Mar
09
Should a movie about a pregnant porn star fleeing her past and questioning her future be this much fun? If it’s Sebastian Gutierrez’s gleefully frisky ELECTRA LUXX, yeah, sure. As he did with this film’s predecessor, Gutierrez has gathered a talented, largely female cast, including Carla Gugino as the titular Electra, Adrianne Palicki and Emmanuelle …
Feb
21
Columbus did not land in Bolivia. But a Spanish film crew has chosen that country to shoot their historic recreation of that event — and how some priests fought against the subsequent enslavement of the natives — because, well, it’s cheaper. That initial bit of convenient exploitation is only the start of the parallels in …
Jan
06
For the first show of 2011, how about a little international perspective? We’ve got interviews with two directors whose latest films deliver gripping, cinematically daring glimpses into worlds rarely examined from our side. First up is Romanian director Florin Serban, talking about IF I WANT TO WHISTLE, I WHISTLE, a stark, naturalistic drama about an …
Dec
20
In the latest episode of the THE CINEFANTASTIQUE PODCAST, Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons attempt to build their own consensual reality after a viewing of Disney’s return to the gaming grid, TRON: LEGACY. Has visual artistry overrode engaging narrative in this sequel? Who should preside over the new, cyber civilization: a young, menacing, …
Nov
26
The triangles just keep getting more complicated, don’t they? In the new Peruvian film, UNDERTOW, fisherman Miguel (Cristian Mercado) is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his child by his wife Mariel (Tatiana Astengo), while at the same time carrying on an affair with his male lover, the artist Santiago (Manolo Cardona). But when Santiago dies …
Nov
14
After debating whether three animated films in one year is more than enough from DreamWorks Animation, the Cinefantastique podcast crew of Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski attack MONSTERS (2010), the low-budget science fiction film getting a platform theatrical release to boost its VOD. Also on the menu: a brief discussion of why you …
Nov
08
It’s not really necessary that you be fully schooled in the great Australian action films of seventies and eighties — or even in American westerns — to enjoy Patrick Hughes’ RED HILL, but it wouldn’t hurt. Hughes has taken the immortal, mythic figure of the lone lawman standing up for decency and right in untamed …
Sep
26
Our stalwart editor Steve Biodrowski couldn’t make the recording session for this episode — he said it had something to do with his teaching gig, we think he’s fled to the beaches of Tahiti to paint the native girls — so we’re rallying on without him. In this episode of the Cinefantastique Podcast, CFQ San …
Sep
11
Gonna warn you up front: The two films covered in this week’s episode are so different that you might get the bends when we transition from one to another. Yeah, there’s sort of a common theme of escape, but one film takes a literal and energetic approach to the subject, and the other, spiritual and …
Jul
08
In the second Cinefantastique Post-Mortem Pocast, your trio of talented talkers (i.e., Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski) leave the recorder running after their episode dedicated to PREDATORS, THE LAST AIRBENDER, and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE – offering free-form observations, rants, suppositions, and confessions. Included is a discussion of the non-horror – but still frightening – hard-boiled film noir, THE …
