, snakes, alligators, piranhas, and other nasty creepy crawlies nipped at the heels of the average citizen at every turn. But none was as fierce as the deadly hordes of Southwestern Lepus. 12 Mar 2008 18:06:04 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/12/just-like-bunnies-night-of-the-lepus/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/11/robot-kids-and-deceit-zpg/ Set in a dystopian future, Z.P.G. (”Zero Population Growth”) tells the Malthusian tale of a world where the planet’s natural resources have been consumed to such a critical level that the “World Federation Council” puts a 30-year ban on childbirth in the hopes of curbing the drain. 11 Mar 2008 18:01:24 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/11/robot-kids-and-deceit-zpg/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/10/chicken-of-the-sea-mermaids-of-tiburon/ In Mermaids of Tiburon, the freshman film of underwater cinematographer John Lamb, diver Samuel Jamison meets with Ernst Steinhauer about some rare luminescent pearls that are to be found off the shores of Tiburon. Through a bit of off-screen foul play, Steinhauer is dispatched by baddie Milo Sangster (Timothy Carey), 10 Mar 2008 21:08:19 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/10/chicken-of-the-sea-mermaids-of-tiburon/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/07/in-goose-we-trust-miracle-mile/ Named one of the ten best un-produced screenplays by American Film in 1983, it would take another five years for writer/director Steve De Jarnatt’s Miracle Mile to finally come to fruition. The film stars Anthony Edwards as Harry Washello, a jazz trombonist who’s finally found his soulmate in Julie Peters. 07 Mar 2008 18:19:53 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/07/in-goose-we-trust-miracle-mile/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/06/beyond-sane-zardoz/ Have you ever wanted to see Sean Connery wearing a diaper? Look no further than Zardoz, John Boorman’s self-indulgent treatise on classism. Set in 2293, Connery plays Zed, one of the Exterminators — red-diapered and bandoleer-strapped killers who wear dual-faced masks fashioned to look like their god Zardoz. 06 Mar 2008 18:01:46 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/06/beyond-sane-zardoz/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/05/astro-creep-the-hidden/ There’s an alien in our midst, and it loves sex, violence, fast cars, and rock-n-roll. It’s creeping from one character actor to another turning law-abiding citizens into creeps. Luckily, hot-handed supercop Tom Beck and strange duck FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher are on the case. 05 Mar 2008 18:13:56 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/05/astro-creep-the-hidden/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/04/pickup-on-south-street/ Richard Widmark, aka the King of Film Noir (Kiss of Death, Night and the City, Panic in the Streets), stars as Skip McCoy in Sam Fuller’s thriller Pickup on South Street. Skip is as shifty as smoke. He’s a three-time loser, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing his lawless ways. 04 Mar 2008 18:09:21 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/04/pickup-on-south-street/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/03/woo-there-it-is-the-killer/ Director John Woo’s early career wasn’t that special. A workman, not a craftsman, he turned out chop sockey flicks, broad comedies, and lighthearted dramas while toiling away for Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest studio. 03 Mar 2008 18:13:17 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/03/03/woo-there-it-is-the-killer/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/28/battle-royale-the-warriors/ Can you count, suckers? If you can, then you’ll know that Cyrus (Roger Hill), leader of the Gramercy Riffs, has his head on straight when he gathers nine delegates from a hundred gangs from all around New York City. Cyrus could lead an army of 60,000. Now, there ain’t but 20,000 police in the whole town. 28 Feb 2008 22:35:49 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/28/battle-royale-the-warriors/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/27/rogue-roombas-runaway/ Having trouble with your robot? You’d better call the cops. Sergeant Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) will undoubtedly come to your rescue. More of a glorified IT department than police, Ramsay and his team take care of “runaways” — robots who have gone awry. 27 Feb 2008 18:06:41 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/27/rogue-roombas-runaway/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/26/cloversnake-escape-from-new-york/ If the image of the Statue of Liberty’s head in a New York street in Cloverfield seems familiar, it’s because this was used prior for the poster of Escape from New York. In the film’s alternate future 1997, Manhattan has become an island prison where the scum of American is sent to die. 26 Feb 2008 18:22:35 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/26/cloversnake-escape-from-new-york/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/25/galactic-sex-goddess-barbarella/ In this adaptation of the hipster French comic by Jean-Claude Forest, Jane Fonda dazzles audiences with rainbow colors, wears some truly revealing outfits (when wearing anything at all) and is constantly getting bitten by tiny creatures. Oh, and she also has sex. A lot of sex. 25 Feb 2008 18:01:49 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/25/galactic-sex-goddess-barbarella/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/22/high-moon-outland/ When Marshall William T. O’Niel (Sean Connery) begins his tour of duty at the Io titanium mine he discovers that his most important role is to keep the peace while keeping his mouth shut and his eyes averted from the dealings of Company representative Sheppard (Peter Boyle). 22 Feb 2008 18:16:24 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/22/high-moon-outland/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/21/for-the-bible-tells-me-so/ What do you do when your heart tells you one thing but your dogma tells you another? That’s the main question at the heart of For the Bible Tells Me So, an examination of the rift between religious fundamentalists and secular humanists 21 Feb 2008 02:44:21 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/21/for-the-bible-tells-me-so/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/21/mephistophesleeze-satans-cheerleaders/ It’s The Pom Pom Girls meets Race with the Devil when a quartet of promiscuous high schoolers cross their school’s janitor. He has his janitorial services union card and he’s also a member of the local Satanic cult. 21 Feb 2008 18:09:08 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/21/mephistophesleeze-satans-cheerleaders/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/20/space-sham-capricorn-one/ “I’m always unwrapping things,” says Elliot Gould. He may be talking about hotel soap packages, but as investigative journalist Robert Caulfield, Gould also unwraps the biggest cover-up since the Kennedy Assassination. 20 Feb 2008 18:15:13 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/20/space-sham-capricorn-one/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/19/a-devil-of-an-itch-the-satan-bug/ The Satan Bug mixes equal parts of John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday and Michael Bay’s The Rock. The film begins with a break-in at Station Three, the most important germ warfare research facility in the Western Hemisphere. Then the government calls in clench-jawed Lee Barrett to find and apprehend the culprits 19 Feb 2008 19:37:27 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/19/a-devil-of-an-itch-the-satan-bug/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/18/oh-brain-smasher%e2%80%a6a-love-story/ Perhaps with only the exceptions of Uwe Boll and Michael Bay, Albert Pyun may be one of the most reviled directors in the history of cinema. Having helmed such classic fare as Captain America, Alien from L.A., and Bloodmatch, Pyun’s inept directing is often only outshone by his inability to write. 18 Feb 2008 14:20:27 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/18/oh-brain-smasher%e2%80%a6a-love-story/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/15/if-man-is-5-logans-run/ If you ever find yourself living in a domed city, you might as well start planning to break out. Because if movies have taught us anything, it’s that the world outside the dome will always be a lot better than the governing body makes it out to be. That’s definitely the case for Logan’s Run. Born out of the admonition of the late 1960s to “never trust anyone over 30” but taken to the extreme 15 Feb 2008 16:02:00 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/15/if-man-is-5-logans-run/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/15/more-like-diarrhea-diary-of-the-dead/ It’s a good thing that George Romero does that John Carpenter thing of putting his name before the title of his films. In the case of Diary of the Dead, it may be necessary as the title doesn’t show up until the end of the film. Otherwise, innocent viewers may be mistaken that the dreck they’re seeing was produced by some twentysomething film school punks 15 Feb 2008 15:56:23 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/15/more-like-diarrhea-diary-of-the-dead/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/14/cleopatra-jones/ As Cleopatra Jones, model-turned-actress Tamara Dobson is a cool drink of water. Standing over six feet tall — that’s before the heels — Cleopatra Jones grew up in the hood and made good. Now she’s an incredibly dressed (new outfits for every scene), and a US Special Agent who carries an arsenal in her souped-up Corvette Stingray. 14 Feb 2008 15:56:23 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/14/cleopatra-jones/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/13/not-actually-1423-laughs-student-bodies/ Lest you think we’re suffering through the heyday of moronic spoof films (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans), consider the early 1980s and the glut of fatuous flicks such as Alfred Sole’s Pandemonium, Greydon Clark’s Wacko, Howard R. Cohen’s Saturday the 14th, or this one, Mickey Rose’s Student Bodies. 13 Feb 2008 17:02:40 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/13/not-actually-1423-laughs-student-bodies/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/12/say-can-you-see-day-of-the-triffids/ Captain Bill Masen (Howard Keel) just can’t win. His eyes are bandaged up the night of the most spectacular meteor shower the world has ever seen, and the next day, he finds that he’s the only man in London with eyesight. As the rest of Britain fumbles around in darkness, they’re being stalked by eight-foot-tall ambulatory plants. 12 Feb 2008 18:09:24 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/12/say-can-you-see-day-of-the-triffids/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/11/angry-kid-nation-wild-in-the-streets/ “We got the old tigers scared, baby!” screams Max Frost (nee Max Flatow), the charismatic lead singer of the Troopers. Like John Lennon, Frost (Christopher Jones) is “more famous than Jesus.” 11 Feb 2008 18:01:27 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/11/angry-kid-nation-wild-in-the-streets/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/08/after-school-svu-the-little-girl-who-lives-down-the-lane/ Adapted by author Laird Koenig from his novel, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane feels very much like a play. Nearly all of the action takes place at the house of Rynn Jacobs (Jodie Foster), the worldly thirteen-year-old who lives on her own while telling everyone that her poet father is either away on business or busy translating texts. 08 Feb 2008 18:38:14 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/08/after-school-svu-the-little-girl-who-lives-down-the-lane/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/06/start-your-engines-dirty-mary-crazy-larry/ Peter Fonda didn’t abandon his wheels after being blown away as a biker in Easy Rider. Instead, he tried his luck at souped-up cars and even a Winnebago (Race with the Devil). Asphalt was in his blood. 06 Feb 2008 19:14:54 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/06/start-your-engines-dirty-mary-crazy-larry/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/05/sexicolor-sham-orgy-of-the-dead/ “It’s said on clear nights, beneath the cold light of the moon, how the dog and the wolf. And creeping things crawl out of the slime. It is then that the ghouls feast in all their radiance,” intones television psychic Criswell as The Emperor of Darkness 05 Feb 2008 19:14:54 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/05/sexicolor-sham-orgy-of-the-dead/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/01/heady-wr-mysteries-of-the-organism/ The films of Dušan Makavejev are rife with dichotomies. Narrative styles, genres, languages, images — these traits come in pairs that contrast and comment upon one another. His first film shot primarily in English, WR: Mysteries of the Organism 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/02/01/heady-wr-mysteries-of-the-organism/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/31/ohm-man-fantastic-planet/ Imported from their native Terra, the Ohms are a fun plaything for the Traags. They can be trained to perform a variety of tricks, such as balancing on balls, singing, and performing in gladiatorial games. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/31/ohm-man-fantastic-planet/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/30/bikers-and-dark-magic-psychomania/ Tom Latham (Nicky Henson) has an unhealthy obsession with death. He's the leader of a motorcycle gang called "The Living Dead" who wear skull and crossbones on their helmets and nifty denim jackets. His fascination undoubtedly stems from his psychic mother (Beryl Reid) and the untimely death of his father 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/30/bikers-and-dark-magic-psychomania/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/29/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg/ In this French musical, not a line is spoken. Everything is sung in a kind of freeform melody that climbs along the notes of the Michel Legrand score. The music and "lyrics" have an organic feel to them like spontaneous jazz riffing. This is delightful, of course, and combines perfectly with the captivating visuals of Jacques Demy's film 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/29/the-umbrellas-of-cherbourg/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/28/android-softcore-robotrix/ A sheik's son has been kidnapped by evil genius Ryunichi Sakamoto. To make matters worse, the bad guy's transferred his thoughts to a big bruiser of an android (Billy Chow) to prove out his theory on robotics. Luckily, Dr. Sara (Hiu-Dan Hui) and her lovely assistant Anna (Amy Yip) are on the scene. In order to fight a robot killer 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/28/android-softcore-robotrix/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/24/cold-steel-appeal-policewomen/ A squealing-tires car chase? Check. Hotshot cops who sit on the corners of desks rather than chairs? Check. An overly elaborate heist? Check. We have everything to make a '70s cop thriller. Add to the mix an army of girls led by a tyrannical woman 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/24/cold-steel-appeal-policewomen/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/22/french-dub-can-dialectics-break-bricks/ Re-dubbing films to humorous ends is nothing new. Woody Allen reworked the Japanese spy film Kagi No Kagi as a quest for egg salad in 1966's What's Up Tiger Lilly? for example. The re-appropriation of material as a means for political discussion was a tactic employed by the Situationalist movement, and this form of culture jamming 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/22/french-dub-can-dialectics-break-bricks/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/18/bogdanovichtargets/ Based on the events of August 1, 1966 at the University of Texas in Austin, Targets loosely retells the story of Charles Whitman's shooting spree. The film stars fresh-faced Tim O'Kelly as Bobby Thompson, an all American boy who murders 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/18/bogdanovichtargets/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/17/czechloslovakian-western-lemonade-joe/ This Czechoslovakian Western is awash in whiskey, wine, and song. Starring Karel Fiala as the titular hero, Lemonade Joe croons his way into the Wild West town of Stetson City, where he captures the hearts and minds of the whiskey-drinking locals and converts them all to loyal Kolaloka 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/17/czechloslovakian-western-lemonade-joe/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/16/van-cleef-box-office-the-big-gundown/ Released in its native Italy as La Resi Dei Conti, this Lee Van Cleef vehicle was made in the heyday of Spaghetti Westerns. Playing lawman Jonathan Corbett, the majority of Sergio Sollima's film has Van Cleef in pursuit of "Cuchillo" Sanchez (an unsubtle performance by Tomas Milan). The two play a deadly game of cat and mouse 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/16/van-cleef-box-office-the-big-gundown/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/15/afro-beat-down-black-belt-jones/ Bruce Lee is back, and this time he's Black! It's Jim Kelly starring as Black Belt Jones, the baddest brother to ever throw a karate chop. When he's not protecting Latin American ambassadors, Jones is protecting his surrogate father's dojo 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/15/afro-beat-down-black-belt-jones/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/14/will-you-commit-to-this-program-telefon/ There are sleeper agents all around the United States. They live out normal, everyday lives, completely unaware that they've been trained to perform various suicide missions. It isn't until the phone rings and they're given a quatrain from Robert Frost's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" that their triggers are pulled. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/14/will-you-commit-to-this-program-telefon/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/10/human-shields-alice-sweet-alice/ Originally released as Communion, this was the first relatively mainstream film from eclectic director Alfred Sole. His follow-up to the Gothic porn film Deep Sleep, Alice, Sweet Alice is also the most mainstream entry in a whacked-out directorial oeuvre that also includes a goofy parody 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/10/human-shields-alice-sweet-alice/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/09/supernatural-martial-art-mr-vampire/ What do author Bram Stoker and martial artist Sammo Hung have in common? They both defined the vampire myth; Stoker for the West and Hung for the East. In 1982, Sammo Hung wrote and starred in The Deadly and the Deadly/Ren Xia Ren. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/09/supernatural-martial-art-mr-vampire/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/08/evil-dead-inspiration-mad-love/ Adapted once before as the German silent film Orac's Hande (1924), Maurice Renard's The Hands of Orlac has been the inspiration for films as varied as Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead 2, Guy Maddin's Cowards Bend the Knee, and Rodman Flender's Idle Hands. In Karl Freund's Mad Love, pianist Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive, best known as Dr. Frankenstein) suffers a traumatic train accident 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/08/evil-dead-inspiration-mad-love/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/04/mr-meyers-opus-faster-pussycat-kill-kill/ The thing that amazes audiences the most upon the first viewing of Russ Meyer's opus is just how well-crafted this treatise on feminine violence really is. Shot in beautiful high-contrast black and white, the cinematography by Walter Schenk 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2008/01/04/mr-meyers-opus-faster-pussycat-kill-kill/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/20/simian-espionage-die-laughing/ Between his appearances in Ice Castles and The Chosen, Robbie Benson showed audiences his lighter side in the screwball Die Laughing. Jeff Werner's film is an awkward blend of "man on the run" thriller and "musician with a monkey" comedy. Benson plays Pinsky, a San Franciscan cab driver with aspirations of making it big 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/20/simian-espionage-die-laughing/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/17/cult-fave-baxter/ Based on the novel by Ken Greenhall, Baxter plays like a pitch-black Benji movie had the mongrel been a bull terrier sociopath. The majority of Jerome Bouvine's film is told from Baxter's point of view. Voiced with deadpan ferocity by Maxine Leroux, Baxter is plagued by "unnatural thoughts" of violence. He tries his best to suppress them but can't help but plan the deaths 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/17/cult-fave-baxter/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/14/your-friends-neighbors-peckinpahs-cult-classic-the-osterman-weekend/ Adapted from the novel by Robert Ludlum (The Bourne Identity), this swan song for Sam Peckinpah befell studio tampering after the film tested poorly for Twentieth Century Fox. Producers Peter S. Davis and William N. Panzer took over editing duties after Peckinpah's dismissal, and the final cut of the film still misses the mark 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/14/your-friends-neighbors-peckinpahs-cult-classic-the-osterman-weekend/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/13/cult-fave-tribulation-99/ Baldwin's 1992 film as being the ultimate conspiracy movie. Created out of miles of found footage with origins as disparate as Mexican Lucha Libre films, newsreels, Japanese schlock science fiction, Blaxploitation classics, and even a Bond 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/13/cult-fave-tribulation-99/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/12/cult-fave-snake-eyes/ Ricky Santoro (Nicholas Cage) is a corrupt Atlantic City cop. There's an envelope waiting for him in the back of his squad car every week, and both a wife and a girlfriend are always on the phone to him. He loves shaking down drug dealers to place bets, and he isn't afraid of acting like a fool. "This is fight night and I'm the king!" he shouts ringside at the Millennium Casino. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/12/cult-fave-snake-eyes/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/06/cult-fave-murder-my-sweet/ Based on Raymond Chandler's second Philip Marlowe novel, Farewell, My Lovely, Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet is a classic in the film noir pantheon 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/12/06/cult-fave-murder-my-sweet/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/30/cult-fave-el-topo/ If not the granddaddy of cult films, El Topo is at least the progenitor of Midnight Movies, that strain of micro-genre or weirdo niche art films best enjoyed at the witching hour. El Topo is the bastard son of the Spaghetti Western and French performance art spectacle 30 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/30/cult-fave-el-topo/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/27/cult-fave-the-creation-of-the-humanoids/ Two decades before Ridley Scott brought Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to the big screen as Blade Runner, the same exploration of what it means to be human took place (albeit far less stylishly) in Creation of the Humanoids. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/27/cult-fave-the-creation-of-the-humanoids/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/26/cult-fave-death-game/ Every man's fantasy becomes one man's nightmare in this twisted tale of a man home alone that's paid a visit by a pair of nubile, nutty hippie girls. That's the lurid tagline for Death Game, and it largely comes true. However, in the hands of director Peter S. Traynor, the premise defies imagination and boggles the mind. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/26/cult-fave-death-game/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/29/cult-fave-the-five-deadly-venoms/ But besides plot, what Cheh Chang’s film has in spades is a tremendous amount of style. “Poison clan rocks the world,” the phrase the sixth student uses to show brotherhood with Lizard, has been sampled more than the Hickory Farms sausage tray at your local grocery. 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/29/cult-fave-the-five-deadly-venoms/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/19/cult-fave-crime-wave/ An unfortunate victim of Sam Raimi's Crimewave (released the same year) and being Canadian, John Paizs's Crime Wave had "The Big" tacked on to the title before being dumped onto VHS and slipping into obscurity. Starring Paizs as Stephen Penny, a quiet man, the writer-director never utters a word. Instead, his voice comes from narrator Douglas Symes and teenager Kim 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/19/cult-fave-crime-wave/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/15/cult-fave-the-killers/ Loosely based on an Ernest Hemmingway short story, The Killers is star-studded, in color, and hard-boiled like a crime film should be. Tough guys Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager) bump off Johnny North (John Cassavetes). But the ease of putting down North troubles Charlie, and he does the unthinkable by questioning the contract he executed 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/15/cult-fave-the-killers/ http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/14/cult-fave-the-mack/ After a five year stint in the slammer, Goldie (Max Julien) gets himself together. How? To paraphrase the dynamic theme song by Willie Hutch, Goldie's got a master plan. He lives out the sage advice of a master class mack. "A pimp is only good as his product and his product is women," the mentor tells him. "You've gotta work them broads like no one's worked 'em 29 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://detour-mag.com/assets/2007/11/14/cult-fave-the-mack/