The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 415: NEON Movies, Titane, Spencer, Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Honeyland
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Mark and Joe B. pick their favorite films released by NEON, and discuss why they love the company so much. They also talk about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Revenge, Spencer, Honeyland, Wild Rose, Colossal, Titane, The Worst Person in the World and The Beach Bum. Enjoy!
Make sure to check out Ultimate Film Club on Instagram (@ultimatefilmclub) and YouTube. Also, send us a comment and let us know which NEON films you love the most.
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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MY CALL: This was a big mixed bag for me. The child actor, atmosphere, corpse gore effects and some aspects of the monster were truly outstanding. However, the overall impact of the monster, its story and the lackluster ending left much to be desired. Watch it. The film deserves an audience for its strengths. MORE MOVIES LIKE Antlers: Well, for another wendigo movie I’ll recommend The Last Winter (2006). Truth be told, The Ritual (2017) is the “non-Wendigo” Wendigo movie you really want.
Director Scott Cooper (Hostiles, Black Mass) strolls into the horror genre for the first time with a practiced hand employing dire, ominous atmosphere. Unfortunately how he handles a legendary and terrifying monster leaves much to be desired. Still, he has his moments.
Dealing with deep personal trauma of her own, schoolteacher Julia (Keri Russell; Dark Skies) sets aside her problems to try to help her student Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas), an obviously troubled child from a very broken home. He is quiet, gaunt, joyless, and draws horrifying images at school. After something strange happened to his father, Lucas has had to tend to his father’s unusual needs.
I’m at a loss in my efforts to describe this film. We sort of know exactly what’s going on and where we’re going… without really understanding how we’re going to get there. The characters cope with loss, abuse, guilt, trauma and fear as we witness more people becoming woefully involved in a deadly situation including the local Sheriff (Jesse Plemons; Battleship), Julia’s brother who thinks she should mind her own business.
This monster movie really oscillates in ‘monster satisfaction’ for viewers. Normally, the monster is the best part of a creature feature, if not contrastingly poorly done and then the worst part. Our monster is cool in concept but weak in initial development… that is until a momentary hint of a transformation—although more sense of the transformation is made later. The monster attacks are graphic and visceral, but lack the “monster-ness” for which I had hoped. In many ways, The Ritual (2017), Pumpkinhead (1988) and The Color Out of Space (2019) thrived where this film failed to meet my monstrous hopes.
So what were this film’s strengths? The discovery of human remains in a couple scenes is awesomely grotesque! The revelation of the creature’s “face” was outstanding! And the performance by child actor Jeremy T. Thomas was astounding!
The final conflict with the monster, however, was meh. I found the finale, the ending and the closing twist to all be very unsatisfying. But this film was far from regrettable.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 414: Beautiful Girls, High School Reunions, and Neil Diamond
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
Mark and Erik Hofmeyer discuss the 1996 film Beautiful Girls. Directed by Ted Demme, and starring Natalie Portman, Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon and Mira Sorvino, the movie focuses on what happens when a jazz pianist comes home for his 10-year high school reunion. In this episode, they discuss 1996 cinema, Natalie Portman’s early roles, and why Scott Rosenberg wrote the movie. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Snatchers (2019), The Puppet Masters (1994) meets Inseminoid (1982) and Sex Education (2019-2021) in this pregnancy horror comedy.
MY CALL: Great characters and comedy writing, silly monsters and gore gags, weak horror action. Not surprising given this was Frankensteined together from a TV show. MORE MOVIES LIKE Snatchers: I’d recommend to unrelated shows—Sex Education (2019-2021) and Stan Against Evil (2016-2018).
Writers and directors Stephen Cedars and Benji Kleiman essentially cobbled together their first feature film from their television series of the same name. You could maybe tell that this was modified from TV material with a careful eye, but the editing transitions are seamless.
This movie makes light fun of teen gossip, mean girls, teen sex, and teen pregnancy. When there is a topic within reach for a cheeky or mildly gross joke, this movie takes it. I especially enjoyed the projectile vomit morning sickness, the ob/gyn bit leading up to the hilarious and gory birthing decapitation, and some of the most surprisingly endearing “butthole jokes” I’ve ever heard. Yes, I’m actively celebrating the butthole jokes. Take that as you will.
After a sex-obsessed teen loses her virginity and swiftly gives birth to a vicious alien arthropod, Sara’s (Mary Nepi) offspring takes control of a nurse and puppeteers her a la The Puppet Masters (1994).
Basking in its silliness, this is incredibly unserious. Despite the occasional brutal murder of someone at the hands of an alien, this is never more dire than the ever-silly Stan Against Evil (2016-2018). But also like Stan Against Evil, the budget is meager. The little alien monster is neat, but after seeing it for a few seconds, it’s no marvel of special effects. But we’re here more for the giggles. There’s a gross giant cocoon thing, an Aliens-like crusty encasement for human host, and a funny alien sex with tiny male.
Sara and her high school friends end up saving the day and I never really cared, sorry. I liked the first 30 minutes quite a lot (i.e., the character-building portion), but then this really slowed down hard for me. I was hoping for a teen-sex iteration of Grabbers (2012). What I got was a marginably better than regrettable way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
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John’s Horror Corner: V/H/S/94 (2021), more substance than style, this is a horror anthology for gorehounds.
MY CALL: I’m a major anthology fan and a picky critic. That said, this has nothing inspired or clever, but plenty of gory entertainment within its anthology segments.
MORE HORROR ANTHOLOGIES: Dead of Night (1945), Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Screams of a Winter Night (1979), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Deadtime Stories (1986), Creepshow 2 (1987), From a Whisper to a Scream (1987; aka The Offspring), After Midnight (1989), Tales from the Crypt Season 1 (1989), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), Grimm Prairie Tales (1990), The Willies (1990), Two Evil Eyes (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Campfire Tales (1997), Dark Tales of Japan (2004), 3 Extremes (2004), Creepshow 3 (2006), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), All Hallows’ Eve (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013), The ABCs of Death 2 (2014), V/H/S Viral (2014), Southbound (2015), Tales of Halloween (2015), A Christmas Horror Story (2015), The ABCs of Death 2.5 (2016), Holidays (2016), Terrified (2017; aka Aterrados, a pseudo-anthology), Oats Studios, Vol. 1 (2017), Ghost Stories (2017), XX (2017), All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), The Field Guide to Evil (2018), Shudder’s series Creepshow (2019-2021), Scare Package (2019), The Mortuary Collection (2019) and Xenophobia (2019).
After three V/H/S horror anthologies in as many years (2012-2014), a fourth installment has finally come about to grace anthology fans. In its wraparound story, a police SWAT team investigates an abandoned warehouse with dead bodies and videotapes depicting horrors. The stories in those tapes are as follows…
Chloe Okuno’s (Slut) Storm Drain explores an urban legend about a “rat man” in the sewers. Despite the humble budget, it conjures fond memories of Digging Up the Marrow (2014) as a reporter (Anna Hopkins; The Expanse) investigates what turns out to be an incredibly gross, disfigured creature. It culminates in a hilarious yet utterly gross projectile acid vomiting which melts a man’s face off in chunky splendor.
Directed and written by Simon Barrett (Séance, V/H/S 2 segment Tape 49), The Empty Wake tests the sanity of a woman (Kyal Legend) overseeing an evening wake in which the family never shows. Over the course of the evening, she is all but certain that the man inside the closed casket is actually alive! This segment takes it’s time and, like its predecessor, comes to a very exciting and gory finale that kinda’ smacks of The Re-Animator (1985).
The Veggie Masher, directed by Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman, The Void, Manborg), is just an awkward play on an informercial SlapChop product.
With The Subject, Timo Tjahjanto (May the Devil Take You, The Night Comes for Us) shows us a mad scientist obsessed with combining man and machine… against his subjects’ will. But oh how his subjects shine in the blood of their enemies as they slice soldiers in half and enter battle in FPS videogame POV. The violence is grisly, graphic and very creative! Likewise the robotic surgery victims are gloriously macabre.
The final segment Terror (Ryan Prows; Lowlife) is the weakest of the lot despite its strong ending. A righteous militia keeps a strange prisoner with an interesting secret. I guess it’s got its share of dark humor. But I just didn’t care for its flavor. Eventually brain matter spills out of a head like Chunky Soup. It starts out lame, but boy it really comes around! Gory, chaotic, and funny. I mean, if Rawhead Rex (1986) was infected by a Blade II (2002) vampire biting off faces on a low budget… that’s the monster we eventually see here!
Holy Hell (Jennifer Reeder; Knives and Skin) is our closing/opening/wraparound story in which a SWAT team converges on a warehouse discovering the eyeless bodies of some cult. It’s not very interesting and has nothing to do with its anthology tales.
We have sewer monsters, intestines being dumped to the ground from one’s abdomen, sliced off heads, monstrous vampires and war cyborgs. It’s a simple fun lot. Although I prefer my anthologies to have linked stories (e.g., The Mortuary Collection) or richer stories to tell with clever twists, themes or moral spins (e.g., Terrified, Holidays), this anthology still manages to deliver the goods in the form of raw gory payoffs. I wasn’t impressed by any of the storytelling or ideas, but graphic spilled guts goes a long way in finding my forgiveness and approval. So there’s that.
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John’s Horror Corner: Madman (1981), a satisfyingly brutal and mean slasher classic.
MY CALL: This is a pretty mean slasher with decent kills that we fully see on screen, above board gore, and a monstrously cool-looking psycho killer. Recommended for 80s slasher fans. MORE MOVIES LIKE Madman: For more “mean” early slashers there’s The Burning (1981), Friday the 13th (1980), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Prowler (1981) and My Bloody Valentine (1981).
Ugly, mean and evil, Madman Marz differs somewhat from other more relatable early slashers of his era (e.g., Cropsy, Jason Voorhees, Angela) in that he was never wronged or misunderstood, nor does he have any moral grounds for vengeance. No… much more like the killers of Black Christmas (1974), Halloween (1978) or TCM (1974), he is inherently evil.
Marz borrows from many of his homicidal contemporaries. He murdered his family in their sleep a la The Amityville Horror (1979), he slashes up camp counselors as was the style at the time, he shares his name with a famous cannibal (The Hills Have Eyes), and like Candyman (1992), Bloody Mary or even The Bye Bye Man (2017), saying his name will seal your bloody fate. If you utter his name above a whisper in the woods, he will hear it and he will come for you.
The stuff of campfire tale folklore, Marz is the size of a sasquatch and grunts and growls like one, too. His hulking size, wild hair and mangled face likely inspired Victor Crowley (Hatchet) among others.
The first death scene caught me happily off guard. A sudden, unexpected and gory throat gashing with lots of lacerated flesh. The flappy flesh wounds are strong in this movie. There was also a noose/hanging death that was much more entertaining and developed than I would have expected. A couple decapitations and an ax to the chest follow, serving more as filler. The early two death scenes represent the most substantial shock value of the movie, which is slower (and thus, less shocking) than desired even in the final 30 minutes. But Marz comes though with a major finale claw gash to the face and a brutally impaled victim on a meat hook like in TCM (1974) make up for the dip in excitement as he mows though his victims (incl. Gaylen Ross; Creepshow, Dawn of the Dead).
Overall an entertaining lazy afternoon viewing. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest it is your Saturday night popcorn feature (maybe Thursday night), but I’d still strongly recommend it to fans of 80s slashers. I must say, I’m bummed that one-time writer/director Joe Giannone never produced any more horror after this. He definitely proved that he had a knack for it.
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John’s Horror Corner: The Number 23 (2007), a moderately over-the-top noirish thriller to sharpen Carrey’s dramatic acumen.
MY CALL: A bit too much to be taken seriously as a thriller and not enough to scratch one’s horror itch, this remains an engaging movie if for nothing more than Carrey’s immersively obsessed performance. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Number 23: For more books that take reality too far, consider Stranger Than Fiction (2006) or Adaptation (2002).
Living a simple, uneventful, tedious but happily normal life, animal control officer Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey; Once Bitten, The Bad Batch) one day chases a stray animal to the grave of Laura Tollins (Rhona Mitra; Skinwalkers, Hollow Man) on his birthday—February 3rd.
As someone with a fondness for Jim Carrey, I enjoyed seeing him in this unusual role. Carrey’s forays into drama (e.g., Man on the Moon, The Truman Show) have been my favorite performances by this warm, introspective, quirky man. And it is that very thoughtful, soulful, wanting introspection that makes this role work so well, particularly with respect to his narrations as Walter Sparrow reads from his birthday present: a book called “The Number 23.”
Walter finds suspiciously strong parallels to his own life in the book, and we witness his internal visualization of the story of a dark detective with an edgier Carrey as the character, and an edgier version of his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen; Candyman, The Prophecy, Dune, Better Watch Out) as a sultry love interest. Moreover, Walter continues to find links between his life and the number 23.
Strong themes of suicide, betrayal and murder follow as the line between Walter’s life and his book begins to blur and his paranoia rapidly accelerates. The twisty-turny-ness of this movie gets far too elaborate for its own good and wanders past my own limits of a suspension of disbelief. But despite this, I find enjoyment in it.
Director Joel Schumacher’s (8mm, Flatliners, The Lost Boys) kinky noir foray into numerological mystery is perfectly enjoyable and interesting, even if ultimately nothing riveting. The performances forgive the mild shortcomings of the far-reaching plot, which digs a bit deeper than it should have perhaps.
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Gasoline Alley (2022) Review
Quick Thoughts – Gasoline Alley – Grade – C- – : It’s a shame that most of the press about this movie will be about Bruce Willis and his run of easy money performances, because Devon Sawa turns in a solid performance that is equal parts weathered, physical and determined. Gasoline Alley is much better than director Edward Drake’s other films Cosmic Sin and American Siege, but it desperately wants to be stylish, which works against it as the style never feels organic.
Produced by 308 Entertainment, who also released Cosmic Sin, Apex, and Breach in 2020 and 2021, Gasoline Alley is different from its predecessors in that it’s much more visually impressive and doesn’t involve space travel or aliens. Most importantly, it features an impressive performance from Devon Sawa who between Hunter Hunter, The Fanatic, and Disturbing the Peace, has been on an impressive run in low budget films. His character Jimmy Jayne is a chain-smoking tattoo artist who become embroiled in a murder mystery that involves human trafficking, dirty cops, and neon-drenched bars. The best parts of Gasoline Alley revolve around Sawa rolling up his sleeves, and using his height (he’s 6’0 feet, which is huge by Hollywood standards) and muscular frame to intimidate people while explore the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles (AKA Georgia) looking for a murderer. During his journey he comes across detectives Freeman (Bruce Willis) and Vargas (Luke Wilson) who initially suspect him after finding one of the lighters he gives out to promote his tattoo business Gasoline Alley. After deciding he isn’t a suspect, they form an uneasy truce which leaves Danny free to hunt down the killer and expose a conspiracy.
The screenplay by Drake and Tom Sierchio (who wrote The Girl Who Invented Kissing, which stars Luke Wilson and Johnny Messner, who is one of the 24 producers on this movie) puts a lot of focus on cigarette smoking characters spouting noir-ish dialogue while drenched in neon lights that adorn the ceilings of seedy bars or homes. While there is an occasional solid bit of dialogue involving Citizen Kane, swap meets or name placement on a call sheet, it never feels totally organic and the dialogue occasionally has a clipped vibe that either comes down to the script, editing or coverage of scenes. Also, It is understandable why the producers would want Bruce Willis involved (a worldwide release and guaranteed press), but his scenes are wild to watch as he only delivers one word responses or labored sentences that made me want to research his state of mind. It’s clear he was only there a few days for a hefty paycheck, but his appearances are distracting and take away from the movie.
The cinematography by Brandon Cox (Cut Throat City, Cosmic Sin) is the Co-MVP of the film because it’s quite ambitious and there are moments and conversations that look really good. Cox put in a lot of work to make the film look good, and the mostly on-location shoot adds a nice level of grit to the proceedings.
Final thoughts – I can’t wait to see what Devon Sawa does next because I really enjoyed his performance here.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 413: Underworld: Blood Wars, Fancy Coats, and Kate Beckinsale
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
Mark and David Cross (@ItsMeDavidCross on Twitter) finish up their Underworld franchise series by talking about the 2016 film Underworld: Blood Wars. In this episode, they discuss blood wars, fur coats, and why this movie kept Kate Beckinsale on the sidelines. They also talk about the franchise and rank the five Underworld films. Enjoy!
Make sure to check out the Award Wieners Movie Review Podcast after listening to this episode.
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast – Episode 412: The Prestige, Top Hats, and Christopher Nolan
You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
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Mark and Phil discuss the 2006 mystery thriller The Prestige. Directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johannsson and a plethora of top hats, the movie focuses on what happens when rival magicians take a feud too far. In this episode, they talk about Nolan’s filmography, clones, and water tanks. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker.
Movies, Films & Flix 