Screening in NYC: DEMOLITION MAN (1993).

When kids stampede to movies like Twilight: Breaking Dawn and The Hunger Games, it’s easy to make fun.  But which one of us hasn’t gone a little overboard in our enthusiasm for a movie which may or may not deserve that level of ardor?  After all, back when I myself was a ‘tween’, I saw Demolition [...]

LEPRECHAUN 4: IN SPACE (1997).

Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997). Things didn’t work out for anybody in Vegas, so the franchise left the planet.  I have to say, I like the specificity of that title:  It’s not “[Title;] Leprechaun 4: [Subtitle;] Leprechaun In Space”; it’s Leprechaun 4: In Space.  The film itself is in space!  Let’s go with the obvious [...]

From The Archives: OUTLANDER (2008).

Originally published elsewhere.   The other day, I found a stack of my old artwork from my high school years. I didn’t remember myself as being the little metalhead that the evidence suggests that I was, but the proof is in the paper. Rock on, little fella! What metalheads and teenaged cartoonists and the producers of Outlander all [...]

From The Archives: AVATAR (2009).

  Been thinking about the 3-D format lately, due to Hugo.  Seems a good reason to review some thoughts from two years back.  Avatar is like nothing you’ve ever seen before, even though you’ve absolutely seen this story many times before.  Is that a coy contradiction?  Is it a negative statement?  I hope not.  I [...]

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 #20: CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954).

The Creature From The Black Lagoon is the last of the major Universal monsters.  Creature From The Black Lagoon was released in 1954, over twenty years after Universal introduced Frankenstein’s Monster, his Bride, the Mummy, the Invisble Man, and Count Dracula, and over ten years later than the Wolf Man (longer if you count the [...]

From The Archives: CHILDREN OF MEN (2006).

#9.  Children Of Men (2006) The year 2027. Women can no longer have babies. The youngest person in the world has just been shot down at the age of 18. The future is terrifyingly finite. That’s where Children of Men begins. In a profound and extremely relatable (to me, anyway) performance, Clive Owen plays a [...]

Cult Classics: 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 view.  The [...]