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The Brotherhood of the Eternal Comedy

The Brotherhood of the Eternal Comedy

Cult Cinema: Volume 7 Good comedy is a mix of the familiar, the unexpected, and the shocking. Which is an elaborate way of saying that ending a knock-knock joke with a line about killing a baby is a sure way to get a laugh. Try it some time. At work. So, it’s no surprise that [...]

The Barkerians

The Barkerians

Cult Cinema: Volume 6 In the 1980s, author Clive Barker was dubbed the new face of horror. And what a face it was, one that looked like it should be fellating both Lord Byron and Aleister Crowley during a sex magic ritual, all arched eyebrows and smooth cheeks and smoky eyes. Barker’s 1985 short story [...]

Academy for Tarantino-Guided Imagery

Academy for Tarantino-Guided Imagery

Cult Cinema: Volume 5 Quentin Tarantino is every video store clerk’s idol, and every film critic’s nightmare. Venerated by midnight movie buffs and Blockbuster cashiers for his unadulterated love of cult cinema, Tarantino has proved that a film school education is no match for passion, creativity, and kinetic energy. Unfortunately for film critics, this has [...]

The International Society for Lynchian Consciousness

The International Society for Lynchian Consciousness

Cult Cinema: Volume 4 David Lynch films are a litmus test of intelligence. You don’t have to like them to prove that your cinematic IQ is above the level of a mouth-breather with a Vin Diesel DVD collection. But you do have to realize the films’ artistic merit. And then give lengthy interpretations of their [...]

Intervew With Neverlost Writer/Director Chad Archibald

Intervew With Neverlost Writer/Director Chad Archibald

Initially, I was somewhat wary of Chad Archibald’s Neverlost, the Guelph-shot genre film premiering at Fantasia tomorrow. After all, its story of a failed screenwriter living in squalor while struggling with insomnia and depression sounds like a documentary about my early twenties, except with fewer Star Trek conventions. But the film ended up being an [...]

William Castle, Auteur.

William Castle, Auteur.

Cult Cinema: Volume 3 In the 1950s, a group of French writers revolutionized film criticism with the magazine Cahiers du cinéma. By re-evaluating the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, and John Hughes, among others, the critics gave birth to a grand unified ‘auteur theory,’ which positions the director as the ultimate creative force behind [...]

Fantasia 2010 – Interview: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Godfather of Gore

Fantasia 2010 – Interview: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Godfather of Gore

——————— The amazing thing about the horror films of Herschell Gordon Lewis is not that they were shocking in 1960s. From what I gather from classic rock radio stations and Partridge Family reruns, vibrantly coloured juice raised eyebrows prior to at least 1975. No, what’s amazing about films like 1963’s Blood Feast and 1964’s Two [...]

The Church of Campbell

The Church of Campbell

Cult Cinema : Volume 1 Religion is a beautiful thing. Provided you’re a Paleolithic savage who needs fairy tales and a lumpy fertility idol in the shape of a BBW centerfold to explain where babies come from. Anyone else still believing in magic and wizards should read a book that wasn’t written before humanity invented [...]

Weekly Round-Table: Golden Globes and Spider-Man 4

Weekly Round-Table: Golden Globes and Spider-Man 4

The 2010 Golden Globes took place last night. And between Ricky Gervais camouflaging a mean bender as hosting duties and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s insistence on rewarding supervillain-esque megalomania over quality, there’s a lot to talk about. So, that’s our subject on tonight’s Sound on Sight round table, during our Big Fan/The Headless Woman [...]

Weekly Round-Table: Avatar

Weekly Round-Table: Avatar

Three weeks. That’s all it took for director James Cameron’s 3D spectacle Avatar to become the second-highest grossing film in worldwide box-office history. And we didn’t really like it all that much. Clearly, we’re in the minority. But regardless of our reticence to embrace a Pocahontas video game, what does this mean for Hollywood? Is [...]

Whip It

Whip It

Whip It 2009, USA Directed by Drew Barrymore Written by Shauna Cross (also novel) Starring Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig Whip It is not for me. And I mean that literally: it wasn’t made for me. The producers of the film probably couldn’t care less what a 20-something male thinks of [...]

2012 Cliffhanger on Canadian Television

2012 Cliffhanger on Canadian Television

Tonight, Canadian viewers will have a chance to watch a two-minute, ‘cliffhanger’ scene from director Roland Emmerich’s upcoming disaster epic 2012. The scene will be broadcast between 22:50 and 23:00 on pretty much every channel we get up here, and its five-minute conclusion will be posted online. I’m actually kind of curious about the film, [...]

Take Out (2004)

Take Out (2004)

Take Out 2004, USA Directed by Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou Written by Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou Starring Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye Lee, Justin Wan English/Mandarin In the context of film reviews, ‘hypnotic’ often means the critic fell asleep, but got the DVD for free and is trying to be nice. This is why Jean [...]

Surrogates

Surrogates

Surrogates 2009, USA Directed by Jonathan Mostow Written by Michael Ferris, John D. Brancato, Robert Venditti (graphic novel), Brett Weldele (graphic novel) Starring Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Ving Rhames The idea of creating an imaginary persona as a replacement for reality is nothing new, at least for those of us who try to [...]

Post Grad

Post Grad

Post Grad 2009, USA Directed by Vicky Jensen Written by Kelly Fremon Starring Alexis Bledel, Zach Gilford, Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch 89 minutes, English When it comes to a critic’s personal biases and preferences, transparency is crucial. So, I’ll admit that I have a hard time with films about pretty people years younger than me [...]

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