I used to listen to Adam Carolla’s podcast pretty regularly but stopped around the time Alison Rosen was unceremoniously let go from the show. Her firing wasn’t the main reason for abandoning the show, but it seemed like a good breaking point. An OCD collector’s attitude and an hour-and-a-half long daily podcast make for a huge time commitment from which I needed to free myself. In any event, I still wanted to see Adam’s crowd-funded movie, Road Hard. If you are familiar with Adam’s rants none of the jokes or gags will surprise you. Fortunately, there’s a decent story to hang the schtick on and I was never bored even though I knew the material. It’s not the slickest film around (there are some awkward tonal choices in the middle) and would have probably benefited if it were helmed by a more seasoned comedy director, but, as it is, it was enjoyable.
Although a couple of the pieces on this soundtrack recording sound like they came straight from The Donna Reed Show, the overall vibe is a chill lounge groove. This is best expressed in the CD’s showcase track, “Lolita Ya Ya.” The album is interspersed with double entendre laced dialogue from the film, which is something I always like on soundtrack releases (i.e. Apocalypse Now). I would often bring this CD into my life drawing classes, but it seemed to only person who appreciated it was the male model who had a ridiculous tattoo of Buck Badger in the center of one of his butt cheeks. I think I was in good company.
I read this mostly because I am an admirer of Apocalypse Now. It sorta lost me by the end so I really didn’t enjoy this.
The second Star Track reboot film was mindless fun. I was never bored despite the lame retread story, excessive attempts at style, and ill-advised grasps at nostalgia. Someone yells, “Khaaann!” Hardy, har. There’s a lot to complain about here, but in the end I liked it despite these flaws.
This giallo has been on my must see list for a very long time. Scored by Ennio Morricone, the excellent soundtrack is probably the best part of this movie. For whatever reasons, the film has alluded me. Years past, and the DVD eventually went out of print. Having finally seen it, I can say It definitely is not worth the high price tag one sees on eBay these days. The story is deliberately confusing in the beginning. Was there a killing or not? And what’s with all the mannequins? Eventually it all falls into place, but the revelation isn’t that surprising or even interesting for that matter. Outside of a few of the scenes with the aforementioned dummies, there really isn’t much style here to elevate this beyond a basic middle of the road Italian thriller.
The Amazon prime version of this movie looks like crap. I watched it anyways as part of my Mario Bava homework. I actually liked the movie more than I expected. It’s not as fantastic as Hercules Unchained, but features some truly epic battle scenes. I swear they must have killed a dozen horses in the making of this film. There is also a wacky underwater battle filled with diapered Athenian men.
I have been slowly working my way through Tim Lucas’s All the Colors of the Dark mega-book about Mario Bava. Whenever possible I have been trying to watch the films discussed. Caltiki wasn’t directed by Bava, but features his camerawork and effects. The movie starts out rather slow with a few cool moments when the characters discover the flesh melting blob monster. Things don’t pick up again until the climax when blobs rampage through miniature sets and the flamethrowers come out. Mildly fun, but nothing special.
This movie is precisely as cheesy as one would expect for a low budget, mid-sixties film about bikini clad cave dwellers. My family and I found it is surprisingly entertaining. There’s plenty to mock, but it’s played straight and the Ray Harryhausen stop motion effects are great.
Although it contains two selections from Michael Kamen’s score, this is mostly a collection of songs featured in the animated film, The Iron Giant. The movie, at least for now, remains the last great American 2-D animated movie (even though the giant himself was a 3-D CGI model). The music featured here is mostly foot-tapping 50’s rock ‘n’ roll tunes with a thematic focus that’s mix of rocket ships and beatniks. Concerning the latter, there’s a couple of cool bebop jazz numbers thrown in the mix as well. Forget the movie, this is just a rollicking good compilation from when pop music used to be about fun.
This is a weird album. It is considered to be one of, if the the first record comprised entirely of electronic sounds and instrumentation (mostly oscillators and echo loops). I found out about it years ago while reading the RE/Search book Incredibly Strange Music. The “music” consists only of various electronic bleeps and bloops with no attempt at song structure, melody or anything even remotely musical. Despite this, it makes a good CD to play in the background if you just want atmosphere. It will often go into rotation for me around Halloween.
