Alien Warfare

I love that movies like Alien Warfare are still being made. It’s a true action bottom feeder. With the rise of streaming, I had been concerned that the ready availability of good content would leave shitty movies like this without an audience. But, I shouldn’t have underestimated capitalism. Good movies cost more for streaming services to license, and the proliferation of streaming services means that there’s a good chance the movie one wants to watch is on a service to which they do not subscribe. And on top of that, all these streaming services are desperate for content, to make them stand out from each other. All this means there is still a market for cheap schlock. The rights holders’ overprotectiveness and over-monetization of their good properties means the shitty movie lives on. Continue reading “Alien Warfare”

Glendale Steps

The same day I took the photos of Glendale Cemetery, I also took photos of the nearby Glendale Steps. They’re an old WPA project that fell into disrepair. They have since been restored, but I got there first. There are two symmetrical flights going up the hill from Glendale Avenue to South Walnut Street. At the time these pics were taken, the flight on the western side was overgrown and impassable. Like the Glendale Cemetery images, the color was an accident.

Chrome and Hot Leather

Chrome and Hot Leather walks and talks like drive-in outlaw biker gang flick, but it’s missing the two most important elements of true exploitation cinema: blood and nudity. It starts out promisingly enough, and, overall, it’s a quite enjoyable shitty movie watch, but it’s like a cake with no icing. It’s still good, but it wouldn’t be all that hard to make it better.

From way back in 1971, Chrome and Hot Leather was directed by Lee Frost, from a screenplay by Michael Haynes, David Neibel, and Don Tait. Whomever came up with the title isn’t listed in the credits, but that mysterious person certainly did more for this film’s longevity than anything that was captured on film. Perhaps it was producer Wes Bishop. No matter who is responsible, they did a nice job. Continue reading “Chrome and Hot Leather”

Glendale Cemetery

Here are some more pics from my locked flickr account. These are of Glendale Cemetery in Akron, Ohio. These are from way back in August of 1999. These were all taken with black and white film, but I mistakenly scanned them in color, and this is the result. I considered it a happy accident so I left it, and did some minor fiddling with saturation levels. The differences in tone was how the scanning software interpreted the varying levels of exposure. The picture of the road snaking through the cemetery is the most interesting to me, as the grass is kind of green. I swear I had nothing to do with that. There is no color information at all in the negatives, yet there it is — green grass.

Final Score

Die Hard in a soccer stadium. That thought went through my head before the end of the first act of Final Score, the 2018 action flick from director Scott Mann. That’s how the collective voice of the internet described the movie, as well, when doing my post-watch research. From conception to execution, there might not be a better example of a project staying true to its vision. It was pitched as Die Hard in a soccer stadium and that’s what audiences got. What they didn’t get was John McTiernan or Bruce Willis. But, that’s okay, because this flick is shitty. Continue reading “Final Score”

Triple Frontier

Netflix is in a battle with the Hollywood establishment. Hollywood patting itself on the back, in the form of endless awards shows in the winter, is more than just a glad-handing circle jerk. There is a lot of money at stake. Hollywood is a business, and the rules the establishment sets aren’t meant to maintain artistic integrity or anything else so noble. They are meant to protect the interests of the established players. The arcane rules of Hollywood state that a movie isn’t eligible for an award if it premiered in any other place than a movie theater. Should a movie premiere on something as ephemeral as the internet, it’s not a movie, apparently. That’s silly and stupid, and it’s only a matter of time before the powers that be are forced to reverse that decision. But the legitimacy of the movie theater is why Netflix, distributors of Triple Frontier, gave it a limited release in theaters before throwing it into their online catalogue. It doesn’t matter, though. If this flick gets nominated for any awards I’ll be shocked. Continue reading “Triple Frontier”

Damnation Alley, or, RVing the Apocalypse

Jan-Michael Vincent is dead. He passed mostly unnoticed on February 10th, his death remaining unknown to the media for almost a month. He was, once upon a time, a middling star. His looks were better than his talent, but that’s just what Hollywood wants. His career was derailed by age and substance abuse, as happens to so many in the entertainment industry. He had many roles in mainstream films, but I will always remember him for his contributions to shitty cinema and television. In remembrance of Jan-Michael Vincent, here’s a review for a Vincent star vehicle, that also happened to be a pretty good shitty movie. Continue reading “Damnation Alley, or, RVing the Apocalypse”