Joker (2019)

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix, Gladiator, Walk the Line) is mentally ill loner living with his mother in Gotham City in the year of our Lord 1981. Joker chronicles his sliding into the titular infamous super villain in a claustrophobic, hilarious, and tragic character study that is clearly influenced by Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and King of Comedy.

Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (2019)

Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio, Critters 3) and his stunt double/best friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, Cutting Class) are reaching the end of their rope in their careers in Hollywood in 1969. Dalton, former star of the hit TV western Bounty Law is trying to find more work in Tinsel Town. Plagued by substance abuse and insecurities, Dalton takes a chance on restoring his career by working on spaghetti westerns. Meanwhile, Roman Polanski and his lovely wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie, Goodbye Christopher Robin) have moved in next door to Dalton. And bunch of damn hippies (The Manson Family) have come into town.

Will “3 From Hell” be any damn good?

Over the past year, news has broken that Rob Zombie quietly and quickly filmed a third film in the Firely family series he started with 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses and 2005’s The Devils Rejects. The film, titled 3 From Hell, sees the villain protagonists surviving having been shot to death at the denouement of the last film (a tactic used before by Zombie to make his Halloween II).

Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Festival Presents: Joe Bob Briggs, “How Rednecks Saved Hollywood”

The 2019 edition of the Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Festival sold out the historic Times Cinema this year by hosting legendary film critic Joe Bob Briggs and his road show “How Rednecks Saved Hollywood”. The nearly two hour show traces the history of southern culture all the way from pissed off Protestants immigrating from Scotland all the way to reality TV shows like Duck Dynasty and Lizard Lick Towing.

Brain Damage (1988)

Brain Damage, writer-director Frank Henenlotter’s follow-up to his cult-classic Basket Case, follows the misadventures of a young man named Brian after he begins a parasitic relationship with an alien creature named Elmer. Elmer is able to produce a drug that allows him to control people, and chose Brian as his current “caretaker”, forcing him to find him people to feed off. What follows is a struggle of wills as Brian tries to overcome his addiction and free himself of Elmer.

Thoughts on Twin Peaks Season 3

After twenty-five years, Twin Peaks made it back on the air. After having originally aired it’s first two seasons on CBS, the show has moved to that stations cable affiliate, Showtime. What this meant for the show is that Twin Peaks would be closer to David Lynch’s personal vision than it would resemble the TV show people loved. The break in fandoms happened after the release of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and I think that film helped prepare people to be ready for what was in store. You can still never be ready for a Lynch project, and I still am trying to wrap my head around what I’ve witnessed. Here are some of my thoughts, in brief, about the new season. This article assumes the reader is caught up on season three, or in other words, there are spoilers below.

Lost Highway (1997)

Lost Highway is a fever dream of a film that concerns a jazz musician named Fred Madison (Bill Pullman, Independence Day, Spaceballs) who’s life spirals downhill after receiving a strange message telling him “Dick Laurent is dead”. Shortly thereafter he’s convicted for the murder of his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette, A Nightmare on Elm St. 3, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure). Somehow, while in prison, he transforms into a young man named Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty, Natural Born Killers, Ladder 49) and is released. Pete falls in love with a mafioso’s dame (also played by Patricia Arquette) and the downward spiral begins a new.

Killer Joe (2011)

Based on a 1993 play by Tracy Letts (who’d later write August: Osage County), Killer Joe is a black comedy/southern gothic crime tale directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist). The plot concerns a trailer trash family whose son, Chris (Emilie Hirsch, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Girl Next Door) involves them in a murder for hire plot to take kill his estranged mother for her insurance policy to help pay off a drug related debt. He and his alcoholic father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church, Demon Knight, Don McKay) hire a police officer who also moonlights as a hit man named “Killer” Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey, True Detective, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation). Chris and Ansel plan to pay Joe his $25,000 fee after the life insurance policy is cashed in, but Joe wants the money up front and takes Chris’s younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple, Black Mass) as a “retainer”.

“The Secret History of Twin Peaks”, A Novel by Mark Frost.

The Secret History of Twin Peaks, written by Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost was released last Fall in anticipation for the show’s then upcoming triumphant return, which started this past May on cable network Showtime. The Secret History of Twin Peaks comes pre-packaged in the mythology of Twin Peaks. The forward, written by FBI director Gordon Cole, describes that this document was written by someone named “The Archivist”, who has taken it upon himself to compile a history of the mysterious events that have been happening in the town. Gordon has assigned the document to be investigated by a yet unnamed FBI agent.

Remembering George Romero.

Yesterday brought us the sad and surprising news that George Romero passed away at age 77 after a bout with lung cancer. As far as I know, his illness was kept quiet and out of the press until his passing. I was shocked at the announcement, as recent news indicated he was working on an adaptation of his comic Empire of the Dead for AMC.