the 941

Little Movie Review. Comic Book Month. Week Three. Scott Pilgrim. Okay, I think I’ve got a good way to get people interested in this comic. There is going to be an EXTREMELY COOL movie based on this coming out next year, and when it comes out if you’ve read this back in 2009 it will make you EXTREMELY COOL also. Directed by Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cerra. It’s going to be a whip-smart, cool action-comedy, just like the comic. Sound good? Get more after the break.

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It’s week two of Comic Book Month here at Little Movie Review, where we recommend better access points to the world of comics than the usual dark and dreary line of Watchmen and Dark Knights. This week, the enigmatic Mister X.

Mister X is considered a landmark work of the creatively explosive independent movement of the ‘8os. It is thought to have broken ground in the type of content that can be shown in comics and the level of design that can be showcased in them. The Gotham City of the ’90s Batman: The Animated Series cartoon, which has come to define how most people envision the city, was clearly… uh, let’s say “inspired” by Mister X’s Art Deco- and Expressionist-inspired Radiant City, as the images above and after the break deftly illustrate.

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The latest in a never-ending string of theme months for Little Movie Review is Comic Book Month. We here at LMR are actually more into comics than we are movies, and are always disheartened at the defeatist attitude most folks take to the medium. “They’re not for me” or the even more baffling “I don’t know how to read them” are frequent but insufficient excuses for dismissing an entire art form as varied as movies or novels and intrinsically more accessible than both. (The answer, by the way, is “from left to right, and read the words and look at the pictures in any order you want.”)

One of the point-of-entry problems for comics is that the “classics” are greatly admired by experienced comics readers, but not necessarily great starting points. Watchmen? Too dense and too dependent on a knowledge of comics history to be enjoyable as a first read. The Dark Knight? Juvenile and violent. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not everyone’s cup of tea. Maus? Would you give someone War and Peace as their first book? Probably not. Comics Month here at Little Movie Review will be about providing some more accessible points of entry into comics for those unsure of where to start with them.

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Can you believe Little Movie Review skipped Halloween? Well, it was for good reason: Tragedy struck during the last week of VHS Month. As happens from time to time with this arcane method of home entertainment, we were the sad victims of the infamous “technical difficulties.” The slated film, often referred to as the “grossest movie ever,” Street Trash, refused to rewind and was handed off only halfway rewound (or maybe, rather, half-watched by someone with a weak constitution). So instead we’re making it up with a double review: the finally released and promised-to-be-classic Trick ‘R Treat and the definite classic Hellraiser, VHS month cohort Jessie Archambault’s favorite movie (I think), which I watched on… Blu-ray! Oy!

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It’s week three of VHS Netflix month here at Little Movie Review, wherein my buddy Jessie Archambault of Olympia, Wash., and I mail weird old movies in the old videocassette format to each other. Up this week, Jessie reviews Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle’s first feature film, Shallow Grave, which also introduced the world to a young Ewan McGregor and featured the man who would be Who Christopher Eccleston.

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It’s week two of VHS Netflix month here on Little Movie Review. This week my horror VHS buddy Jessie Archambault mailed me a copy of The Lair of the White Worm, a weird Hugh Grant-starring British horror movie from the late ’80s.

Directed by Ken Russell
Starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, Peter Capaldi, Catherine Oxenberg
UK/ USA, 1988
R, 93 min
Live action, color

The Lair of the White Worm, based on a novel by Bram Stoker and directed by Ken Russel of Altered States, is easy to dismiss but has a number of things going for it that make it worth a look.

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Something about the muted grit of movies on VHS holds so much more atmosphere and approachability for me than a crystal-clear DVD presentation. I’m not interested in figuring out how much of this has to do with nostalgia or what it says about rapidly developing technology’s effects on filmmaking and storytelling; I just know I really like to watch them. This love is shared with my friend Jessie Archambault, a recent Olympia, Wash., transplant. Now that most video stores have unloaded their VHS stock, or just disappeared altogether, VHS bins are getting harder and harder to come by. To combat this, Jessie and I started our own “VHS Netflix,” where we mail each other the strangest movies we have in our collections (we both also really like weird horror movies). This month we’ll we reviewing the movies from our latest swap. Up this week is Jessie, with a review of an ’80s James Spader slasher I broadsided her with called Jack’s Back:

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Bad Movie Month has been kind of a struggle here at Little Movie Review. Sometimes I felt like I was winning, and sometimes I felt like the movies were beating me.  Last week, for example, I was strangled into submission by bad cinema and didn’t even have the remaining strength required to post a review. But I spent the weekend recuperating and am striking back twice as hard to make up for it. This week: Wild Guitar, an old movie that’s so bad it’s good, and Vicky Christina Barcelona, a new movie that’s just bad.

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Directed by Lance Mungia
Starring Jeffrey Falcon, Justin McGuire
USA, 1998
PG-13, 91 min
live action, color

It’s week two of Bad Movie Month here at Little Movie Review, and this one one just breaks my heart. Six String Samurai is a movie with so many fun ideas it seems like it couldn’t possibly be bad. In fact, seeing as how it’s  a post-apocalyptic/rock ‘n’ roll/kung fu movie you wouldn’t be blamed for assuming that the sheer amount of concepts shoehorned into the movie is it’s downfall. They aren’t. Six String Samurai is so obsessed with doing everything that it needs to do to be considered what is popularly referred to as a “cult” movie that it forgets to be, you know, good.

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So, the thing about writing Little Movie Review for The 941 is that there aren’t any guidelines at all concerning which films I’m supposed to write about. So I’ve taken it upon myself, in an attempt to make this a worthwhile experience for anyone reading, to review movies that I think are good and also new to the public in general. As a result, I publish nothing but positive reviews. I’m forced to wonder if anyone takes my critiques seriously because it appears that I love everything. Well, this moth we fix that. Welcome to week one of Bad Movie Month here at Little Movie Reviews. Week one: the 1989 science-fiction B-film Moontrap, starring Star Trek’s Walter Koenig and Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell. Only those with a strong constitution should read on.

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