Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on March 16th, 2007
Gosh, I don’t know if today’s subject counts as cult movies. These are genre films, though. And they’re old.
Really old.
They’re the first.
Horror, fantasy and SF in film effectively owe their existence to one man: Georges Méliès. A stage magician, he attended one of the first shows the Lumière brothers put on with their cinematograph, and was intrigued by the device’s commercial possibilities. Come 1896, he was making his own movies. He built a movie a studio, and here I let Denis Giffo...
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 14th, 2007
Take Two takes a loss, Jungle Hunting and Turtle Soup 360 style - Welcome to the column that wishes it could celebrate Steak & BJ day with more than a steak known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. No, I’m not a First Sergeant in Rainbow Six…told you! I’m about three bars in though, not too bad I guess. However, I did complete the co-op terrorist hunts for a nice achievement. I am also only three missions away from the co-op st...
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on March 13th, 2007
Happy March 13th (and a very special one at that)!
Well, your humble reviewer has gone through quiet a bit in the last several days. I’ll try to make it as brief as possible; work sucks ass. Let me count the ways; I came in at 1:30 in the morning once on a day I wasn’t working, I helped my boss repel some REALLY explicit propositions by one of his employees when we were in New York City on business, I get some medical attention to him when he has a stroke on ANOTHER trip to New York, and what do I get as re...
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on March 9th, 2007
There’s exploitation, and there’s exploitation. And then there’s nunsploitation. There are few forms more unabashedly interested in the full-on sleaze wallow, with the possible exception of the nunsploitation film’s close cousin, the Women In Prison (WIP) flick. As ever, this is less a survey (there’s an entire book on the subject out there), more some semi-random musings.
Sleazy as the form gets, its roots are relatively serious in nature (but then, the same is true of the WIP). One of the pioneering works...
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on March 7th, 2007
More 360 memory, Less Taunting in Lost Planet and sitting in Time Pilot - Welcome to the column that is listed as Elite but reads like a bad issue of Mad Magazine known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. Well, barely but I made it to Master Sergeant in Rainbow Six Vegas. I seriously doubt I will be a First Sergeant this week, maybe next. I'm probably going to concentrate on getting a few achievements now rather than worry abo...
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on March 5th, 2007
When last I left you, the viewer, I was in the midst of frantically typing “Yo” so that I could be a participant of the chat with Warner Brothers Home Video, to ask about any coming next-gen titles from the studio. What we found out was fairly illuminating. The Warner hits L.A. Confidential, Poltergeist, Deliverance and the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet will all appear on HD-DVD and Blu-ray this year, with Heat and The Music Man to come out in 2008. They also reconfirmed ...
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2007
I always have the distinct feeling, when writing this column, of shipping coals to Newcastle, but I haven’t let that stop me yet, so onward. Today, boys and girls, a few reading recommendations. I trust that most of you are capable of using Google and tracking down your favourite cult movie sites, so I thought I’d point, instead, to a few magazines. Print ones. The kind you hold in your hand. Gasp.
Let’s get the conflict of interest portion over with first. Don’t let the fact that I also write for The Ph...
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on February 28th, 2007
PS3 is backwards, Conan moving forward, and a 360 schedule out of this world - Welcome to the column that is going nowhere fast but doing it with a big bang known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I’m a Sergeant first class in Rainbow Six Vegas now and half way onto Master Sergeant. My ultimate goal is Lieutenant Second Class (certainly not the insane Elite class) but a part wants to reach Captain t...
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2007
Well, the news late today about Sony deciding to come into the affordably priced standalone market by introducing a Blu-Ray player of their own that will come out in the spring/early summer. The BDP-S300 will retail for $600 and unlike the first gen that’s $300 more, will actually include CD playback. So now that they’re making their strides towards affordable hardware (stop with the PS3 argument) with more price drops to come, it’ll be interesting to see when, how much and how often the cheaper HD-DVD equipment does...
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2007
The cult film collector will often have a rather divided personality when it comes to DVD editions of desired movies. On the one hand, perfection is ardently sought – no better example of this can be seen than the down-to-the-very-last-frame detail of the reviews in Video Watchdog. In a perfect world, all movies would be released by Criterion.
On the other hand, down that road lies both madness and bankruptcy. And the fact of the matter is that many films, particularly of the B-level (or lower) from ...
