Locke and Key

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Paul

I've really grown weary of comic book adaptations in film in the past couple years. I've already written my thoughts on films like The Dark Knight Rises, but the genre as a whole has started to become stale and predictable, and is so top heavy with the over-bloated Marvel and DC universes which try to tie everything together that truly original and filmic movies like Scott Pilgrim and Kick-Ass* often get overshadowed in the long run. Based on a "Best Books of 2012" list on LitReactor (a great Read more [...]

Dustin Exploits the Attic: Pieces (1982)

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Deuce

Most exploitation movies are not "good", as in they would not be enjoyed by most of the "normal" population. I'm sure if you looked up all of the exploitation films on imdb.com and averaged all their ratings, you probably would get about an 8.2832 (out of 17, of course). Many people call these movies trash. Shlock. B-movies. A waste of time. Well, any movie that not only keeps my attention for its duration, but also grants me a kind of escapist amusement is all right in my book (I don't actually Read more [...]

Quick Reaction: A Good Day To Die H(uh?)ard

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Paul

God help us. In my mind, there should be a level of Hell devoted to movies that are so bad that they have absolutely no redeeming qualities. They're offensive. A Good Day To Die Hard is one of those movies with a big fat exclamation point on the end of it that it would probably wear as a badge of honor. $92 million dollars have been wasted by the American film industry, and all of it probably went straight to the Russians. What the hell were they thinking? To be fair, I should've known. I didn't Read more [...]

Searching For Sugar Man

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Paul

The Oscar nominations for Best Feature Documentary don't always get a lot of attention unless there's a really high profile movie up for the award, i.e. An Inconvenient Truth. This year isn't really much different. I didn't really know of any docs that came out this year until, first, I heard that two guys that I went to school with (and are kinda my competition in Production Sound in town) worked on The Invisible War, a film about the often ignored problem of rape in the US Army, and second, when Read more [...]

For a Good Time: Don’t Watch this Movie

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Mike2D2

Amour, a French language film by acclaimed German director Michael Haneke, is a meditation on mortality and its effects on the lives and love of two happily married octogenarians. Not exactly the most romantic notion but it is inevitable and while this film is quite bleak two outstanding performances are given by the leads, Emmanuelle Riva (Anne) and Jean-Louis Trintignant (Georges). This is a blessing because the movie, with the exception of a concert, takes place entirely within the confines of Read more [...]

How I Came to Own an iPod Nano for 55 Minutes (Or “Why Everything You Own Will Eventually Suck”): An Essay on Technology

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Paul

It's a sad day when a beloved piece of technology dies. Sometimes it happens suddenly. Despite your best efforts to take care of it and keep it alive as long as possible, these things happen. You can wake up one day and it's gone. The hard drive is corrupt. Your DVD player just got too old and it was its time to go. It's ok, though. You'll get a BluRay to replace it and the hurt will eventually go away. I loved my 160GB iPod Classic. It was silver with a black and yellow stripe down its back that Read more [...]