What if God fell into the darkness of Hell? Into the prison He had made for His own enemies, for those diametrically opposite of Him… into a realm so far from the beauty of Heaven, […]
JAY’S SPOOKY WATCHLIST
Assistant Editor Jay Alary shares with us his picks for October viewing in his Letterboxd watchlist: LETTERBOXD IN FOR THE NIGHT: “It’s October and you’re scrolling through multiple streaming platforms on your TV and nothing […]
If the Abyss Stares Into a Camera, the Camera Stares Back: On Found Footage Horror and Structural Film
An analog video camera is mounted to an oscillating standing fan and left unattended to capture whatever may come across its path. Rotating at its own steady rate between the voluminous kitchen and living room […]
2023 GRUMPY GUIDE TO SPOOKY STREAMING
In celebration of, or at least abuse of, the new Grumpire Letterboxd page, we’re launching a new series of lists. Some help summarize our more complex essays which cover lots of films; some offer supplements […]
HIP HOP DAY THE GRUMPY WAY
We heard August 11, 2023, is the 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop as we know it, so what better time to celebrate some of our favorite hip-hop films? Read on, player. FROM SPENCER SEAMS: HOW HIGH […]
MIXTAPE: HIP-HOP DAY
A playlist for Hip Hop Day, which of course could includeanything, made in an impressionist response to my choices for films totalk about in “Hip Hop Day the Grumpy Way“. Bodied (2017) andDreams Never Die […]
My, My Ain’t That Somethin’: THE PUNK LEGACY OF ‘Stormy Weather’
Although steeped in the traditions and trappings of what could be done in 1943, Stormy Weather was an early effort for mainstream Hollywood to bring blackness to the forefront. As such, the film holds a […]
MAY 27, 1970: GODFREY CAMBRIDGE DROPS A NEW BLACK HOLLYWOOD LEGACY
Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge’s star shone very brightly in the 1960s and 1970s; in a short time, he did it all – comedy, theatre, film, civil rights activism, and more. On May 27, 1970, audiences packed […]
EVERYONE WHO LIVES HERE IS LOST: A CHAT WITH JAMES DUVAL ABOUT ‘NOWHERE’
Looking back at the Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy has been a real treat for me. While The Doom Generation is the only one of the three films I saw back around the time it was released, […]
REVENGE OF THE CHEAPIES: AN INTRODUCTION TO ‘BIG B’
Amateur street racers fire grappling hooks into the sky, take down a military cargo plane, and save the world. A zoologist whispers kindly to a kaiju-sized ape, surrounded by the complete destruction of a city, […]
Space Babes, Robots, and Disco Boogie: ‘Buck Rogers in the 25th Century’ in the 21st Century
It’s not easy being an astronaut: studying vectors, fuel consumption reports, star charts, and demonstrating fast reaction times, all while piloting a 135-ton space vehicle roaring against the unrelenting pull of Earth’s gravity. What happens […]
GRUMPIRE INTERVIEWS! SPECIAL: GREGG ARAKI AND THE TEENAGE APOCALYPSE
GRUMPIRE 22: All For the Low Price of $6.66 Justin Harlan provides us with this special interview with filmmaker Gregg Araki, and the impressions below: As I noted in my first piece on the Teenage […]
HOW TO EPITOMIZE A GENERATION WITHOUT REALLY TRYING: THE STRANGE SYNCHRONICITY OF ‘BETTER OFF DEAD’ (1985)
Is it perhaps a bad portent that I’m about to kick off my entry in Grumpire’s “Gen-X Essentials” series by quibbling over semantics? No matter. I’ve never let those stop me before. And in this […]
‘Shooting tadpoles at the moon’: Introducing the Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy
In the early to mid ’90s, I hit my teen years: the impressionable years in which many of us begin discovering the art that shapes our tastes and aspects of our personalities for years to […]
MIXTAPE: GRUMPY ’93
1993: the year hip-hop “conquered the world,” the year Britpop proved a fast grab, and the year female voices grew exponentially in a variety of genres from pop to alternative to indie. In 1993 grunge […]