After watching an endless string of horror films for his movie-review Web site, sleepy teen Charles (Simon Wallace) can't stay awake during summer school. Even worse, his constant nightmares seem frighteningly close to reality. As the throngs of monsters, murderers and other creepy characters haunt his dreams, our movie-addled hero begins to lose his grip in this dark indie horror flick, also starring Lance Hendrickson and Tony D. Czech.
If you enjoy indie films, you'll love this one. It's a little slow in the beginning but turns out to be a very entertaining movie with a nice twist at the end.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
After watching an endless string of horror films for his movie-review Web site, sleepy teen Charles (Simon Wallace) can't stay awake during summer school. Even worse, his constant nightmares seem frighteningly close to reality. As the throngs of monsters, murderers and other creepy characters haunt his dreams, our movie-addled hero begins to lose his grip in this dark indie horror flick, also starring Lance Hendrickson and Tony D. Czech.
If you enjoy indie films, you'll love this one. It's a little slow in the beginning but turns out to be a very entertaining movie with a nice twist at the end.
I love the Summer School from the 80s, but it's a goofy movie...
It looks like a lot of fun from the reviews at Netflix. Glad you mentioned it. Surely I saw it back then but don't remember it.
Summer School 1987PG-1397 minutes
When school lets out for the summer, gym teacher Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) can't wait to hightail it to Hawaii with his girlfriend for a vacation. But when the teacher who's supposed to teach remedial English (director Carl Reiner) wins the lottery, Shoop gets roped into the job. The misfit students aren't too happy to be there, either, so Shoop resorts to bribery to get them to come to class and crack the books.
Pele'sDaughter wrote:It looks like a lot of fun from the reviews at Netflix. Glad you mentioned it. Surely I saw it back then but don't remember it.
Summer School 1987PG-1397 minutes
When school lets out for the summer, gym teacher Freddy Shoop (Mark Harmon) can't wait to hightail it to Hawaii with his girlfriend for a vacation. But when the teacher who's supposed to teach remedial English (director Carl Reiner) wins the lottery, Shoop gets roped into the job. The misfit students aren't too happy to be there, either, so Shoop resorts to bribery to get them to come to class and crack the books.
Inspired by his love of comic books, high school student Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) decides to transform himself into a masked crime fighter -- a decision that eventually thrusts the teenager into Internet stardom. Soon, Dave's antics inspire a wave of would-be heroes to don costumes and live out their superhero fantasies. Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Chloe Moretz also star in this comic book adaptation from director Matthew Vaughn.
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
I recently watched The Reflecting Skin and was severely underwhelmed. Imagery was all that movie has going for it. Found "Heartless" to be a vastly better, more mature + complete film.
This might sound like a joke, but Land of the Lost is one of my all-time favorite films. Any excuse to get Danny McBride and Will Ferrell on the same screen is good by me, but there's something so aggressively "Bad" and unhinged about Land of the Lost...well, suffice it to say I've seen it over fifty times, according to my media player stats.
"I Sell the Dead" is a funny, weird, dark and pitch-perfect story about victorian era grave robbers that I think would be enjoyed by 90% of the folks reading this.
I have not watched all of these yet - but I use it as a handy resource for tracking down interesting films.
Moviedrome is (or "was") a BBC2 series where a cult movie (but what is cult?) was introduced before it was shown. Moviedrome first showed up in 1988 when cult director Alex Cox hosted the introductions (he didn't choose the movies though). Cox hosted Moviedrome (shown every summer) till 1994. In 1997 the show returned from the dead with movies chosen and introduced by Mark Cousins (known for his work at the Edinburgh Film Festival). The reason for this page is simple: with a Moviedrome film your chances are slightly higher than 9/10 that what you’ll get to see, will be a very interesting movie. A Moviedrome film will always be "special". In the Cox era Alex Cox described the selection as oddities and gems; Mark Cousins described his choices as "movies you won't forget".
1988
The Wicker Man Electra Glide in Blue Diva Razorback Big Wednesday Fat City The Last Picture Show Barbarella The Hired Hand Johnny Guitar The Parallax View The Long Hair of Death Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) The Fly (1958) One From The Heart The Man Who Fell To Earth The Good, The Bad and The Ugly One-Eyed Jacks
1989
The Man With The X-Ray Eyes Jabberwocky D.O.A. The Thing From Another World The Incredible Shrinking Man California Dolls THX 1138 Stardust Memories Night of the Comet The Grissom Gang The Big Carnival (Ace in the Hole) Alphaville Two-Lane Blacktop Trancers The Buddy Holly Story Five Easy Pieces Sweet Smell of Success Sunset Boulevard
1990
Assault on Precinct 13 Brazil Get Carter Goin’ South Dead of Night The Terminator The Honeymoon Killers Ulzana's Raid The Loved One An American Werewolf in London Yojimbo A Wedding The Phenix City Story Walk on the Wild Side Il Grande Silenzio Quien sabe?
1991
The Beguiled Vamp Knightriders Something Wild Carnival of Souls Badlands / The Prowler Performance At Close Range The Duellists / Cape Fear (duels) The Music Lovers Manhunter Hells Angels on Wheels / Rumble Fish (gangs) Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? Solaris Mishima
1992
Mad Max II / F for Fake Dead Ringers / Rabid (Cronenberg) Inserts The Serpent and the Rainbow Les Diaboliques La Strategia del Ragno Escape from New York Alligator / Q - The Winged Serpent Wise Blood / The Witchfinder General Lolita Play Misty For Me Walker Tracks The Day of the Locust / The Big Knife (Hollywood satires)
1993
Darkman House of Games Escape from Alcatraz / Un condamné à mort s’est échappé (prison) The Hill Cry-Baby / Lenny Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) / Romance of a Horsethief Gothic/ The Navigator The Terminator Get Carter / Week-end Rebel Without A Cause / 200 Motels Django / Grim Prairie Tales Run of the Arrow / Verboten! (Fuller) The Long Riders The Big Combo Face to Face Requiescant Qué he heche yo para merecer esto? Carrie
1994 (Alex Cox's final year)
The Andromeda Strain / Fiend Without A Face Talk Radio Carnal Knowledge Coogan’s Bluff / The Narrow Margin The Harder They Come Salvador The People Under the Stairs Halloween / The Baby Carny Girl on a Motorcycle / Psychomania (motorcycles) Race with the Devil / Detour (keep death on the road) Rope / 84 Charlie Mopic (experimental filming) To Sleep with Anger / Le Mépris Excalibur / Nothing Lasts Forever Naked Tango / Apartment Zero (Buenos Aires) Major Dundee / Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah) Kiss Me Deadly
1997-1998
Scarface Westworld / Demon Seed (futuristic) The Fly / Society Exotica Blue Collar / American Gigolo (Paul Schrader) Dazed and Confused / La Vie Sexuelle des Belges (growing up) The Girl Can’t Help it / Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana (music) The Warriors / La Haine (gangs) Spanking the Monkey Logan’s Run / Fahrenheit 451 (future) The Fog / Darkness in Tallinn Storyville / Ruthless Vanishing Point / The Devil Thumbs a Ride (road movies) Targets Liebestraum Bad Timing The Conversation All That Heaven Allows / The Reckless Moment
1998
Trespass Shaft / Force of Evil Funny Bones Cat People The Killers (1946) Caged Heat Thunderbolt and Lightfoot Carrie Léon / Le Samourai El Patrullero
1999
Clockers Ed Wood / The Body Snatcher (B-film) Prêt-à-porter Videodrome / Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye Carlito’s Way The Osterman Weekend Mommie Dearest Johnny Guitar Branded to Kill The List of Adrian Messenger One-Eyed Jacks
2000
Blood and Wine / Plein Soleil (nouvelle vague directors) Rumble in the Bronx / Clubbed to Death ("guilty pleasures") The Killers (1964) / On Dangerous Ground The Underneath / The Hitch-Hiker (film noir) Walkabout / Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg) White of the Eye The Last American Hero
Hot Tomorrows is an extremely low-budget film, written, directed, produced, and edited by Martin Breast; it was shown at the 1977 New York Film Festival and will play at the Entermedia Theater in New York this month as part of the American Mavericks series. Breast made this seriocomic movie, with macabre musical numbers, for $33,000, plus some deferments. If economyt dictated the use of black-and-white stock, Breast turns this to his advantage in stylized film noir effects. It's a typical young-filmmaker's film, in the sense that it's film-obsessed, nut Breast's obsession takes a baroquely original form: to him, old movies--Hollywood musicals, in particular--are memento mori. His hero, Michael (Ken Lerner), an aspiring writer from the Bronx who is living in Los Angeles, is sorrowfully in love with Laurel & Hardy and the other dead entertainers whom he watches on the screen. Michael's childhood friend Louis (Ray Sharkey) is out visiting him, and as they pal around Hollywood on Christmas Eve--the glum intellectual Michael suggesting Oliver Hardy, and little Louis, who just wants some action, suggesting Stan Laurel--everything they encounter reminds them that life hangs by a thread. Each reminder has a quirky unexpectness--from a radio announcer's predictions of holiday traffic fatalities to a cadaverous combo at the Paradise Ballroom, with a mock-Dietrich vocalist (Marie Elfman) singing the mournful "Jonny," and a man (Danny Elfman) singing "St. James Infirmary." There has never been a movie so comically centered on death in life and life in death. Breast writes easy, naturalistic dialogue that comes across as a series of riffs; whatever the characters start to talk about, death always enters in, and the impossibility of avoiding the subject gets funnier all the time--like a good, broad burlesque-house joke.
By 1964 there were 1.5 million mobile phone users in the US
Assassination of Jesse James Mulholland Drive Flame and Citron Black Book Beetlejuice O Brother Where Art Thou? Wonder Boys The Believer The Wind That Shakes the Barley Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Towelhead The Talented Mr. Ripley
check out the "phone call from a computer" early in this trailer
another gem: early on this movie shows the now long gone radioactive fluoroscope machines that used to be in some shoe stores for fitting.
I'm currently convinced this is a likely inspiration for some of Sarfatti's stories. and/or this reminds us that there were early electro-mechanical speech synthesis equipment going far back before modern computer methods.
Plot The unnamed protagonist travels to Helsinki to deliver a package after receiving instructions from a mysterious mechanically operated telephone message. On his arrival the protagonist discovers that the message was from 'The Brain', a one billion dollar super-computer owned by eccentric Texan billionaire General Midwinter.
Midwinter is using The Brain to organise his own intelligence agency and private army which will soon start an uprising in Soviet-occupied Latvia in an attempt to end Communism in the Eastern bloc and tip the balance of the Cold War in favour of the West. After discovering this, and also the fact that the package he delivered contained a deadly virus, the protagonist must stop the virus from falling into the hands of both the Soviets and the madman billionaire - and prevent a nuclear war between the superpowers in the process.
By 1964 there were 1.5 million mobile phone users in the US
I just watched A Prophet, a French prison movie by Jacques Audiard, the story of a young guy who walks into jail as a nobody and walks out as the boss six years later. It's one of the best gangster movies I've ever seen, like the Godfather, with that kind of character development and respect for film as a medium. To tie it in with the Peter Watkins thread - it's not at all a kind of cheaply manipulative, made-for-the-evening-slot movie: it's 2 1/2 hours long and the only music is blues or rap tunes at times when dialogue is superfluous. And much of the film is extremely subtle, some significant thing is shown through a window in a corner of the screen for instance, or over the shoulders of the characters in the foreground. I also liked that the dialogue is in three languages (French, Arabic and Corsican), with the change in the prison reflecting other changes in France. Like there's a bit about the change from francs to euros that Audiard doesn't dwell on too much, but it's there.
