Last Laughs: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Graffiti has come along way since the 70s. Once an art form (or vandalism and public nuisance to some) typified by exotic tags on a canvas of urban decay, experimentalists and pioneers have broken boundaries in both content and medium. Freeform gave way to stencils. Stencils to prints. Prints to three-dimensional forms. And so forth. [...]

Quit Bugggin’: Human Centipede

“I’m waiting for them to say ‘we aren’t really showing a movie, we just wanted to see how depraved you all are.’” – Carl Human Centipede was the latest star of E Street Cinema’s “Midnight Madness.” Something that was advertised as an adults-only affair. This weekend only. And supposedly, it has become the new Internet [...]

Break On Through: The Runaways

For those of you too young to remember (or never heard about at all), The Runaways were an all-girl teenage rock band that formed in California in 1975. At a time when rock n’ roll was shifting towards faster tempos and amateurish ease, boys in leather jackets and dirty jeans were learning how easy it was to form a band. Meanwhile, their eager counterparts were encouraged to stay put in a hypocritical paradigm. Like Joan Jett’s guitar teacher (Damone!) explained so bluntly in the movie: “Girls don’t play electric guitar.” The hell they don’t.

View From Above: The Lovely Bones

It was rather puzzling to learn that Peter Jackson would be directing a film about the rape and murder of a young girl by her neighbor. Wait… I’m not really spoiling anything here. But after all, this is the guy who directed the deranged puppet comedy, Meet the Feebles, and hit major mainstream success with [...]

Ethereal Contraband: ‘Better Than Sex’ and ‘In Bed’

*Updated 01/03/10 The titles. The promotional posters. They elicit expectation, hinting promise of the pleasures of the pure mechanics of sex, if only at a grade below pornography; something just erotic enough to avoid wandering behind the symbolic “black curtain”. Things are, somewhat, still left to the imagination, in these films which essentially boil down [...]

The Never Ending Story – Terminator: Salvation

It’s a little heartbreaking when a wonderful, low-budget film is traded for big budget superficiality. When it becomes labeled…(gasp!)… a franchise and bottom-line intentions become clear: this is meant to be a profitable venture. Already starting the transformation with the second film, Judgment Day cost over $100 million to produce in 1991, making it one [...]

A Kook’s Guide to Skateboarding: Thrashin’

It’s always funny to see an “official” analysis of subculture, or the mainstream trying to interpret the latest subcultural hysteria like punk or text messaging. The Grunge era was indicative of this. Eddie Vedder notoriously made up words when the New York Times asked him to name and define some grunge terminology for their dictionary [...]

Imagine That! Rumors of a Mighty Boosh Movie

Okay dear anglophiles… yes, the Muvika! blog is reserved for posts about movies. But, rumors of The Mighty Boosh finally making it to the big screen in the next two years, gives license to discuss the television show here… even if the status of the movie at this point is unclear to the point of [...]

March of the Indie Kids: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist generated buzzing interest prior to its theatrical release in early October. But, as a film where most all of the positive reviews could offer little more than descriptions as a “sweet little movie,” it’s destined for cult status upon DVD release. The failure to make much of an impression isn’t [...]

Cigarettes, Dirty Laundry, and Mangled Manifestos: Reality Bites

There seems to be a puzzling trend lately of non-fiction authors in their 40s publishing defenses of “The Greatest Generation.” But, contrary to the presumption that this title refers to those of the World War II era, as it commonly has before, the new (self-)decried honor instead refers to Gen Xers, although these authors frequently [...]

All Your Synthetic Charms Are Belong To Us: Making Mr. Right

“Who am I? Why am I here? What does it mean to be human?” – Paul M. Sammon, drawing the common philosophical questions presented in Blade Runner and its source novel, Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Romantic science fiction comedies are rare, but it’s a genre that seemed to have found [...]

Titty Power: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

“We need to make being poor cool again.” – John Waters, This Filthy World (2006) The 1980s was really the last decade of true grime cinema. The unusual and corrupted sadly disappeared in the tide of national gentrification. And, reluctantly or not in film, dilapidated city life was traded for Rob Reiner-esque Americana. The vanguard [...]