In Luggage Of The Gods, a jet airliner dumps its cargo over a group of people still in the stone age. While you may think that this movie is imitating the more famous movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, it was actually made before The Gods Must Be Crazy hit U.S. shores, so I’ll give the movie some slack there. And that’s the nicest gesture I can give towards this movie.
Primitive comedy
Apr 13
At last, the darksome prophecies are nigh at hand! The first issue of Arcane is available — $2.99 in every conceivable ebook format, $7.99 in print! You owe it to yourself, your ancestry, and your progeny to check it out! More details here.
This is a Filipino film about a man who uses Catholic magic to battle the Devil. That alone makes seeking it out a worthwhile effort for anyone who enjoys bizarre cinema.
Review Snippet:
While Lando is talking to the Ghost of Chicken Fried Uncles Past, the Satanists are roughing up the villagers. The poor Catholics are no match for the Prince of Magic’s powers. Heck, they are not even a match for the lesser Satanists who use red radar waves to freeze them (I never realized that religion could be so exciting).
Lesson Learned:
Satan is an immovable object and an irresistible force.
Kaiju, Norwegian Style
Apr 8
When Troll Hunter first showed up on my radar, I can’t say I was all that enthusiastic about tracking it down. I mean, sure, the plot sounded interesting — a covert government organization whose sole purpose is to control Norway’s not-entirely-secret population of trolls — but the fact that it was yet another “found footage from a crew of film student documentarians” turned me off. However, people I trusted suggested that maybe this time I might find things to be different. Even then, though, I was hesitant; people told me the same thing about Cloverfield, and that didn’t really pan out for me. In the end, though, no amount of misgiving was going to actually prevent me from watching a movie about a harried bureaucrat who has to deal with renegade trolls, especially when I saw that the trolls were rendered not as some terrifying new style monster, but as the big-nosed, lumbering galoots they’d always been drawn as in old fairy tales.
I Walk Alone
Apr 6
Make no mistake about it — I know my stance puts me far outside the bounds of intelligent, rational, human society, but I liked…
A storied writer, or possibly a drunk (oh, who am I kidding — there’s no difference), once said of a particular piece of writing that it was a mirror: when a monkey looked in, no philosopher looked out. While I’m sure Dr. Zaius would take umbrage at this gross generalization, the adage stands, at least for me, when it comes to the films of director Albert Pyun. I cannot hate them, no mater how bad they are, because when I look into them, I see myself (a gibbering monkey). Albert Pyun has a magnificent, sprawling vision in his head. He has the drive to express this vision artistically, in his case, through the medium of film. And nearly every attempt at expressing this vision winds up a boring, dismal failure and a biting reminder that sometimes the gap between our ability to envision something and our ability to execute that vision is insurmountably vast. Albert Pyun’s sundry failures are me — if I set out to recreate in film the lavish visions I have, they would wind up, I suspect, looking a lot like the films of Albert Pyun, except maybe even worse.
Keep on truckin'
Mar 30
By the 1970s, leading roles in major Hollywood studio movies had dried up for the most part for Henry Fonda. So he took whatever projects he could get, from made-for-television movies to roles in foreign movies. So you might think that being cast in the drive-in flick The Great Smokey Roadblock, with its premise of a trucker with a truckload of prostitutes, was a career low. Surprisingly, the movie turns out to be quite entertaining.
B-Fest 2011
Mar 27
Yes, it’s a bit behind my usual schedule, but here’s the review roundup for this year’s B-Fest. The 2011 lineup was heavy on films I’d already covered, so as a special bonus, I’ve also reviewed a film from the 2009 schedule, which slipped through the cracks due to my being too busy with band business to do B-Fest reviews at all that year.
Mama Dracula (1980), in which hematologists get into more crap…
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), in which the roster of terrible B-movie vacation spots expands to include the El Paso hinterland…
Megaforce (1982), in which the good guys always win– even in the 80’s…
and…
The Pumaman (1980), in which flying like a moron is the least of our hero’s sub-standard qualities.
Gives Me Chills, Pt. XII.
Mar 23
Betcha can’t guess what the secret is!
A Dram for Japan
Mar 22
First, the details. Then, the waxing poetic.
NYCWhisky.com, Teleport City, and Ward III, with oversight from the Japan Society, are holding
A DRAM FOR JAPAN
A whisky tasting and auction for Japanese quake and tsunami relief
April 2, 2011, 5pm – 8pm
Ward III in Tribeca, NYC (111 Reade Street)
Tickets are $30, available through EventBrite: http://nycwhisky-japanbenefit.eventbrite.com/
Even if you can’t make it, you can still donate through that link.
100% of the money we collect goes to the Japan Society’s relief fund.
The event includes food, cocktails created specifically for the event, whisky tastings, and an auction of whisky, artwork, and other collectibles.
Updates on who’s pouring and what’s up for auction are here:
http://teleport-city.com/wordpress/?page_id=20342
If you can’t make it or don’t have the spare cash for a donation, no worries. You can still help out by spreading the word among friends and colleagues. Please circulate the teleport-city.com/wordpress/?page_id=20342 link as much as you want.
We also have a QR Code that points to the ticket and donation page, because sometimes technology is awesome. Folks can scan it with their phone and get pointed in the right direction without having to write down URLs and event details.
So I doubt I need to explain to anyone here how huge a role Japan and Japanese pop culture plays in the lives of us Teleport City lads. When the quake and tsunami hit, I was in Austin (Stomp Tokyo says hi, by the way) with a group of friends who’d just flown in from Japan that same day. I may be a cynic — at this point, make that nihilist — about American politics and politicians, but in regards to almost all other things, I am still a fervent idealist. Within hours of the news breaking, people mobilized via Skype, Twitter, Facebook, and various other methods to track down friends and loved ones, gather and disseminate news, and begin collecting money for relief effort. By the next morning, the Japan Nite contingent and SXSW organizers had a website, booth, and online donation mechanism in full swing.
An it struck me how quick, smart, and passionate us film nerds, music nerds, tech nerds, and assorted other freaks and geeks can be. Teleport City is no juggernaut of pop culture, but we have our friends. And I am a big believer in the notion that what we’re doing here, as curators of thoughts regarding strange and sometimes baffling films from all over the world, is a lot more than just goofing off. I also believe that this amazing network of fans of cult films, anime, weird music, travel, whiskey, toys, technology, what have you can mobilize and make a difference, if you’ll pardon the cliche.
This is the first time Teleport City has had the capacity and the professional network of friends to host an event like this, so we are admittedly rough around the edges and stumbling our way through. Japan’s Society’s willingness to vouch for us (after we signed some legal forms, of course) means a lot, and in general, the fact that we have so many friends in Japan affected directly by the disaster is going to make me feel totally cool with being a bit pushy when it comes to promoting this event.
So that’s that. Sorry if it’s rambling. I had a wisdom tooth pulled today, and for the first time in my life, I am on a prescription medicine.
If you want to do me big favor, spread the word.
Its rating is in its title
Mar 16
Several weeks ago I reviewed a Travolta movie, and I’m doing the same again today. No, I am not reviewing another John Travolta movie. I’m reviewing a movie directed by his older brother, Joey Travolta. Never heard of him before? Well, if you sit down to watch Earth Minus Zero, it won’t take you long to discover the reason why.