Written and Directed by Larry Cohen The Ambulance is a snapshot of an industry in transition. Released in 1990, it’s the type of low-budget independent thriller that would soon start going straight to video, but still managed to make its way into theaters…barely. If not for an eclectic cast of solid character actors and a […]
Tag Archives: satire
Terror in the Aisles 13 took place at Chicago’s Portage Theater on November 30 with an impressive lineup and indie genre film veteran Brian Yuzna as the special guest. That Yuzna’s appearance was coordinated with a showing of Society, his directorial debut, was the main draw of the evening. While seeing that film for the […]
Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen Bone holds several distinctions in Larry Cohen’s filmography. It’s his first feature film as a director. It’s a straight social satire, eschewing many of the genre trappings on which Cohen often likes to hang his social commentaries. It’s also one of his few films where the female lead […]
Let’s take a brief break from talking about movies. This has been in the news lately and it really struck a chord for me for several reasons. On Monday, July 25, the Republic (MO) school board voted to remove two books from the high school library. The first book, Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer, is […]
Only enormously talented people could have made Death to Smoochy. Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience. To make a film this awful, you have to have enormous ambition and confidence, and dream big dreams. –– Roger […]
Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen Larry Cohen has the ability to take himself seriously at times. For most filmmakers who traffic in genre pictures and satire, this can be a recipe for disaster. In Cohen’s case, this led to arguably his two best films: God Told Me To and It’s Alive. Where God […]
Executive Produced, Written, and Directed by Larry Cohen Sometimes Larry Cohen’s penchant for genre films mixed with social satire leads him into situations where those elements fail to gel. Such is the case with The Stuff. But despite the fact that the film doesn’t fully work as a satisfying whole, it’s still very entertaining and well […]
I suppose it’s almost a miracle that writer/producer/director Jake Kasdan is still allowed to make movies. From Zero Effect to Freaks and Geeks to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Kasdan has brought his apparent jinx to several films and TV series over the past fifteen years. Perhaps he’s still allowed to work because the […]
Written and Directed by Larry Cohen I first saw Special Effects in the early ‘90s when I was still discovering my affection for Larry Cohen’s films. At the time, I had only seen the “big” Cohen films (It’s Alive, Q). I found the film to be interesting, but something felt off about the tone that […]
Obsessive Movie Nerd 