Tag: Cramhole reviews

At the Lamplighter: Sun. April 21st – Savannah Electric (1985)

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We’re excited to present the second in our At the Lamplighter series. Sunday’s screening is the psychotronic feast Savannah Electric. And as an extra treat, director Perry Mark Stratychuk will join us via zoom at 9:00.

Here’s a synopsis of the film from the distributor’s website:
On a post-apocalyptic world, a mobile desert factory (Savannah Electric) run by the first thinking machine (The Benefactor), scavenges the last remnants of civilization. Amidst the ecological blight, a clone worker (Gerit Stone) attempts to escape the grip of the machine and psycho-addictive virtual reality device (The SuperInducer), in a half-conscious attempt to regenerate the frontier into what it had once been. In response, The Benefactor dispatches a bounty hunter (H. A. Roc) to eliminate the rogue worker before he can succeed.
Other information and a trailer is available here: Zellco Entertainment.

I really enjoyed our first screening. Thank you to everyone who helped make that possible.
One comment about the last screening was I may have caused some confusion regarding the start times. I put 7:30 on the flyers, but I imagined starting closer to 8:00. I figured it being a bar, there would be some pre-film socializing. I’m going to try to be clearer about the film start time in the future. It makes sense to post the actual movie start time, being that is the standard for film exhibition. Particularly with this upcoming showing. We want to be efficient with Mr. Stratychuk coming in at 9:00. We’re going to start the intro and trailers around 7:35 and make sure we do a hard 7:40 start time with the film. The film is 75 minutes. That will give us time to see the film and be efficient with Mr. Stratychuk’s time. But I will be there early playing music and videos. Feel free to show up early.

I’m really looking forward to this film and our first guest. Drop me a line if you have any thoughts. I hope to see you there. BA

Podcast: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

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Dawn of the Dead (1978)
George Romero
126 min. United Statew

Dawn of the Dead has been a horror classic for 45 years.  A 45th anniversary screening tour comes to the Crosstown Arts Theater, May 30th, 2024 at 7:00 as part of The Crosstown Arts Film Series Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 7:00: $5.00 See this classic bit of horror on the big screen in May. 

Dawn of the Dead on WYXR

Monthly Screenings at The Lampligher

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Hey, It’s a little early to start fully promoting this, but I’m so excited I wanted to post a little preview of the pay what you can screenings we’re planning beginning in March at The Lamplighter. These are filmmaker approved screenings and the collected money will go to the filmmakers.

Click on the posters for links to the trailers for upcoming films…

Podcast: The Last Dragon (1985)

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Off the Marquee Podcast: Episode #14

The Last Dragon (1985)
Michael Schultz
107 min. U.S.A.

Motown empresario Barry Gordy utilized his Motown resources to produce the unusual kung fu/musical hybrid The Last Dragon. In the film, Leroy Green (Taimak), is a martial arts student close to his final level of study: achieving the status of “The Last Dragon”, or what will also be known in the movie as “The Glow”. This sends Leroy on a quest. Along the way, Leroy stops to view a screening of Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. The film is interrupted by another martial artist, Sho’nuff, also known as the Shogun of Harlem, portrayed by Julius Carry.

Leroy tries to follow the foot/fist way peacefully, but it wouldn’t be a kung fu movie if Sho’nuff wasn’t persistent in his desire to be number one. Along the way, Leroy encounters Laura Charles (Vanity), a famous performer and television star. In this scene, she finds Leroy hoping to employ him as her bodyguard.

You can see where this is all going, but the ride is fun. The story carries the viewer through great kung fu choreography and a few surreal musical numbers. The Last Dragon is an enjoyable kung fu comedy.

The Last Dragon (1985)
is screening in Memphis as part of The Crosstown Arts Film Series
Thursday, February 8, 2024 Films at 7:00: $5.00

Billups Allen’s book 101 Films You Could See Before You Die is available through Goner Records.

Hear the actual podcast at WYXR.ORG: Off the Marquee podcast

Review: Mad God (2021)

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Mad God (2021)
Phil Tippett
U.S.A. 83 min. 

Mad God is the passion project of special effects guru Phil Tippett. The film was thirty years in the making. It’s hard to imagine how much effort goes into a full-length, stop animation movie. It’s a triumph in itself. The plot is simple enough: a man enters hell, or some such similar place, wearing a mask and carrying a map. The map, it seems, is of some interest to whatever passes for leadership in this world. It’s hard to tell who is in charge, save a couple of scenes where the troops are gathered, and much like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), they don’t have shit on them. The subjects of the realm are not so lucky. They get shit on and smashed regularly. They are interesting-looking,  humanoid-shaped creatures. Sometimes they have animal heads. Sometimes they are made of twine and goo. These anonymous subjects suffer and work at mundane tasks that are immediately dangerous to their own well being: like a Rube Goldberg machine designed to pump out Cannibal Corpse lyrics. But you don’t want to get too wound up in the plot. You can just recline and enjoy this cinematic feast where every frame is a potential metal album. 

Mad God is a visual achievement like no other. In the film, an incredibly gory and dangerous world is created using puppets, stop-motion animation, forced perspective, post-apocalyptic landscapes, piles of broken stuff, loads of fake blood, bullheads, uncircumcised penises, and occasional shots of bipedal humans.The film is steeped in savage brutality. No creature or concept is safe in the world of Mad God. Included in the visual feast is the occasional nod to reality. Among the rubble, you can occasionally pick out a common household object, like a gardening trowel. Sometimes you can pick a perhaps carefully placed icon. It’s pretty clear at one point, we see the back of Alfred E. Newman’s head watching T.V. through a window. I’m almost certain one of the vehicles used is a modified G.I. Joe toy. 

All the action takes place to the tune of an eerie soundtrack. The score combines atonal themes, noise, and bastardized melodies. It’s a must see if you’re someone who has freeze framed certain shots in Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Eraserhead (1977), or Event Horizon (1997). I’ll always think of it as a popcorn movie because I made the mistake of sitting down with a burger to watch it. Don’t do that. 

Billups Allen’s book 101 Films You Could See Before You Die is available through Goner Records. Off the Marquee on the web.

Review: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

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Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Takashi Yamazaki
Japan 123 min. 

Godzilla Minus One is the fifth film in the third reboot in the chronicles of Godzilla. We are currently in the Reiwa era of the long-running and beloved franchise. The Reiwa era begins with the excellent Shin Godzilla (2016),  and continues with three made-for-Netflix animated films I’m not familiar with. But none of this knowledge is necessary to enjoy  the most current offering Godzilla Minus One. Although it does help to know this new Godzilla timeline contains even more direct commentary on nuclear waste and weaponry. In these films, Godzilla is formed and fed from nuclear waste, like some sort of dinosaur shaped tumor. In this movie, Godzilla is summoned (or fabricated) by the nuclear attacks at the end of World War II. The story follows Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who failed to carry out his mission and arrives home having survived the war. Surviving Kamikaze pilots faced backlash from their peers and neighbors and lived with a stigma of failure. Kōichi feels this immediately upon returning home. His house is in rubble and his neighbor Sumiko Ōta (Sakura Ando) curses his name and blames him for the death of his own parents. While rebuilding his family home, Kōichi encounters and ends up housing Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe), a woman forced to steal to feed her baby. She has nowhere to go, and the three form a plutonic family unit. Things get a little better as time passes. Kōichi eventually gets a job on a fleet of boats clearing floating mines for the government: a not too safe, but high paying endeavor. We watch the family unit grow. We  see the neighborhood regenerate over the period of a year or two. We watch Sumiko slowly forgive Kōichi’s wartime “failure” and help with the baby and become a neighbor. The human story in this Godzilla movie is well-acted and believable. I don’t want to spoil the story, but I have to guess you already understand that Godzilla is going to throw a wrench into this suburban bliss. Kōichi’s story is well-written. Giving the Godzila audience a good character  to root for lessens the sting for those prone to root for the beloved lizard. Also, again not to give anything away, his position on the boat puts him in a situation where he will be part of the solution. Will he redeem himself? The movie pulls this off without being contrived.  It’s a fun movie with a lot of action and a nice story that doesn’t muck up the proceedings by being cloying. You don’t have to have a large knowledge of the franchise to enjoy the movie. As a fan, I found it a refreshing addition to the lore. – (Billups Allen)

Billups Allen’s book 101 Films You Could See Before You Die is available through Goner Records. Off the Marquee on the web.

At the Lamplighter: Wed. March 20th – All We’ve Got (2019)

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I have been working for a while to find an opportunity to do some small screenings at The Lamplighter here in Memphis. I’d ideally like to present a sort of guerrilla screening series shaped to have an evening where we can host a variety of texts, including properly licensed repertory movies and also provide a forum for films and filmmakers with projects that don’t have traditional run times or other issues keeping them from being screened in Memphis.

We’re going to do our first night in March with the excellent documentary: All We’ve Got (2019) directed by Alexis Clements.

link to TRAILER

I had the good fortune to interview Alexis for Razorcake when the film came out: INTERVIEW.

Here’s a flyer for the event. I’ll be putting forward more information as the time gets closer.

Praise for All We’ve Got

Forbes – “Right now, a lot of people seem to be asking why so many queer women’s spaces have closed. Filmmaker Alexis Clements, however, decided to ask a new question: Why have the remaining spaces been able to survive?“

Razorcake – “My grandmother always said land is the one thing they aren’t making any more of. Anyone who has ever tried to put together a DIY show or event knows the first hurdle: where do I do it? It’s a problem in and outside the punk community. Alexis Clements is a volunteer at The Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, N.Y., an independent archival collection. Her years volunteering and arranging events at the archives inspired her to make her recent documentary, All We’ve Got (2019).”

GAY USA – “When we talk about why these spaces have survived, it tends to be that they have a purpose beyond just being an access point for dating.” Ann Northrup and Andy Humm, hosts of the long-running television show, Gay USA, chat with Director Alexis Clements about the film.

Films for the Feminist Classroom – “This selection of organizations and spaces speaks to how social, erotic, and political life is entangled for queer and trans women, and together they offer a powerful critique of how public and private binaries limit the ways space is imagined. Clements is an adept interviewer, and the people she speaks with are gifted at explaining complex problems facing feminists…”

Billups Allen’s book 101 Films You Could See Before You Die is available through Goner Records. Off the Marquee on the web.

Podcast: Fargo (1996)

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Off the Marquee Podcast: Episode #13

Fargo (1996)
Joel Coen
U.S.A. 98 min.

One of my favorite films of all time, Fargo tells the story of a duo of inept, small-time crooks (portrayed by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare). The two become involved in a convoluted plot to kidnap a Minneapolis car salesman’s wife in exchange for cash and a new car.

In this scene, the criminals discuss the details of the crime with salesman Jerry Lundegard, portrayed by William H. Macy:

The scheme doesn’t go quite as planned, and an adjacent crime brings the duo into the jurisdiction of Brainerd, Minnesota. The new crime is investigated by Brainerd Chief-of-Police Marge Ginderson:

Long-time Coen collaborator Frances McDormand won an Oscar for her role. The rest of the cast put on stellar performances in this intriguing and tight crime drama that also won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Great performance infused in the Coen Brothers unorthodox sense of dark humor makes for a fun and occasionally shocking narrative.  

Off the Marquee on WYXR.

The Groove Tomb: Wednesdays at Midnight on 91.7 WYXR.

Podcast: Messiah of Evil (1974)

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Off the Marquee Podcast: Episode #12

Messiah of Evil (1974)
Willard Huyck
U.S.A. 90 min.

Messiah of Evil (1974)

Fans of Dario Argento’s unique brand of supernatural horror should take note of this  1974 horror production. Messiah of Evil is a visually striking horror film with a penchant for the melodramatic and a stifling atmosphere created by excellent cinematography and a terrific moog soundtrack by Phillan Bishop. The basic story follows a woman named Arletty, portrayed by (Marianna Hill). Arletty is looking for her estranged artist father who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. In her search, she runs across a group of blase hip people who take her down a dark avenue, only to become fodder for a force taking over a small seaside town. In his diary,  he implores her not to search for him. But if she didn’t look for him, it wouldn’t be a horror movie. And her problems escalate the longer she hangs around the seaside town where he was last seen. The film adheres to tropes set by George Romero’s zombie movies while maintaining the clandestine atmosphere of an H.P. Lovecraft story. This low-budget American horror film is a great choice for fans of Italian horror, fans of George Romero films, or just a great way to spend Halloween. 

Marianna Hill’s other visible role in the movies was the out-of-control Deanna Corleone in The Godfather II (1974).

Messiah of Evil (1974) on the Off the Marquee podcast on WYXR.

Billups Allen’s book 101 Films You Could See Before You Die is available through Goner Records. Off the Marquee on the web.

Podcast: Psycho (1960)

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Off the Marquee Podcast: Episode 11

Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock
U.S.A. 109 min.

Episode 11 of the Off the Marquee podcast is about Psycho. I picked Psycho because there’s an interesting screening here in Memphis on Friday, Oct. 20. Check out the podcast and follow the link for information on the upcoming screening.

Psycho (1960) is screening in Memphis at the Elmwood Cemetery: October 20th 6:00PM.

Read about the event on the Elmwood website: Psycho.

Billups Allen’s book 101 Films You Could See Before You Die is available through Goner Records.

Off the Marquee podcast on the web.