I like these low-key Scorsese flicks because I think we all need to be reminded of how great a filmmaker Marty really is. Now it's not like we ever forget that Goodfellas is the greatest movie ever made every time we watch it on TNT, but, see, that's the thing....it's on, like, every other Saturday. Color of Money, though, ain't never on no Turner network and I have yet to see Loni Love or Paul Scheer talk about it on a VH1 clip show, so when you sit on your couch and fire it up, hell, it's ALL up to you.
Music by Robbie Robertson, script by Richard Price, knock-it-out-of-park cameo by Forest Whitaker, and one seriously tremendous fucking actin' performance by one Paul Motherfucking Newman. Witness the goddamn manliest sonofabitch the world's ever seen. Let's hear it for King Marty. He never let New York, New York get him down.
Finally saw this and only watched it for the Joe Bob Briggs audio commentary 'cause, well, let's be honest here, John Bloom is a bona fide genius. And when I say "genius," I of course mean that Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In single-handedly changed my life.
No, really. My life. Come on, let's check them Highland Cinema/JBB stats:
1993 -- walked to junior high on Friday mornings talking about Midnight Tease and Robert Davi.
1995 -- emailed JBB from my CompuServe account to get the free copy of The Joe Bob Report newsletter. Afterward, looked up stills of Pamela Anderson from Raw Justice.
1996 -- New Year's Resolution to see every movie starring Billy Blanks and/or Dolph Lundgren. Nothing to it.
1997 -- Video Picks column in the high school newspaper. Highlights included Attack of the 50 Foot Centerfold/Frankenhooker and Redneck Zombies/Basket Case. Excited when I found Joe Bob's article about Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in a box of old issues of Rolling Stone.
1999 -- Drove by a used bookstore in downtown Denver and immediately thought, "I wonder if they have a copy of Joe Bob's Guide to Western Civilization." They did.
2000-2005 -- College-informed Woody Allen/Michel Foucault hiatus but stayed true to the cause by sandwiching Eaten Alive and The Hills Have Eyes between Chaplin's The Circus and Sayles' Men with Guns. Finally came back around with Cannibal Ferox and Hiroku the Goblin.
2006 -- Launched The Highland Cinema. Have shamelessly replaced "-g's" with apostrophes ever since.
I Spit on Your Grave is thirty years old and even with all of the overwrought, overblown critical hoopla that the film carries with it, and even with all of the signature Joe Bob analysis and pre-Information Superhighway trivia, this flick is still as uncomfortable and squirm inducing as anything that's come out before or since. Defending it will make you feel like a real jerk, but I think we oughta hand it to Meir Zarchi and Camille Keaton for wholeheartedly committing to a movie that's not about much more than castrating rapists and taking 'em to task with the business end of an outboard motor. I'm not sure I would have "enjoyed" this picture without Joe Bob's voice talking up the camera's feminist gaze, detailing the resumes of every last actor on the screen, or taking apart Siskel and Ebert's oft-mentioned lambasting of the film piece by piece, but I had all of those things and I came away with an even greater appreciation of the finely-crafted Briggs persona and half a mind to send What Have You Done to Solange? to the top of the queue.
Check out Joe Bob as he waxes phi-lo-sophically on H.G. Lewis' Blood Feast. I'm already smilin'.
I used to hit every metal show that came to town, but at last Saturday's Goatwhore / Watain twofer I spent the entire night agonizing about how best to tweet my desire to make fun of everyone in the venue.
So, yep, guess it's official. I'm done with music. The future belongs to stand-up.
When I was a sophomore in high school I told everyone that Clockers was better than Braveheart. I'm sure they thought I was nuts, but I think I was ahead of the curve.
When I was first getting into Woody Allen I wouldn't see any Woody Allen movie unless he was in it because I knew half of my attraction to his work was seeing Woody Allen do the neurotic Woody Allen persona. I'm glad I waited because if I'd seen Alice as an 18 year-old I'm sure I would have hated it.
Last year I had some free time on my hands and rather than spending it at the singles bar or collecting passport stamps, I watched sixty hours of The Wire. Awesome shit and totally the right decision.
This year I had some free time on my hands and rather than spending it at the singles bar or collecting passport stamps, I re-watched season four of The Wire. Still awesome shit, but not really the right decision.
I listened to this episode of the WTF Podcast where Maron and a Fantagraphics dude gushed over Charles Burns' Black Hole. It really made me want to buy the thing, but I'm such a cheap bastard that rather than commit $20 to a super interesting comic book of all things, I drank coffee, listened to an Adolescents record, and watched a "don't-tell-the-Feds" DIVX version of Mary & Max.
And, shit, what an unbelievable movie! The odds-on favorite for the Highland Cinema's Greatest Thing I've Seen in 2010 award.
As soon as I heard that the guy graduated from Harvard Law School, Giraldo and his Caroline's routines went straight from "kinda sorta funny" to "side-splitting and profound" in a New York minute.
I guess if I'm infused with juridical reverence like that I oughta register for the LSAT pronto.
Finally, a cannibal flick suitable for yer Bad Movie party! Maybe that's 'cause Massacre in Dinosaur Valley ain't really a cannibal picture. See, no matter how much the trailer emphasizes terror, loincloths, and screamin' naked ladies, the actual flick's more Andy Sidaris doing Romancing the Stone than Herschell Gordon Lewis doing culturally insensitive. Still okay, but be forewarned!
Huh, a new release? For the Highland Cinema? I know how strange that must seem to you all, but I figured that once I got one o' them fancy big-screens and wired some classy speakers into my Nixon-era hi-fi, I owed it to myself to fire up an honest-to-goodness blockbuster and let my neighbors know that I mean business. Turns out, this particular box office stunner was super cool! I'm not lying when I say I District 9 was really great, what with all its deep-space sea-creature aliens, non-stop nausea-cam, and frequent gloppy, sloppy, tinnitus-inducing explosions. But my favorite part, you ask? The obvious socio-political overtones! They somehow managed to avoid bein' preachy, overbearing, or condescending and I'm still trying to figure out how they pulled it off. Some feat.
Of the four of Fulci flicks I've seen so far, House By the Cemetery is by far mah least favorite. Now to be fair, I'll credit Big Lucy for his adeptness in creatin' a genuinely spook-tastic atmosphere and for givin' me the heebiest of heebie-jeebies during that scene where the screechy bat starts chewin' on that one dude's hand 'til he stabs it to death and makes it bleed Sherwin-Williams blood onto the kitchen counter, but when it comes down to it this picture is a lame-o slasher flick without enough gnarly effects to make up for a story that doesn't make a lick of sense. And could they have picked a more annoying voice-over actor to dub in for that blond-headed kid? Oof. I think not.
If there ever was a case for outlawing the sweet science of bruising, Facing Ali might be it. These guys went from real-deal heavyweight champeens to dudes so slurred we need subtitles just to understand 'em. Ouch.
While you'll be surprised that director Umberto Lenzi had the gall to combine religious cults with topless cannibal gore so soon after Jonestown, you'll be seriously fucking flabbergasted that the people of New Guinea never sued the guy for defamation. Good lord.
So I think the story's got something to do with a hotel that sits atop the Gates o' Hell, but if ya ask me all you need know about The Beyond is there's this five-minute scene where tarantulas gouge out a man's eye, eat his tongue, and then tear the shit out of his face. I haven't squirmed that much since I watched the circumcision episode ofthat Penn & Teller show. Outstanding!
Some time ago I got it into my head that comedies weren't real movies and that there was no way I was gonna waste my time on 'em no matter how many fawning Terry Gross interviews I heard. But now that I watched the Knocked Up on the tv and found it pretty great, pretty funny, and pretty well-made I guess it's time I admit I was wrong. Damn.
Hey, don't listen to them talking heads, 2009's best films were clearly this one right here and Bobby Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad. Seriously, nowhere have we ever found such an entertaining collusion of exploitation, brutality, sportswriterly romanticizin', and sheer motherfucking thuggery as in this ninety-minute pugilisticacious gem. James Toback, you are forthwith known as the AJ Liebling of the new millennium. Bravo.
Big Dolph Lundgren mans the drumkit and kicks some Russkie hiney. Well-done like the Dolph movies I loved as a youth, but still kinda boring like the Dolph movies I watched as a just-past-a-youth. There's also a hot babe.
I rented this movie in the summer of 1990 when I was nine years old. You had to switch tapes after the scene where Sonny gets killed. I was a pretty awesome kid.
Ooooooh, look how different things were back then.Hey, where are all the seatbelts? Dresses and pearls? On a Monday??? My goodness, is that a Xerox machine?!? Weiner's constant reminders that we're watching a period piece are insulting, condescending, and unnecessary. Did you know that underneath that happy family exterior everyone was enveloped in sadness and Glenlivet? Please.
Man, does Brazil get a bad rap or what? All the movies are about drug dealers, paid-off officials, thong bikinis, and dudes with bleached-blonde afros. Seems like the country's tourist board should get in touch with those guys behind the Las Vegas campaign or something 'cause the media sure ain't doing Rioany favors.
It surprised me to see Joel Schumacher's name in them there opening credits, but once I put aside my seventh-grade nostalgia for No Fear hats and free Showtime weekends, I realized Falling Down really isn't that far removed from nipples on the bat suit.
Let's see what I wrote about Shakes the Clown on the Electrical Audio forum all the way back in July of 2006:
that one clown, she has the peanut butter pussy: brown, smooth, and easy to spread.
doesn't adam sandler have a cameo?
only saw some of this on hbo over ten years ago. time to netflix it.
when i was but a mere child I thought bobcat was hilarious.
Wow, I'm actually pretty impressed with this comment. I know it's a prime example of internet-bred triviality, but look at how well it encapsulates the Highland Cinema's style! Notice how now that I've finally sat down and watched this thing I still don't have anything to say 'bout it other than a vagina joke and a memory from my childhood. Can you think of a better juxtaposition? Didn't think so!
The one thing that really really sticks in my craw is my damn "cameo" remark. Talk about ignorant! Sandler's in over half of this darn movie and there I am acting like he was Glenn Close in Hook. Now Steve Albini will never think I'm cool.
My friend's lady told me that if I was serious about wanting to ramp up my flirtations with that gal at the coffee stand then maybe I should try to engage her in conversations about, say, a good movie I saw over the weekend.
Considering I like to watch Nekromantikand Rocky Balboa I might want to try something else.
My entire life is a Larry David moment to the point where I strangely look up to the guy. Is that a bad thing? Such a seriously funny show that the Cinema is this close to paying for HBO just so we can watch season seven.
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