Deadbeat At Dawn (1988)

Deadbeat At Dawn (1988) is a splatter-punk symphony on a beer can budget. Directed, written, and starring Jim Van Bebber, a film school drop-out who put everything into this low-budget action flick, even choreographing the fights and stunts. With gang members in ripped denim and head-bands, sporting switch-blades and nunchaka, this movie has been compared […]

Fear Is The Key (1972)

Barry Newman is best known for playing the enigmatic driver in the car chase movie Vanishing Point, and I also know him playing Peter Fonda’s security man several decades later in Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey. To see him play a tough guy role like in Fear Is The Key (1972), he is wiry and compact, […]

The Fifth Cord (1971)

The Fifth Cord (1971) is a visually striking giallo thriller from Italy. While there’s plenty of fashionable outfits and stylish interior decorating, there’s an emphasis on figures placed against colossal pieces of architecture, or the use of shadows against lit windows and lamplight reflected by glass. During one sequence where petals drift through the frame […]

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Something about Song Kang-ho’s face – as a presence he emits an innate likeability and charm. The guy has range, of course, and it’s always compelling when a likeable film presence plays someone whose actions are considerably unlikeable. Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002) is the first of the unofficial “Vengeance” trilogy from South Korean director […]

Freaky Farley (2007)

I was finally motivated to watch Freaky Farley (2007), my first Motern Media movie thanks to an interview in The Important Cinema Club Journal with actor/writer/producer Matt Farley (he and director Charles Roxburgh are the people behind the production company, Motern Media). Farley mentions Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 in this interview as one […]