If it wasn’t for the Warner Archive Collection, I wouldn’t have ever seen or even heard of The Tall Target. After watching it on DVD years ago, I have always felt that Anthony Mann’s The Tall Target is an overlooked classic. It is basically a political crime thriller that mainly takes place on a train….
Japan Organized Crime Boss [Radiance Films] Blu-Ray Review
At a macro level, Japan Organized Crime Boss follows a yakuza proxy war waged by the Tokyo Alliance who uses the Sakurada family of Yokohama to attack the Hamanaka Family, also of Yokohama, who have aligned themselves with the Danno Organization out of the Kansai region. We follow Tsukamoto (played by the legendary Tsuruta Kôji…
I am a Nymphomaniac/I am Frigid…Why? [Blu-ray] Mondo Macabro Review
I am a Nymphomaniac is a 1970 French erotica film that is very light on eroticism. Sandra Julien plays the main character (Carole) who suffers a head injury and suddenly starts craving sex. While she is a beautiful woman, the movie keeps sabotaging itself and destroying any sensuality by having the main character feel shame…
Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore & the Films of Sarah Jacobson [AGFA] Blu-ray Review
Sarah Jacobson was a director that explored a lot of feminist themes in a less narrative driven style. Think of Richard Linklater’s less story focused work. While making a splash and generating interest in the 1990s, she died young due to cancer. Her body of work only includes one feature length film and a handful…
Silent Bite [Cleopatra Entertainment] Blu-ray Review
A group of five festively adorned bank robbers, in the wake of an intense bank heist, are looking for a place to lay low until the heat dies down. They crash at the Jolly Roger Hotel while one of their members, dressed as Santa, acts as a decoy and lures the authorities away from their…
Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger [Cohen Media Group] Blu-ray Review
Michael Powell, ex-banker and studio contract director who churned out 23 films between 1931 and 1936, and Emeric Pressburger, a well-educated Hungarian whose career as a journalist was cut short by the rise of Nazism causing him to flee to Paris and switch to becoming a screenwriter, may have begun their careers in wildly disparate…
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians & Other Holiday Hallucinations! [AGFA and Something Weird release] Blu-ray review
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (SCCTM) is a notoriously bad movie. The first time I watched it was a Rifftrax Live event where a trio of comedians mocked the film in front of an audience. The event was hilarious. In the recent joint release between AGFA and Something Weird, the movie stands alone, and it…
Sex Apocalypse [Mondo Macabro] Blu-ray release
The year is 1982. The country is Spain. Carlos Aured is shifting from the horror genre to a new genre exploding in popularity, the rated “S” sex film. Under General Franco, Spain had strict obscenity laws and once he passed away, the law became much less censorious. Aured put together a film provocatively titled “Sex…
Infinite Santa 8000 [Synapse Films] Blu-Ray Review
In a desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland a thousand years in the future, in a land where mutants, monsters, robots and crazed killers roam around wreaking havoc on anyone unlucky enough to cross their paths, one man remains with a small shred of hope for the future of the planet, one man who these days is just…
Daiei Gothic: Three Ghost Stories [Radiance Films] Blu-ray Box Set Review
Adapted loosely from the much celebrated kabuki play, The Ghost of Yotsuya finds our lead Iemon Tamiya (Kazuo Hasegawa) destitute, having failed to become a samurai, and living with his wife Oiwa (Yasuko Nakada), depressed and aimless. One day he meets with the daughter, Ume Ito (Yoko Uraji), of a powerful samurai who becomes infatuated with…