Quadruple Fantasy, Together As One. y definition, The Best Of The Solo Albums should be a super collection. It is. Many fans feel it should have been the 1978 KISS album after Love Gun, rather than the extended, drawn out cavalcade of four Solo albums. This collection was not released in the United States, but in Europe and the Antipodes … Read More
KISS | Dynasty
No More Magic Touch. ISS disco? KISSCO! Dynasty was billed as The Return of KISS. It was their first studio album as a group after the four KISS Solo Albums. And after the hard rock havoc each member strutted individually in their Solo projects (except for Peter Criss), Dynasty was a shock to the senses, as we find KISS bringing … Read More
MAD MAX
Arc of a Driver. Mel Gibson is mad. We know that now. But in 1979, he was madder. As MAD MAX. “A Few Years From Now” in a blasted ochre wasteland of cars and guns, lone highway cop Max Rockatansky (Gibson) goes Mad Mel on the bike gang that killed his wife and child. MAD MAX started it all. We … Read More
MY BRILLIANT CAREER
An old fashioned tale of a new fashioned woman. Near the turn of that last century (1897), a young girl from a poverty-stricken family in the Australian outback dreams of being a writer, against the wishes of her family, and against the inculcation of a society that believed every woman should be aimed toward marriage-sans-career because “Marriage gives us respectability, dear” … Read More
MOONRAKER
Moonraper. 007. In space! It’s not as epic, or even as amusing, as it sounds. Matter of fact, MOONRAKER, once the highest-grossing of the Bond franchise, is probably the worst James Bond movie ever. This whole enterprise reminds me of KISS. When disco was stomping the charts in the late ’70s, KISS – ever the commercialists – jumped the night … Read More
ALIEN
A Little Extra Extra-Terrestrial. The slogan for ALIEN is embedded in pop culture: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Even so, there’s an awful lot of screaming going on… A deep space mining crew investigates a distress signal from an unchartered planet, and inadvertently takes onboard a malignant alien life form. What could possibly happen next, but grisly … Read More
MANHATTAN
Allen’s Town. On the island city of MANHATTAN, Woody Allen’s masterful study of how every person is an island. Opening montage is enough to make you want to move there; a scintillating montage of the Manhattan skyline, the streets, the people, the shops and streetside vendors, from the scum to the scenic, Allen’s narration starting out purposely melodramatic and settling … Read More
DAWN OF THE DEAD
Die! And don’t come back! They call this movie a classic. They also call director George A. Romero a legend. Lots of things become famous for the wrong reasons. Carrie Prejean is famous and she’s a bubble-headed, big-titted bigot; Jon and Kate are famous and they’re the world’s most despicable parents; Rush Limbaugh is famous and he’s a bubble-headed, big-titted … Read More
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
Attack of The Motionless Picture. I read Kirk’s book. Laden with anecdotes from the making of seven STAR TREK movies, William Shatner’s Star Trek Movie Memories (co-author, Chris Kenski), is – alas – light years more entertaining than the movies it describes. Shatner’s candor and dry wit propels Movie Memories like the warp drive on his vaunted Enterprise chariot. Alas, … Read More
RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE IN CONCERT
Pryor Offense. Like Richard Pryor, let’s get straight to the point: if you are a spineless, politically-correct, programmed W.A.S.P. drogue who quails at the words motherfucker, shit, or nigger, keep pretending there’s nothing beyond your Disney Gold Membership Pass and stay away from this movie. In this modern era of hack comedians packing concert halls like rockstars (John Pinette, Paula … Read More