tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56389862760882041972012-02-02T14:56:29.569-08:00This is a blog mostly about trash, cult and horror movies. I co-host <a href="http://alansmitheepodcast.wordpress.com/">An Alan Smithee Podcast</a> with Andrew Wickliffe of <a href="http://thestopbutton.com/">The Stop Button</a>. You might also enjoy my blog about Tobe Hooper's film <a href="http://tobehooperfunhouse.blogspot.com/">The Funhouse</a> which is made with consultation from JR of the <a href="http://cranialblowout.blogspot.com/">Tobe Hooper Appreciation Society.</a>Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.comBlogger1971100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-69126268832646944842011-12-12T17:54:00.000-08:002011-12-12T21:14:28.009-08:00

A nighttime Halloween party. As children laugh, run and play in their costumes, one child clad in ghost sheets invites a boy and girl to come see the "bag of jewels" he's found in the nearby forest. We're shown via flashback that this gullible couple are bullies, and the ghost kid is apparently the target of their cruelty. As the male bully nears a bag placed precariously next to some sort of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-72490083860055716942011-09-06T23:55:00.000-07:002011-09-07T18:40:39.819-07:00

For the supplementary interview with actor Robert Prichard about the making of Class of Nuke 'Em High,click here! A friend of mine in New York City interned at Troma once. I wastalking to him then about how great The Toxic Avenger was and how Troma would never do anything that great again. He suggested that their immediate follow-up Class of Nuke 'Em High was probably just as good and mentioned

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-60161704395629557462011-09-06T23:31:00.000-07:002011-09-07T18:36:13.204-07:00

In part two of this two-part interview, actor Robert Prichard recalls the making of Class of Nuke 'Em High and the birth of his video and theater company, Surf Reality.  Part one of the interview may be read here. You can visit Robert's website at Surf Reality.com -------------------------------- When did you first hear about Troma's next movie, "Class of Nuke 'Em High"? I think Rich Haines

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-11292779375857530432011-08-07T16:36:00.000-07:002011-08-14T01:29:52.545-07:00

In part one of this two-part interview, actor Robert Prichard recalls the making of The Toxic Avenger. Check back soon for part two, which will be posted in conjunction with Cinemachine's Class of Nuke 'Em High retrospective essay. The Toxic Avenger essay may be read here. You can visit Robert's website at Surf Reality.com -------------------------------- How'd you start acting? Probably in

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-22894169492249899622011-07-14T04:16:00.000-07:002011-08-07T20:22:12.814-07:00

For the supplementary interview with actor Robert Prichard about the making of The Toxic Avenger,click here! LE PREMIER FILM GORE 100% COMIQUE- French poster tagline The Toxic Avenger was an epochal event in the history of exploitation movies. Mainstream film historians like to point to Star Wars and Jaws as the films that propelled adolescent b-movie fantasies into mainstream adult

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-61065083915405200162011-02-15T08:55:00.000-08:002011-07-27T16:04:37.468-07:00

TRASH Mother's Day is a 1980 horror film directed and co-written by Charles Kaufman, brother of Troma Films president and auteur Lloyd Kaufman. It is a shocking and violent story of murder and rape centered around a psychotic family unit much like that of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, told with heaping doses of pitch black gallows humor. SOPHISTICATION Mother's Day is also a sophisticated

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-5435998529578938222011-01-16T17:04:00.000-08:002011-01-16T20:51:16.138-08:00

Hello readers, In the early days of this blog I wrote about whatever I felt like, categorically and by topic. These topics were to my recollection mostly odd subgenres, compelling figures in film and the occasional news item. I switched to reviews of each film I saw. This has been fun and challenging and has changed the way I watch movies. The posts have gotten longer even on films which I

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-75440611125186648722011-01-09T00:56:00.000-08:002011-01-09T13:42:55.176-08:00

  Black Swan is indicative of a major problem in post-New Hollywood era Hollywood movies; there are less and less stories about people who work very hard to accomplish something without also losing their souls in the process. The bias toward countercultural antiheroes in place of those who believe in the social contract doesn't leave room for a lot of heroic stories about doctors or lawyers, for

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-91179320617735109442011-01-04T19:48:00.000-08:002011-01-07T14:59:41.061-08:00

I'm not sure if Stallone's apparent affection for the action genre excuses how boring the final product is, but unlike your typical marketing exercise with a movie attached at least he wanted to make a good movie. The problem is he's neither smart enough to satirize the genre that helped define his persona, nor self-deprecating enough to indulge in excess. Your average drive-in action film of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-57757826688773162992010-12-27T01:47:00.000-08:002010-12-27T01:47:43.975-08:00

Roger Corman productions had a conflicted duality towards including humor; a sly love of camp warring against a pragmatic mistrust of overt irony. This was based on the financial consideration that audiences were wanting more and more to take silly ideas dead seriously after Vietnam, Watergate et all clogged the drive-in with worldly cynicism. Allan Holzman was hanging around Corman's New World

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-60985235345699514222010-12-11T14:29:00.000-08:002011-01-03T02:02:54.450-08:00

I have mixed feelings toward Eli Roth's Hostel movies. They display an obvious love for the genre but are utterly devoid of insight or feeling for the chosen subject matter. Martyrs is both a substantive infusion to the hollow center of the "torture porn" controversy and a partial explanation for the former film's influence. One IMDB eyewitness described Pascal Laugier's bilious reaction when an

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-58276518840142369382010-11-30T14:03:00.000-08:002010-11-30T20:08:45.081-08:00

I was born in 1986 and when I was about eight years old I decided that the 1980s were the greatest decade. Initially this was due to the discovery of old faded Garbage Pail Kids stickers inside the lockers of my elementary school, and their maddening, tantalizing scarcity before eBay put everyone's childhood relics up for sale. I also soon discovered that my favorite film was Gremlins and my

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-29645330607611799842010-11-05T19:07:00.000-07:002010-11-05T19:11:22.019-07:00

Is there anything more foolish and dispiriting than being disappointed by a film for which you had low expectations, but also wanted very much to like? Piranha 3D already had my money a good year before I even put on my 3D glasses, and the sheer anticipation provoked retrospectives of the entire Piranha series spread across two episodes of An Alan Smithee Podcast. The newest film follows the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-61768577341266051822010-10-19T17:55:00.000-07:002010-10-19T18:00:21.903-07:00

Godzilla Raids Again was released in Japan a year after the original and despite remaining in black and white, the tone of the series has gotten a lot lighter already. Another aspect nailed down right away is the idea of pitting Godzilla against other monsters, although the monster vs. monster fight is resolved midway through the film. If the original Godzilla was a somber spectacle of 1950s

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-52630252428578907052010-10-10T21:04:00.000-07:002010-10-10T21:10:07.571-07:00

The original Godzilla is one of the unsung examples of what a difference black and white can make to a movie. Color can't help turning a giant monster attack into something fun and unlike the pop culture phenomenon known as Godzilla, the original film is very concerned with dramatizing the human impact of a huge lizard walking through town. There are hospitals forced to fill the hallways with

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-28499983638455147652010-10-01T21:20:00.000-07:002010-10-31T12:46:41.435-07:00

Predators is a close approximation of the Predator sequel every fan of the old Dark Horse Predator and Aliens comics has been waiting for. The simple revision of the original film's tough-guys-in-a-jungle vs The Predator is not nearly as outrageous as the many pulpy tales of Predators traveling through time and fighting a lot of Aliens which kept both franchises alive in geek hearts during the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-37856249040297887442010-09-23T18:20:00.000-07:002010-09-26T21:01:24.102-07:00

Toy Story 3 is the successful culmination of Pixar's efforts to replace Disney as our culture's provider of shallow warmth. When the competition for children's attention is as cynical and ugly as the animated films of Dreamworks, what choice do parents have? Yet even more so than the first two films in the trilogy, part 3 is a comforting hand placed on the shoulder of an entire generation

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-38264560845382392132010-08-21T16:26:00.000-07:002010-08-22T04:48:00.740-07:00

Rubin and Ed is one of the greatest unknown buddy comedies ever made and funniest satires of the American tradition of self-invented personality. As a piece of movie history, the 1990s quirk fetish is in fascinatingly full bloom yet the film has continued to languish in obscurity alongside its auteur. Harris has authored a scant few other independent art comedies, some of which also include

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-76885998491147302602010-07-28T15:30:00.000-07:002010-08-21T16:30:38.443-07:00

Jack Frost 2 is one of the most genial and good natured wastes of time I've ever experienced. The 1997 original had as much going for it as a killer snowman movie could, namely lots of Christmas themed deaths, a gravelly voiced actor providing the post-mortem one-liners (Scott MacDonald), and ample screen time for the titular villain whose full size puppet body did not appear made of snow in

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-74319766758322709702010-07-13T18:14:00.000-07:002010-07-13T20:18:32.207-07:00

Opening with a quote from Mao Tse-Tung, Sergio Leone immediately establishes Duck, You Sucker in a thoughtful, postmodern mold very separate from his own "Man With No Name" Clint Eastwood trilogy. The opening shot of Rod Steiger taking a piss on an anthill doubles as both political metaphor and literal piss-take on the first scenes of Sam Peckinpah's recent The Wild Bunch which, one surmises,

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-36317845038083160312010-06-20T16:17:00.000-07:002010-06-20T16:29:10.903-07:00

The Room belongs to that most miraculous variety of viewing fodder for bad movie masochists; an intensely personal creation by a single auteur whose stunning incompetence in the fields of writing, directing, producing and acting imbue the fiasco with genuine passion that is infectiously felt every minute. The trainwreck is rich with many layers of debris: repeat viewings will reveal new faults

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-89952465468645868652010-06-06T16:54:00.000-07:002010-06-07T15:38:40.032-07:00

Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes company has finally crossed A Nightmare On Elm Street from their hitlist of easy money big name horror remakes. I am sad to say that I naively did not believe the film could be as awful as it was. What I hadn't factored into my already low expectations was that unlike the masked killers Leatherface or Jason of the Platinum-remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-53312470189123478572010-05-29T16:35:00.000-07:002010-05-29T20:32:45.036-07:00

The Monkees still get a bad rap to this day for being non-musician actors playing a plucky young band in the context of a wacky TV show about a plucky young band. The Beatles remain critically acclaimed to this day despite starring in the silly comedic romp Help! and allowing their likenesses to be used in a wacky 1965-67 TV cartoon. By the same stigma, the Monkees' own 1968 psychadelic and

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-51225344321963926402010-05-04T21:16:00.000-07:002010-05-09T19:21:57.834-07:00

This film begins, via animated titles, with the words "A Movie." That is perhaps the only descriptor of Hausu which doesn't require further elaboration. Janus Films has recently rescued this landmark cult oddity from obscurity and struck up some beautiful new prints being screened at midnight in theaters across America, spreading a great and terrible schizophrenia amongst human witnesses who

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-15952498886518440272010-04-25T19:12:00.000-07:002010-04-25T23:59:44.046-07:00

Anyone who attended the 35th Anniversary of Troma event at the New Beverly theater in Los Angeles this past Thursday April 22nd enjoyed the rare experience of viewing a 35mm print of the very rare director's cut of The Toxic Avenger. This cut included not only the deleted scenes which have been relegated to DVD bonus features and censored TV or foreign cuts (to compensate for the shortened

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-562621317932714402010-04-05T22:22:00.000-07:002011-08-07T17:33:51.554-07:00

Read the interview that this letter led to here Hello, Jennifer! Hello, Robert! Hopefully one of you found this Googling yourselves, so first of all welcome to my blog and brace yourself for heaps of adoration! I don't need to tell you that your performances in The Toxic Avenger helped make the film a beloved classic which endures to this day. The hit and run scene - or rather, the taunt,

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-83243166456131454382010-03-31T23:30:00.000-07:002010-03-31T23:30:08.273-07:00

Hell Night was released in the epicenter of the slasher movie craze and is considerably better than most of the competition. Tom DeSimone has a fine eye despite or possibly due to his directorial beginnings in gay porn, pulling off at least a couple genuinely suspenseful sequences and a few that could actually scare someone. The climax featuring Linda Blair as the Final Girl is gripping and some

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-83622212915637705212010-03-28T12:23:00.000-07:002010-03-30T13:54:55.217-07:00

The following is an photo-illustration of excerpts from Bruce F. Kawin's excellent essay The Funhouse and The Howling, first published in the Fall 1981 Film Quarterly and reprinted in the anthology American Horrors: Essays on the Modern Horror Film which is available on Amazon. These quotations are intended as film criticism/analysis under Fair Use and I would urge interested persons to purchase

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-78533438199325027452010-03-16T13:21:00.000-07:002010-03-17T19:01:33.205-07:00

When I was younger I wasn't allowed to watch scary movies. Years away from having my own video store card, I relied on TV and other methods, one being to save allowance money for the videos themselves. One of the movies I wanted to see the most was The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and at Suncoast Video, a now defunct chain of movie stores for malls which catered to the video store trolls, the VHS

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-6295753993695961752010-03-05T09:29:00.000-08:002010-03-06T22:40:25.581-08:00

The short version of this review is that Shutter Island would have been a much better movie had DiCaprio played a plumber on Sh*tter Island. As it was, he and Scorsese have made nothing but a hoary mass of decades-old psychological thriller and ghost movie cliches which the critical establishment wouldn't consider praising for one second if not for their names. Particularly irksome is when a

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-8696037541652647092010-02-25T01:43:00.000-08:002010-02-25T01:43:23.740-08:00

The Book of Eli feels like a genre movie from times before legally grown adults started taking movies based on action figures seriously. There is also nothing remotely original in the screenplay by Gary Whitta, former editor of PC Gamer, perfectly all right in this case. The one original element I saw which hadn't yet been used in any sci-fi or post-apocalypse action movie - probably more than a

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-68392383500542358202010-02-22T17:48:00.000-08:002010-02-22T17:48:34.079-08:00

As civilization crumbles in slow motion before our very eyes, people become ruder at the movies. There's no getting around that. Especially bad are girls who think that a night out with their man grants them impunity, like he'll throw his hipster fedora Oddjob-style and decapitate anyone who tells her to quiet down. Even the great New Beverly Cinema is not immune. Weeks after they'd put up a

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-85222705935876778212010-02-16T23:56:00.000-08:002010-02-17T23:17:33.210-08:00

John Paragon was great in his reprisal performance of Jambi the Genie in the recently concluded revival of The Pee-Wee Herman Show in Los Angeles. I'm not sure how he was introduced to Peter and David Paul, alias The Barbarian Brothers. Incredibly he directed them two years prior in another twinsploitation film, the action-comedy Double Trouble, so something must have clicked. Even if they were

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-91224572768068681432010-02-09T17:43:00.000-08:002010-02-09T17:43:03.990-08:00

Political persecution had not yet driven Charlie Chaplin back to England in 1947, yet he was clearly an already bitter, bitter man. Monsieur Verdoux has a premise which has been explored in films ranging from horror to comedy over the years, that of the "Bluebeard" - the 17th century French folktale of a nobleman who marries and murders for money. Given that Chaplin's screenplay mentions

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-18600616828751678282010-01-26T21:48:00.000-08:002010-01-26T21:55:04.199-08:00

Say, have you heard about the newest film from the world famous Coen brothers? From metropolitan film student jerkbags to Middle American plebes, three decades of cultural landmarks from Raising Arizona to Fargo to No Country For Old Men have made the duo America's most beloved filmmakers whose body of work does not include aliens or dinosaurs. Surely any studio backing one of their projects

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-39774268829980014662010-01-03T16:24:00.000-08:002010-01-03T16:24:20.779-08:00

The poster of Rolling Thunder promises "another shattering experience from the author of Taxi Driver and this is simply not true. The only way the experience could be shattering is if you had never seen Taxi Driver, and if you didn't know the same author had written both of them it'd be easier to dismiss this one as a mere rip-off. The story structure is identical; a long character study of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-45901974167556938092009-12-25T20:15:00.000-08:002010-03-16T10:18:55.459-07:00

Merry Christmas! Here's a gift for every Friday the 13th fan, a commentary track I recorded with my friend Tom during a rare visit. More than anyone he's the one who compromised my taste in classy horror movies and taught me to embrace slash trash. I don't think we cover any information you couldn't find on the Internet, but since there's no track on the Paramount DVD that's kind of the point.

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-43116599650411334172009-12-16T20:20:00.000-08:002009-12-16T20:20:37.685-08:00

An early target of Siskel & Ebert's pompous national campaign against misogynist slasher movies (this from the guys who rated Evil Dead their "dog of the week") was Meir Zarchi's Day of the Woman, rereleased in 1980 as I Spit On Your Grave. Had Ebert seen the film under the original title he might have gotten a clue that Zarchi was making probably the world's least projectional xploitation

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-44597484405520557272009-12-12T18:15:00.001-08:002009-12-12T18:26:39.994-08:00

This year's 3D remake of My Bloody Valentine converted me to the 3D horror bandwagon; the gimmick which supposedly will get people back into movie theaters is best suited for trash horror. However, I wasn't expecting the original to be so inferior, even with an infamous nine minutes of additional gore re-inserted on the DVD by Lionsgate to promote the new film. The dip in film stock quality

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-57220842584382037242009-12-05T21:08:00.000-08:002009-12-05T21:11:46.209-08:00

Lady Terminator begins with a sadistic Indonesian South Seas Queen dispatching a serf with her vagina dentata, and surprisingly proceeds to become a very faithful tribute to The Terminator. She comes back hundreds of years later, of course, as the non-robotic Lady Terminator. The filmmakers gambled that the science fiction of The Terminator wasn't the reason it was successful and they're at

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-61709559036046223662009-11-23T18:42:00.000-08:002009-11-23T18:42:59.086-08:00

When a movie opens with Tom Hanks, and begins a flashback structure using Tom Hanks narration, my expectations are already very low. Tom Hanks has been sold to us for decades now as the modern Jimmy Stewart, an everyman whose friendly face and lovably earnest persona supposedly make him as at home essentially in any movie, which is exactly the reason he has been groomed as such by studios.

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-53644970549504733572009-11-04T10:54:00.000-08:002009-11-04T10:54:31.461-08:00

In full disclosure, I got my copy of this movie from the director, Corbin Bernsen. However, I'd been planning on seeing this for probably a year after learning the star was Bill Moseley, whose performance in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 I and my friend Nick became obsessed with in high school. Unbelievably, he already had a website for his "Chop-Top" character which even more

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-89290884084626657192009-10-26T17:43:00.000-07:002009-10-28T13:06:36.933-07:00

The success of Paranormal Activity is more interesting than the movie itself. At this point a lot of people are going to see what the buzz is about, and I can't imagine there have been a lot of repeat viewings, even from those who had a good time being scared.  The success has trounced Saw VI, which may encourage other studios to pit their horror movies against Lionsgate's franchise in October.

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-37809121446503368182009-10-23T14:12:00.000-07:002009-10-27T15:59:04.696-07:00

Roger Corman certainly deserves both praise as well as condemnation. I've praised him a lot lately and must now mention one of his biggest stinkers, the career of Jim Wynorski. His oeuvre is not offensively bad, yet there's something cloying about every film being self-aware and campy to compensate for lack of budget. That's what killed the Troma epoch too quickly. Wynorski's greatest

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-46764500992624981982009-10-20T00:43:00.000-07:002010-01-26T21:50:10.359-08:00

The genre juggling phase of Tarantino's career has culminated in a genre film. After blatantly copying as many decades-old genres as possible in Kill Bill and clumsily combining the serial killer flick with the 70s car chase flick in Death Proof, the question being asked even by his fans was if he was capable of an original, non-homage movie. Well, maybe not the fans. His answer to the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-76388613868576168622009-09-24T17:47:00.000-07:002009-09-27T13:46:12.888-07:00

I haven't read Howard Stern's Private Parts. The film version is a mediocre movie and the content strongly suggests that the book is better. The problem is that there are really two movies here, one about Stern's rise to fame and the other about his subsequent battle with censorship. What makes the latter feel so separate isn't the film's fault, even though the forces of censorship are embodied

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-13065946667367390752009-09-17T11:18:00.000-07:002009-09-17T11:22:33.091-07:00

Charles B. Griffith might have been the best screenwriter Roger Corman ever snagged. Before turning Ib Melchior's grim dystopian short story "The Racer" into the camp satire of Death Race 2000, he created two brilliant loose variations on the tale of Sweeney Todd: the unacknowledged A Bucket Of Blood, in which a janitor who turns people into sculptures to impress beatniks, and The Little Shop Of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-56023144903179001712009-09-12T17:30:00.000-07:002009-09-12T21:49:19.974-07:00

My dad recounts this film's notoriety upon release, and now the film has been completely forgotten. The brutality of the ending was apparently hyped the same way the bloody squib-laden ending of Bonnie & Clyde was that same year. One was a classy picture pretending to be gritty. This is Roger Corman's gritty crime epic, an imitation of a classy old time picture with far better direction than

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-52035639906692150982009-09-03T17:00:00.000-07:002009-09-13T13:06:36.320-07:00

Todd Solondz is a man of deftly disguised humanity. Sympathetic characters for whom we do not merely relate but empathize are virtually extinct. The alternatives offered by "alternative" channels or faux independent subsidiaries of media conglomerates (like the distributors of this picture) are typically vapid soulless stand-ins for the author's egomania. When sketching a myriad of characters

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-87954313347973960262009-08-23T22:03:00.000-07:002009-08-23T22:53:05.043-07:00

Mr Sandman, bring me a dream!As promised, the very special premiere of my first commentary track with Andrew of The Stop Button and our Alan Smithee Podcast: Just in time for - actually, a pre-emptive strike against Rob Zombie's Halloween II: The Sequel, our commentary is on Rick Rosenthal's 1981,Halloween II better known as "the one at the hospital"!at iTunesin MP3Halloween II features great

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-68047183473949676752009-08-18T14:35:00.000-07:002009-08-18T15:17:23.411-07:00

Hey, folks!This weekend I will be recording my first feature length film commentary with Andrew Wickliffe of The Stop Button on a very special episode of An Alan Smithee Podcast.The film is the ORIGINAL Halloween II, in honor of Rob Zombie's Halloween II which opens August 28th. There are a lot of bad things to say and a few good ones too. We'll do our best.Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes,

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-19163311123144879862009-08-08T01:16:00.000-07:002010-01-15T00:21:55.813-08:00

The quasi-incestuous pedophiliac scenes of Orphan are already bound for footnotes in the downfall of Western Civilization. The sole unexpected moment in the whole move comes directly after (except the twist ending, which is only an explanation - we know she's evil pretty quickly - is whom is titular orphan Esther's second and final victim. Everything else is telegraphed miles ahead, even by

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-10373822584925678292009-08-07T00:34:00.000-07:002009-08-16T21:21:16.651-07:00

The young lady behind me at Moon couldn't stop giggling at the Kevin Spacey smiley face robot. His voice comes out of a space age trash can on an arm that more resembles a piece of hospital bed apparatus than R2-D2, and the small LCD screen mounted in front like a blood pressure monitor instead displays a yellow smiley face that makes a lot of chatroom emoticon faces. Spacey's mellifluous voice

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-72556844416440426352009-07-20T16:26:00.000-07:002009-07-22T14:56:55.130-07:00

Lloyd Kaufman, director of The Toxic Avenger and distributor of this film to this day, remarked in his autobio that Bloodsucking Freaks is possibly the most morally irredeemable film the infamous Troma Entertainment ever associated with. I have long held The Toxic Avenger's hit and run/head crushing scene as the personal barometer of offense. Every longtime exploitation film fan likes to think of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-1384808182040000182009-07-14T15:12:00.000-07:002009-07-18T06:03:50.581-07:00

Linda Blair's career trajectory took a camp icon turn somewhere along the line, not blossoming into other actresses debuting in horror like Jamie Lee Curtis or Sigourney Weaver. The often mocked The Exorcsit II: The Heretic was no Aliens and after some light dramatic work, the late 70s and early 80s brought starring roles in trash classics like Roller Boogie, Hell Night and Chained Heat. Savage

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-43635886057253111612009-07-03T14:21:00.000-07:002010-01-10T05:58:36.310-08:00

In a blaze of grungy 80s excess, Joy Sticks takes the dubious honor of the greatest movie ever made to do with videogames. All they had to do was throw a lot of half naked women around an arcade and add the other basic comedy ingredients of nerds, fat guys and an older authority figure who wants the teenage hangout of sin and depravity shut down. The offhanded regard this film bears for the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-82460047464016311192009-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:002009-07-03T00:21:52.431-07:00

Todd Holland directed many hilarious episodes of The Larry Sanders Show and several good episodes of Twin Peaks, so I at least knew this would be competently staged pablum. There's discernible skill on display in what he admitted at a New Beverly Cinema screening was simply grist for Fred Savage's potential film career and Nintendo payola. Despite the a heartwarming spin on Rain Man for kids

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-82009298848900080832009-06-25T16:57:00.000-07:002009-06-27T22:27:41.693-07:00

Fairy tales have been interpreted as rape parables by feminists for years so they already make a perfect fit for boners. Like x-rated animated features, there's also a small niche of live action erotic fairy tale comedies with the sophistication of a snickering eleven year old. Animated fairy tales have the extra benefit of being instantly identifiable with Disney's most frequently adapted

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-56318430096134053952009-06-16T21:02:00.000-07:002009-06-16T21:06:28.371-07:00

The most inerrant feature of the Terminator franchise, once seemingly dead yet revived six whole years ago after twelve years before the last installment, has been John Connor. In addition to changing the actors who play him, his will and purpose in the two non-Cameron sequels has been refashioned each time to suit the shortsighted needs of each film.In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Nick

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-80146375150858604392009-06-10T00:27:00.000-07:002009-06-10T22:45:17.362-07:00

It's hard to review this movie without spoiling the ending and even harder to watch when Turner Classic Movies' Robert Osbourne ruins the ending before you've watched it. Usually an innocuous source of grandfatherly trivia in between excellent commercial free programming - the only game in town - it saddens me that Osbourne now cannot be trusted before the movie to give away too much of a tricky

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-6207073243919677962009-06-07T13:26:00.000-07:002009-06-07T17:25:31.362-07:00

Rebecca must have been a great novel. As a film and Hitchcock's first American production there's a glossiness that feels distancing, thanks to producer David O. Selznick, who also kept him at a distance from the stage when winning the Best Picture Oscar. Hitchcock didn't get anything for decades until a lifetime achievement award and remarked in the interim that it was much more a Selznick

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-31868308653340113872009-05-22T23:50:00.000-07:002009-05-26T16:34:11.701-07:00

The phrase retroactive continuity (abbreviated to "retcon") wouldn't be as well known as it is today without the Internet providing a forum for the establishment of phrases pertaining solely to pop culture. Consistency, in this example taking the form of episodic story continuity, is rarely necessary and frequently stifling as an ubiquitous corporate stopgap against creativity even when the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-28386137097579663442009-05-19T10:55:00.000-07:002009-05-23T19:30:09.444-07:00

WC Fields and Mae West are in some ways so similar that their star comedic team-up doesn't work. They never exactly compliment each other, hearing one and then the other speak is like listening to an elderly couple whose mouth ligaments are turning to mush. Their big moments and gags are usually at arm's length, even when in the same room they tend to be at opposite ends of it. West wrote the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-42983913281897417982009-05-17T21:08:00.000-07:002009-05-17T21:10:27.798-07:00

In which Andrew and I try our new Good Movie / Bad Movie format with the classic Terminator 2 (just in time to be topical) and Crow T. Robot's favorite Kim Cattrall vehicle, Mannequin!

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-3722094469920637862009-05-08T19:17:00.000-07:002009-05-14T18:34:23.226-07:00

The trailer to Angus seemed immediately mature to me as a ten year old and the young leads much older. There was also the then-hip Green Day headed ensemble kidz punk and "alternative" music soundtrack provided by the executive producer of the film and the band. This is a highly neglected film although the starting price is $17 on Amazon for the VHS, indicating that those who found the film at

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-1888417734884158492009-05-07T21:18:00.000-07:002009-05-08T19:15:48.509-07:00

"Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!!! was a favorite catch phrase of movie riffbot Tom Servo in the halcyon days of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and that made me curious about Hardcore years before I knew who Paul Schrader was. His apparent mania to guiltily document the sordid side of secret sex lives middle class recently reached crescendo with the brilliant Auto Focus (2003) and dates all the way back

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-86474692717162548812009-04-21T20:44:00.000-07:002009-04-23T20:47:44.446-07:00

Real Life is more prescient than funny, sometimes eerily so. One of the earliest examples of a comedic fake documentary, and Harry Shearer can be seen briefly. The opening text crawl name checks Margaret Meade in her assertion that PBS' 1973 television documentary An American Family has opened up a can of worms for the exploitation of real people's lives on camera, which she praises as a new art

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-49350311384104242382009-04-20T09:30:00.000-07:002009-04-21T20:34:11.940-07:00

Judd Apatow's influence can be felt even in lesser comedies as Adventureland ultimately barely holds on as a feature resembling a series of vignettes from a television series. Martin Star feels like an older version of his Freaks and Geeks persona while star Jessie Eisenberg could be the stand-in F&G's young star John Francis Daley, with all his bland affability. Vulgar Apatow comparisons are

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-28956895963146279902009-04-19T13:23:00.001-07:002009-04-20T09:28:52.859-07:00

Carnival Magic was the second film on The New Beverly Cinema's double bill with Surf II. The curators of Cinemapocalypse hosted a print with a frightening origin and a curse banishing it from the light of day. The print was found in the home of lifelong 60s and 70s shlock director Al Adamson after he was murdered in his home and the completed independent production never reached the drive-ins.

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-24402208050206471522009-04-18T17:23:00.000-07:002009-04-19T13:38:16.665-07:00

Eddie Deezen, the evil nerd out to turn Hermosa Beach surfer teens into mindless minions with toxic soda pop in Surf II is easily the least disgusting star of the film including Eric Stoltz. He and everyone else are equally disgusting in Badat's writing/directing one-off which resembles a Mad magazine parody with equal offensiveness and the major vibe of an inside joke. You sort of want Deezen to

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-73419353907350954932009-04-18T16:08:00.000-07:002009-04-18T16:10:44.729-07:00

Being based on a play, not much happens in this movie. Nothing much happens in Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross either, except that the details of that desperate scenario are so well articulated that the sole plot point of importance gains mythic resonance. American Buffalo hasn't a single plot point of action, only speculation. Mamet's characteristically prickly dialogue entertains without

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-49509544675733272602009-04-16T16:56:00.000-07:002009-04-16T19:05:14.384-07:00

Wow, this is the biggest smattering of future talent Corman ever had. Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, Monte Hellman, Michael J. Pollard, and an uncredited Peter Bogdanovich pitching in on just about everything if IMDB is to be trusted. Regular Corman scribe Charles Griffith (The Little Shop of Horrors) rips loose accounts of the Hell's Angels from newspapers and turns them

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-7520598563871040472009-04-12T23:40:00.000-07:002009-04-13T01:32:02.176-07:00

Inadequacies and robotic imitation aside, Stepfather II has a big dumb lovable heart and little incompetence, only a total lack of inspiration. The handlers were obviously fans. As a sequel Jeff Burr replicates the formula a lot better than his later Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990). In the same film he also displays a knack for casting cult figures and future stars all at once

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-91634954997553071112009-04-11T18:47:00.000-07:002010-02-17T03:59:49.841-08:00

There's exactly one shot in The Stepfather near the end when Terry O'Quinn is mugging for the trailer instead of being anything less than his character. He deserved an Academy Award for scariness years before Anthony Hopkins won for Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter isn't half as scary as "Scary Jerry" and both characters require presence and psychology rather than violence for most of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-74060908621196601092009-04-09T20:40:00.000-07:002009-04-09T21:23:34.472-07:00

Jerry's solo premiere without Dean Martin is mostly a straight melodrama Jerry has been insterted into, except for one important scene that asserts his producer credit. At the lowest emotional point in the story, Jerry's would-be delinquent is all alone in the studio soundstage back alley and he sings a sad song about being alone. This is the obligatory sad clown moment which would become a

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-34135701547978159142009-04-05T18:44:00.000-07:002009-04-06T23:43:54.042-07:00

Comedies about psychiatry often betray the mores of the period in which they were made. Robert Altman in the 80s existed so surreptitiously under the radar that his work sometimes betrays a boredom with his own talent, with exceptional gems like the Philip Seymour Hoffman monologue film Secret Honor (1984.) Beyond Therapy is also based on a play, one with multiple sets unlike the former. The New

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-86212810977406527502009-04-04T13:23:00.000-07:002009-04-05T14:01:05.716-07:00

This was Lewis' first film with Columbia after a long and auteurist run with Paramount and although he directs and produces, the four cook screenwriting team spoils almost all fun. Jerry is the straight man who plays three underwhelming characters as plotting to seduce three beautiful psychiatry patients of his psychiatrist wife Janet Leigh into happiness so that she will come with him to Paris,

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-52454279178365251782009-03-30T12:11:00.000-07:002009-04-03T00:22:06.187-07:00

Now that the deed is done, I would've much preferred that Warner Brothers plowed ahead with Sam Hamm's post-Batman script. Yes, Rorschach would've been more wisecracking, less angsty. Yes, entire plotlines would've been thrown out the window to fit 120 minutes. Yes, there would have been an ending completely arbitrarily created for the film. However, the result would at least have looked like the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-80132762920759237362009-03-29T13:02:00.000-07:002009-04-05T14:02:33.624-07:00

I had to wait a month before seeing this on Valentine's Day with my girlie when it was only playing in 3D at one theater, then felt slow in realizing why: the Friday the 13th remake came out Friday the 13th, the day before.MBV3D's 3D is polarized prints and lenses, which isn't even as effective as red and blue double processing but that's how 3D is done for now until James Cameron supposedly

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-88561010937821311802009-03-24T22:44:00.000-07:002009-04-05T14:17:05.148-07:00

We live decadently in each others shared childhood relations. including bad movies. "Kids movie" is a condescending, chaotic and false label but for the purposes of this experiment, whatever. Being that the gulf between "adult" and "child" fare has closed to an imperceptible PG-13 crack wherein the difference between a 13 year old and a 30 year old's praise of The Dark Knight is nonexistent.In

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-1053556454663308672009-03-22T11:10:00.000-07:002009-03-22T17:38:12.094-07:00

According to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, when Bob Rafelson walked out of Targets he commented the picture was lousy, but Bogdanovich sure could direct the hell out of a movie. Rafelson had his own theatrical film premiere that year also, the unforgettable Head. Only if your first film is Head do you reserve the right to make such a backhanded compliment about such a startling debut, though IMDB

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-13237319877936874292009-02-08T14:42:00.000-08:002009-02-08T14:52:54.816-08:00

Hello, all you happy taxpayers. Recently Andrew of The Stop Button and I resumed our discussion of sequels for another exciting installment of An Alan Smithee Podcast.The lesser sequels are discussed in this one, from the dearly beloved Puppet Master franchise of my youth to cosmic mysteries like why Return of the Living Dead Part II and Meatballs Part II are both written and directed by Ken

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-77699508257665472082009-01-26T13:00:00.000-08:002009-01-26T17:24:09.609-08:00

Future-Kill is the greatest testament in history to the importance of a good poster. Famed Alien (1979) production designer and full time artist HR Giger painted the one-sheet and not only did this help get the film into theaters, the unforgettable sight of an HG Giger poster on the shelf of your video store horror section virtually guaranteed that a certain type of horror movie fan would satisfy

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-77830116518345393052009-01-20T20:14:00.000-08:002009-01-20T19:00:32.829-08:00

Bad taste has formalities.A degree of distance from the audience is an important one. The hit and run scene from The Toxic Avenger plays out with such ignorant disregard for this formality that it unintentionally becomes amongst the most disturbing in cult film history. The joke is the same as Death Race 2000 except that the killers and victim are 80s comedy stock players rather than comic book

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-83269708533064792102009-01-12T16:24:00.000-08:002009-01-12T16:54:47.444-08:00

Hello, readers!If you enjoy my reviews, you're sure to enjoy my witty banter with Andrew Wickliffe of The Stop Button in our semi-regular podcast An Alan Smithee Podcast!In our new episode we discuss Hollywood sequels - the big movers and shakers like Jaws 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, The Godfather Part II and Rambo: First Blood Part II.How did these sequels popularize the standard

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-90255606834407664512009-01-09T20:13:00.000-08:002009-01-09T13:34:10.819-08:00

Movies in general are twice as long as they need to be. Movies today, 2.5 to three times as long. Once Upon A Time In America is at 3.5 hours exactly as long as necessary, and was cut down to less than half that length upon release. I've never had a film so long fly by so quickly. This is epic in both senses of the word - length and breadth of story - and fully justifies itself.I've also never

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-92031365467263831662009-01-05T23:59:00.000-08:002009-01-05T22:39:19.751-08:00

Friday, January 30th, Silent Movie Theater of Los Angeles...Midnight. Be there!!! This may be your only chance!!!

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-639174289204578472009-01-05T23:00:00.000-08:002009-01-07T19:54:23.449-08:00

There's a story from the production of the original Howling in which someone went over Joe Dante's head and hired a lot of topless women as extras for the climactic confrontation at the end. Dee Wallace, trash cinema's favorite mother figure, was livid at the seemingly broken promise of a "classy" horror picture. The final say came to just one producer, who sped through the highways in the middle

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-24313914307735779582009-01-03T18:46:00.000-08:002009-01-05T09:50:57.238-08:00

This is a false advertisement lawsuit waiting to happen.Given the delicious trailer for Gran Torino, your honor, I was expecting a return to ass kicking form for Clint Eastwood. Not to say that his directorial skills have diminished in recent years, only that he hasn't made a film in which he, Clint Eastwood, busts skulls in his own inimitable manner.I was teased - teased! - with the prospect of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-69432851462457352762008-12-28T21:51:00.000-08:002008-12-28T23:03:58.654-08:00

The year 2001 defined wacko Japanese director Takashi Miike. His work ethic is nonstop, grinding out two or three movies a year on average. 1999's Audition was making its way through horror circles as a star title of the J-Horror/Asian horror scene and is the only such title that could never be remade like The Ring and The Grudge. On the other hand, they did it to , but this is a guy whose

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-17282852769391877332008-12-15T18:22:00.000-08:002008-12-21T15:59:35.763-08:00

The most unique thing about Graveyard Shift is its qualifying the short list of movies with end credits that remix sound bites into a closing credits musical montage. Truly a custom of its time. Were producers of the late 80s seriously hoping to get Planes, Trains & Automobiles 12" Del Griffith Ultramix into the clubs?Ralph S. Singleton has one of the most random resumes I've ever read, from

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-14433461197995870862008-12-10T22:21:00.000-08:002008-12-10T23:49:15.310-08:00

--Thanks to YouTube user "jdubbs530" for capturing this rare glimpse--Dangerous Men may or may not be the bad movie event of the decade. Its historical anomaly is unprecedented: an Erotic Action-Thriller filmed in pieces spanning the late 80s to mid 90s by an Iranian emigre named John Yeghanehrad (John Rad to you and me) with a great love for American mainstream trash, a paltry understanding of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-86657420200823225272008-12-07T17:15:00.000-08:002008-12-10T00:22:50.138-08:00

I'm a trash man and figured the last Leo DiCaprio flick I'd seen was Critters 3: You Are What They Eat. It was actually The Departed, which shows how much an impact he made there.He's good in this film. I never saw Titanic either, because I've got WILLPOWER, damn it. Winslet is good too, and the whole time I was wondering how they managed to get two leading Hollywood actors together with actual

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-7756968169972463652008-12-05T12:42:00.001-08:002008-12-07T14:43:30.313-08:00

Jerry Lewis is the only comedian to come after the silent era masters Chaplin and Keaton who was also able to direct himself.His early to mid 60s output oscillated between the full yin and yang of his psychology. His yin was the sad clown, seen in Cinderfella and The Family Jewels whose maudlin sentimentality sabotaged his humor. God bless his raging Yang - the spastic retard who makes The Ladies

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-51025689794254925552008-12-03T21:13:00.000-08:002008-12-04T18:35:06.136-08:00

Joseph Zito reveled in filth before and after the film, directing Chuck Norris in Invasion USA and Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. The latter is considered by many fans to be the best Friday, something I've never understood. If it's a better slasher than Prowler that's only because Zito had the advantage of a slasher icon. Tom Savini does the gore effects for Prowler as he

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-61422234373648665912008-11-27T20:52:00.000-08:002008-11-27T21:58:30.871-08:00

You can count on Dee Wallace Stone to act her head off.In the era of 80s "Scream Queens" she was the most unlikely; the oldest, the classiest, the most legitimate actress. She fought beasts but didn't bare breasts. She was your mom. When desert cannibals struck, when pervert werewolves attacked, when maneating furballs showed up at the farm, when slimy penis head aliens were in your closet, Dee

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-9923579241302028842008-11-19T00:55:00.000-08:002008-11-24T01:01:24.951-08:00

Every 25 years Robert Hiltzik rises from total obscurity to make a Sleepaway Camp movie. What circumstances kept Hiltzik's only further brush with cinema to his turn as "Fred Myers" in the 2002 horror short Grandma's Secret Recipe? As other horror aisle creeps had, I'd seen the Pamela Springsteen adorned cover of the official 1988 horror-comedy sequel and watched it first...Before seeing the

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-91298364907571539692008-11-17T21:04:00.000-08:002008-11-18T23:05:05.068-08:00

Harry Nilsson is damn good and damned forgotten. From nearly the last generation of old fashioned self employed American/a singer/songwriters during the 70s, Nilsson also had a prolific film career beginning with Everybody's Talkin' from Midnight Cowboy in '69 and ending rather permanently with his death in 1994. Meanwhile Randy Newman was turning his attentions to film entirely after firing on

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-36294769982584520202008-11-14T18:29:00.001-08:002008-11-15T17:57:33.584-08:00

Zach and Miri Make a Porno Movie is about to disappear down the memory hole with Kevin Smith's career close behind. Or so it has seemed with each of his most recent films, each an increasingly desperate attempt at reinvention. I chronicle this descent into irrelevance full of schadenfreude.Let's begin with the recent interview he gave to The Onion AV Club filled with delicious nuggets of

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5638986276088204197.post-58213950642987802792008-11-05T21:25:00.000-08:002008-11-05T22:48:16.945-08:00

And the road leads to nowhereHas there ever been a famous horror director as Wes Craven whose work is so continuously epochal despite running the gamut from ridiculously bad shit to total brilliance with such random flucuations? For all the branding foresight John Carpenter had in attaching his name to Halloween he never made another horror picture that changed the way we thought about them (only

Chip Buttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12511505932392754809noreply@blogger.com0