Screening in NYC: STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997).

When Starship Troopers was released, the TV spots went heavy on the use of Blur’s ”Song #2″ (Woo-hoo!) and explosions and the Melrose Place prettiness of its cast.   I remember seeing those ads.  I remember how the marketing went overboard to make Starship Troopers look like, for example, Independence Day, from the year before, the kind of hooting-and-hollering [...]

Screening in NYC: ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976).

Assault On Precinct 13 is screening this weekend as the IFC Center’s midnight movie.  It’s a stone-cold must-see if you’ve never had the pleasure, and a terrific choice to watch in the middle of the night, its most natural habitat. With respect to fans of Dark Star, Carpenter’s first major credit as director, Assault On Precinct [...]

Screening In NYC: BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009).

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans is screening tonight at BAMcinématek, as part of their New Orleans On Film series (which also features Down By Law and Disney’s The Princess And The Frog and as such is recommended across the board.)  This movie is straight-up crazy and it demands to be seen.  Seriously.  It’s [...]

Screening In NYC: HOUSE (1977).

  This recently-excavated cult classic is the weekend movie at Landmark Sunshine Cinemas here in New York.  YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS CRAZY GODDAMN MOVIE.  It’s great.  Here’s why: Hausu (aka House, from 1977) is without a doubt, one of the weirdest fucking movies I’ve ever seen, and goddamn it but that really must be saying something.  It’s strange that standing in the face of this [...]

Cult Classics: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986).

Today we celebrate a great American.  Oh totally, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but also: John Carpenter, one of my very favorite filmmakers of all time.  Here’s something I wrote on February 11th, 2009:  I recently received in the mail the limited edition 2-disc score album for John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China.  It’s a [...]

Screening in NYC: POOTIE TANG (2001).

Pootie Tang landed in theaters in a more relatively innocent era, June of 2001. At the time, it landed with a sickly splat, although since then it’s grown a sizable cult around it.  In fact, considering the talent involved, it’s strange that the cult of Pootie Tang isn’t even larger than it is. Pootie Tang [...]

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #27: NIGHT OF THE COMET (1984).

After Night Of The Creeps, Night Of The Comet is the best “Night Of The” movie of the 1980s.  (There were many.)  These are the kind of movies you hope for, every time you venture off the mainstream path looking for something out of the ordinary.  These are the kind of movie there just plain [...]

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #23: NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986).

Speaking of Attack The Block, here’s one of its spiritual ancestors.  Night Of The Creeps is one of those everything movies.  It’s a monster drink, a mix of everything kids and grown-ups alike love so much about genre movies.  This is a movie  that seems to answer that question: “If you got your chance to [...]

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #22: ATTACK THE BLOCK! (2011).

    One night in 1986, my grandmother woke my sister and I in the middle of the night with an urgency.  I was nine, my sister seven.  Grandma loaded the two of us into the car and drove us to the outskirts of town.  Half-asleep, I watched the deep-dark-blue skies as Halley’s comet zoomed into [...]

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #12: THE DESCENT (2005).

  As I watched The Descent for a second time, the one thought to which I kept returning was this:   Maybe there are some places humanity just doesn’t need to go.   For sure, the movies keep trying to make the case. In the movies, if you go into the ocean, into the woods, into [...]