To round out WESTERN WEEK, here’s a quick round-up of some of our favorite Westerns — none too unconventional to mention! FROM ELBEE: DUDES (1988) [collector’s edition blu-ray via shout factory] If we’ve learned anything […]
Category: Columns
LIVING IN A GRAY AREA: ‘BONE TOMAHAWK’ AND MORAL COMPASS
Set in a blazing hot desert, Bone Tomahawk opens with David Arquette’s Purvis slitting a man’s throat. Almost immediately thereafter, we meet his partner-in-crime, Buddy (Sid Haig), who lectures Purvis on the proper way to […]
‘JOHNNY GUITAR’: A WESTERN DREAM
Editor’s Note: an earlier version of this essay first appeared at Cinepunx.com A long time ago, Francois Truffaut, maker of fancy French films, thought this little American Western called Johnny Guitar had such grace that […]
The Western With a Participation Trophy: ‘THE QUICK AND THE DEAD’
When I volunteered to write an article about the 1995 western movie The Quick and the Dead, I fully intended to write something entirely positive. After all, I’ve watched this movie several times and liked […]
BATTLE GOTH AND THE TROJAN WHORES: ‘DJANGO’ AND ‘THE CROW’
The heart of Texas holds a bright shining star, but what if it is really a black hole? When considering the grim side of Western films, this seems perfectly reasonable. Anti-heroes readily populate our cultural […]
Getting Out of a Ruh-Roh, Shaggy: IN Defense of ‘Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island’
If you’re one of the lucky people who were eating solid food by the time 1998 rolled around, odds are high that you like the exploits of the semi-understandable Great Dane named Scooby-Doo. If you […]
NEW IN ACTION: JULY 2021
Each month The Grumps bring you a selection of what’s new and now in the Action genre. Strap in for Round-house Round-Up! from elbee: gunpowder milkshake (2021) [NEW ON NETFLIX] Comparing art to other art […]
DISNEY’S ‘THE BLACK HOLE’: RIPE FOR A REBOOT?
By the late ‘70s, Star Wars mania was so infectious, it jolted awake the slumbering, science-fiction-loathing Hollywood studios, as they scrambled to put together their own space-fantasy knockoffs or dust off dormant sci-fi IPs. Steven […]
NEW IN ACTION: JUNE 2021
Each month The Grumps bring you a selection of what’s new and now in the Action genre. Strap in for Round-house Round-Up! From Gimetzco!: Xtremo (2021) [new on netflix] With only a few films under […]
OUT OF THE SKY: HOW ‘EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS’ (1956) CHANNELED WAR TRAUMA INTO CINEMATIC FANTASY
No single artifact is more synonymous with ‘50s sci-fi than the flying saucer. You see one and you can almost hear a theremin playing. And no single movie has done more to solidify the conventions […]
NEW IN ACTION: MAY 2021
Each month The Grumps bring you a selection of what’s new and now in the Action genre. Strap in for Round-house Round-Up! From Brian Miller: Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1 (2020) [New on blu ray […]
‘AMER’ AS A REPRESENTATION OF OUR PSYCHOSEXUAL OBSESSION WITH DEATH
“Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be;Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me.O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die.” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson As a major motion picture, Amer […]
SIDESTROKE BUDDIES: On sexual naivete in Mario Bava’s ‘Hercules in the Haunted World’
“With the boys forget the girls / Boys with boys, girls get with the girls and / The boys with the boys / It’s only right and natural” — The Frogs It is amusing that […]
Brian De Palma’s Body Double: Shrewd Metatextual Masterpiece or Shameless Masturbatory Piece?
In a time when sexuality is frowned upon in a country already well-known for its puritanical attitudes, I’m shocked filmmaker Brian De Palma hasn’t been dragged away by an angry mob in a flurry of […]
‘BABY DOLL’: THE 1956 FILM for fans of JOHN WATERS
The first movie I intended to write about for this edition of “Weird Boners” was A Dirty Shame. I’ve been wanting to revisit John Waters’ films, and Tracey Ullman stuck a bottle of water up her […]