Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on January 4th, 2012
“I've gone and torn my family apart and I'm truly sorry.”
I have a confession to make; I first started watching Big Love for what I thought would be the salacious subject matter. Polygamy seemed tawdry and unnatural. I wanted to see how HBO handled it. Soon after watching I was touched by the depth of love and commitment this family had for each other. The underbelly of polygamy, religious compounds teaming in underage wives, forced submission, murderous vendettas and false prophets, certainly held a certain freak show quality to it, but what Bill Henderson (Bill Paxton) was attempting somehow seemed somehow precious and sacred.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 23rd, 2011
“Check it out, someone is selling a ghost online at Ubid!”
You know those ghost story movies where the victims not only do incredibly stupid things which further endanger them, but they are so thick they refuse to believe in ghosts even after they have been physically thrown across the room by something invisible and people around them are dying in mysterious unexplained ways? Kill Katie Malone is one of those movies.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 22nd, 2011
“I'm just crazy about this store.”
Anyone who has worked the night crew in a grocery store, restocking shelves after the place is closed, knows how creepy it can be walking the aisles in the belly of a half-lit behemoth. Now imagine if you were being stalked while you stocked by a mutilating psychopath. This was obviously the motivation for writer/director Scott Spiegel when he created his Super-8 short film Night Crew with childhood friends Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell. After co-writing Evil Dead 2 with Sam Raimi, Spiegel chanced on an investor’s meager budget to elevate the short into a full-length feature slasher flick. The distributors didn’t care for the original title, and the film was released as Intruder.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 14th, 2011
“Here's the thing, I... I live my life a certain way. And that is that I like to think that if you put your trust out there, I mean, if you really give people the benefit of the doubt, see their best intentions, they're gonna want to live up to it. It doesn't always work out, clearly, but, more often than not, I think that if you do, people will rise to the occasion. I really believe that.”
In a deck of Tarot cards there is a major arcana card called The Fool. It depicts a young man wearing colorful motley clothes and carrying all his possessions in a bag on his back. A dog barks at his heel as he heads off into the world, his eyes so full of wonder and excitement he doesn’t see the cliff directly in front of him. Our Idiot Brother is a movie about that kind of fool.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 13th, 2011
“Oh hidy ho officer, we've had a doozy of a day. There we were minding our own business, just doing chores around the house, when kids started killing themselves all over my property.”
A carload of preppie college kids set off for a Memorial Day weekend of partying deep in the backwoods of West Virginia. They encounter a couple creepy looking hillbillies leering at them on the highway. Stopping to gas up they encounter the two rednecks again, but this time one of the two approaches the girls holding a scythe over his head and laughing like a madman. Feeling threatened, the kids get in the face of the rednecks warning them to back off. Later, deep in the woods, an urban legend is shared around the campfire about the Memorial Day Massacre, a series of unsolved hillbilly murders which took place in that same forest twenty years ago to the day. To shake off the scary story the kids decide to go skinny dipping. Unknown to them, the two backwoods hicks watch from offshore in a small fishing boat…
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 13th, 2011
“It's impossible, but it would appear that the Spermupermine has had an adverse effect on your system. It's not only strengthening your spermatozoa, but it's causing it to grow to gargantuan proportions.”
I definitely have a soft spot for the horror anthologies; they’re the equivalent of cinema short stories. Some of the best horror anthology movies were Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, The House That Dripped Blood, Trick ‘R Treat, Asylum, Body Bags, Dead of Night and Black Sabbath. I mention this because if you are fond of horror anthologies, watch these. However, if you have a taste for bad taste (I’m talking early John Waters bad taste), if you can’t get enough of Grindhouse style B-Movie tributes, if you crave countless NC-17 style sex horror gags topped with an insane fecal spectacle, then I am happy to say Chillerama is your Holy Grail… well, er… more like Unholy Grail.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on December 4th, 2011
“Someone's in my fruit cellar! Someone with a fresh soooul!”
Sam Raimi wasn’t really interested in making a horror movie. Weaned on The Three Stooges, comedy was really more his style, but he could only find interested investors if he made a horror movie. So he and his filmmaking partner, Bruce Campbell, made the short film Within the Woods and with it secured funding for their first feature length movie, The Book of the Dead. When it was pointed out kids might not see a movie with book in the title, the name was changed to Evil Dead. With help from Stephen King proclaiming the movie as “the most ferociously original film of the year,” it became a moderate box office success (in short it made money even if the cast and crew didn’t). The uncut version which then circulated the video market elevated it quickly into cult status.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on November 23rd, 2011
“You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire. Once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher”
Peter Gabriel, the flamboyant original front man for Genesis from 1967 to 1977, left that band to pursue recording his own solo albums. Although none of his early albums scored a top 40 hit, they were deeply loved by the art house music crowd. Gabriel’s penchant for exotic world musical instruments, dark moving lyrics, and complicated arrangements built on his fiercely loyal following.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on November 23rd, 2011
Let me get this out of the way first off: I am not a big fan of emo-pop, so maybe I’m not the best person to review Placebo. The whiny nasal vocals and amazingly repetitive hooks tend to drag, and I find myself just wanting to slap the band and tell them to man up. That said, I should think if you are a fan of the band, you will love this nearly three hour concert disc filmed at London’s Brixton Academy in September 2010 during the band’s tour for their album Battle for the Sun.
Placebo is not a band that has achieved the same level of popularity in North America as they have abroad. Their “emo” stylings have spawned numerous top ten singles in the UK. The three-piece band is very tight on stage, and their sound is pristine live. The striking stage visuals are complemented by all sorts of digital post effects seamlessly inserted into transitions (maybe a few too many post tricks, as it seems to detract from the show, drawing attention to the video editor instead).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on November 22nd, 2011
“When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way! From your first cigarette to your last dyin' days.”
West Side Story is a masterpiece in film making. Its DNA comes from the greatest entertainers in the business. The great Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still) shares directing credit with one of the world’s greatest choreographers, Jerome Robbins. The music was composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Daniel Fapp’s cinematography is epic and evocative. The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won 10, a record at the time, including Best Picture and Best Director. This is film sets the bar so high for musicals there really hasn’t been a good filmed one since.
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