Film

In Russia Dashboard Cams You

January 18, 2018

I’m not quite sure why I’m obsessed with these things. For the uninitiated, in Russia everyone drives around with cameras on their dashboards- it’s just a thing they do. This also means that there’s hundreds of hours of crazy accidents and road rage from Russia out there in the wild, many of which I’ve soaked up via YouTube. So I jumped at the chance to review The Road Movie, which is pretty much a curated collection of just that kind of footage. It’s a pretty fascinating idea for a movie and I’m curious what people will think of it as a documentary- you can read my full review at Slashfilm.

The closest thing to a new Battletoads we’re going to get

December 12, 2017

I’ll be honest, it was the shot of the one and only Battletoads storming a battle that made me want to explore all the references of Ready Player One’s new trailer. (I have a bit of a history with that game.) There are a lot of detractors to Ernest Cline’s book and I can understand their criticisms. Yes, it’s sheer nostalgia and almost non-stop references to a time that was not as cool as anyone remembers, but I enjoyed it for what it was. I’m also hoping that Spielberg makes it more than what it is, but time will tell on that.

Check out my exhaustive list of the trailer’s references over at Slashfilm.

A Nite To Dismember

October 30, 2017

It’s been a long time since I attended a movie marathon, so what better way to get back into it by finally attending Nitehawk Cinema’s A Nite To Dismember? Their fifth annual Halloween fest is unlike most other marathons in that it starts at 12:00 midnight and continues from there. I’ve been to many marathons before, including a 24-hour horror marathon (which is an endurance test on another level) but it’s been a while, and I’m getting old for this. Despite seeing almost 10 hours of movies way past my bedtime, I managed to stay awake and enjoy the festivities, aided by free Jameson drinks, candy, breakfast and David Lynch coffee, which is strong and flavorful and totally a real thing. Besides the films there was a hilarious costume contest, a rambling book review of Ringu, and some really fun commentary by our hosts, who stayed up the whole night with us and seemed as excited about the experience as the audience did. The theme this year was “Haunted Library”, and so every movie was either based on a book or centered on a book.

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Castlevania Spoiler Review

July 10, 2017

I enjoyed the Castlevania Netflix show for what it was, but it wasn’t much. I’m a HUGE fan of the series (check how I used the titles in this review) but man, did it need more than four episodes to tell this story.

Read the whole thing here.

VR Docs. Who would have thunk?

July 5, 2017

No one was more surprised than I when I picked up my Samsung Gear VR and found myself using it more to watch documentaries than play games. Games (horror titles in particular!) are great on it, don’t get me wrong, but the VR documentaries amazed me because of what I wasn’t expected- the level of empathy it made me have for their subjects. With the headset I took trips around the world and felt more connected to events than I ever would have without.

I wrote up a list of the 12 best docs I’ve seen so far for /Film, you can check it out here.