I’m a big fan of 70s-era sexploitation movies, but there be bad and good, as the pirates (and Ray Bradbury) say. As The Van opens, we meet redheaded twerp Bobby and his pal Jack on graduation day. After pranking their high school principal in a gag that could’ve resulted in a broken hip for the old man, Bobby and Jack …
Cool Actor of the Week: Daniel Roebuck
You could tune your TV to pretty much any channel and have a good shot at seeing our first pick for Cool Actor of the Week: Mr. Daniel Roebuck. An extremely talented character actor, Dan is probably best known as hapless schoolteacher Leslie Arzt on Lost, along with his role as Deputy Marshal Biggs in The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals, …
The Peacekillers (1971)
While I don’t consider myself an expert on the genre, I’ve certainly seen a lot of biker movies in my day — yet somehow I had never even heard of The Peacekillers until recently. This oddball chopper opera opens as bikers Cowboy, Gadget and another fellow — members of Death Row, an outlaw biker gang — interfere with some cops …
Can’t Stop the Music (1980)
(I’m way behind this week, but the movie madness must flow — so here’s an excerpt from my book Unsafe On Any Screen. Barring anything ridiculous, we should be back on track with new stuff tomorrow). Whatever the hell was going on in producer Alan Carr’s fevered brain when he followed up the success of Grease with this ode to …
An Abundance of Scott Phillipses
I was in junior high school — what kids know today as “middle school” — 7th grade, to be exact, and had been called into the principal’s office for the third time to atone for a misdeed I’d committed. Problem was, I hadn’t been anywhere near any misdeeds. I was a good kid — what kids know today (and knew …
Tales of Misery & Imagination – Now on your iPad!
I just got word that my book Tales of Misery and Imagination is now available for the iPad in the iBookstore — there’s no way to link to it, so if you’re interested (and I certainly hope you are), you’ll have to search for it. Of course, you can still get Tales in paperback and for the Kindle. Here’s the …
Crypto-Creature of the Week: BIGFOOT
I’m not gonna insult your intelligence by explaining who — or what — Bigfoot is (or isn’t, or might be, depending on which side of the fence you’re on — although that’s kind of three sides of the fence, but you know what I mean). If for some embarrassing reason you’re unfamiliar with this particular Crypto-Creature of the Week, then hie …
An Interview with Don Adams & Harry James Picardi
The following interview originally appeared at Skullring.org in February, 2007. Since then, Don Adams and Harry James Picardi have shot and are nearing completion on another horror film — this one called Dozers, featuring Dawn Olivieri (True Blood, Heroes), Steven Schub (24), Daniel Roebuck (Lost), Duane Whitaker (Pulp Fiction), R.A. Mihailoff (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3), and Diane Goldner (Feast). …
Bad Ronald (1974)
Back in the 1970s, the TV networks delivered some pretty crazy made-for-TV movies — stuff like Gargoyles (1972), Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973 – the Guillermo del Toro-produced remake is coming soon), Killdozer (1974), Trilogy of Terror (1975), and lots more. In 1974, ABC brought us Bad Ronald, an oddball little flick that I can’t believe hasn’t been remade yet. …
Double O Section
If you’re a spy fan, you should check out the terrific website Double O Section. Masterminded by “Tanner” (actually writer Matthew Bradford, who wrote the comic Night & Fog), Double O Section is a vast storehouse of everything spy-themed — movies, books, and more. I warn you, though: it’s easy to lose a few hours reading through all of Tanner’s …
In the Words of Captain Space
(The following interview with 70s-era Albuquerque movie host “Captain Space” (aka Dave DeWitt) originally appeared in The Weekly Alibi, December 2007. Thanks to Bob Vardeman for putting me in touch with Mr. DeWitt.) Some People Call Him the Space Cowboy You kids today with your video machines and your DVD discs and your Internets — you can see pretty much …
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)
All right, this is a crazy one for me to be writing about… See, as a kid back in the 70s, I always hated Rush — when I was 8 I had my very own copy of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid on 8-track and listened to it until it fell apart, so it’s safe to assume that Geddy Lee’s high, squeaky …
Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story (2003)
I watched this documentary — part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” program — on Netflix streaming the other night and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I’m sure at some point everyone has seen those ads in the backs of magazines offering to set your poems or lyrics to music, and probably never gave ’em much thought — surely it’s just …
Gentlemen Broncos (2009)
18% on Rotten Tomatoes. “Tedious and unfocused” says The Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Daily Mail calls it “mind-numbingly terrible”. The all-mighty arbiter of geek approval Ain’t It Cool News pronounced it a “miserable turd” and went so far as to call it “bully porn”, meaning it turns the audience into bullies who laugh at the pathetic characters. What inspired all …
Crypto-Creature of the Week: Megalodon
In honor of the upcoming SyFy Channel movie Sharktopus, this week we’re taking a look at the incredible Megalodon. Okay, so this guy isn’t really a cryptid in the strictest sense, because we know they actually existed — but there are plenty of people who believe this gigantic shark still roams the seas, feasting on anything and everything. In fact, …