Movies

Review: Motivational Growth (2013)

Posted on by indiemacuser

 Originally reviewed for Battle Royale With Cheese

‘Motivational Growth‘ is the 2013 dark comedy/horror film from Writer/Director Don Thacker and has already been well received on the festival circuit; winning several awards.

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The story revolves around Ian Folivor (Adrian DiGiovanni); a reclusive slacker who dispels his own schizophrenic, self-effacing view of the world. The film opens with an excellent stylised montage of retro trash TV as Folivor flicks between channels on his old TV set ‘Kent’; his only companion as he spends his life on the couch. When the set malfunctions Folivor attempts to bring an end to his miserable existence; he wakes up after knocking himself unconscious only to discover The Mold (voiced by horror veteran Jeffrey Combs) is talking to him. He starts to take advice from The Mold and begins to clean up his act but as the story continues we see this relationship turn sinister; think Little Shop of Horrors but without the songs.   Continue reading →

Retrospective: Alien³ (1992) *Spoilers*

Posted on by indiemacuser

Written by Lewis Mainwaring

 

Alien³ is a 1992 American science-fiction horror film and the debut feature film of director David Fincher(Fight Club, Se7en, The Social Network).

This film is the third instalment of the Alien film series;alien-3-australian-movie-poster-27x41-1992-david-fincher-sigourney-weaver set directly after the events of the previous film Aliens         (1986 – which was written and directed by James Cameron and is personally my favourite instalment of the franchise).

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Interview: Scott Schiaffo – Character Actor from ‘Clerks’ 20 Years On

Posted on by indiemacuser

To mark the anniversary of the release of the indie hit film Clerks(1994) from writer/director Kevin Smith we talk to character actor/musician Scott Schiaffo who played ‘Chewlies Gum Guy’; a memorable comic character part in the film.

A native of New Jersey, Scott got his big screen début in 1994 with Clerks but has gone on to appear in many independent films and shorts; including another notable character part as Travis Lee in the film Vulgar(2000) from director Brian Johnson and executive producers Kevin Smith/Scott Mosier.

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Review: Pride (2014)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Co-Written by Lewis Mainwaring

Pride tells the story of ‘Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners‘; a real activist movement who came out in support of the miners during the 1984-1985 strike.

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Review: Blood Valley – Seed’s Revenge (Seed 2)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Co-written by Lewis Mainwaring   Originally reviewed for Battle Royale with Cheese

This film from writer/director Marcel Walz is the follow-up (but not a direct sequel) to the 2007 film ‘Seed’; which followed Max Seed on a rampage of blood and gore.

seed-2-watermarkedMax Seed (played by Nick Principe in this film) is not in our opinion a modern day slasher icon such as Michael Myers (Halloween franchise), Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th Franchise) or Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise) but was clearly deemed ‘popular’ enough to spawn a blood-soaked sequel; although this time he’s not killing alone.

The story resolves around a group of four friends (Christine – Natalie Scheetz, Olivia – Christa Campbell, Claire – Annika Strauss and Barbara – Sarah Hayden) on their way home from a bachelorette party in Las Vegas. The film opens strongly with a grotesque horror sequence that stays with the audience long after the fade out before flashing back to the girls leaving Las Vegas; this in itself is not an unusual device for a horror film but as the film continues we realise the story is chopped up completely out of sequence and scenes appear to be inserted at random without consideration for the plot and character development Continue reading →

Movie Gem of the Week: Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Safety Not Guaranteed is the big screen debut from American director Colin Trevorrow & writer Derek Connoly (both currently at the helm of the new Jurassic Park sequel ‘Jurassic World’) and stars Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass & Jake Johnson. Producers Peter Saraf and Mark Turtletaub were also involved with 2006 indie hit ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.

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For The Weekend: Time Travel Movies

Posted on by indiemacuser

This week we explore the much loved and discussed sci-fi sub-genre of time travel.
We’ve chosen not to focus on blockbusters like Back to the Future in order to bring you some of the lesser known films of the genre; although films like those arguably deserve their place as well.

Although this device is often used it is rarely mastered; as attested to by hundreds of posts on blogs and IMDB ‘goofs’ pages. The true time travel fan will not be fooled if the time travel concept is ill thought out or if there are obvious problems with the time-line. Similarly, the best examples of this genre will explore the consequences; both positive and negative, of travelling through time; pushing them almost to the extremes whilst at the same time avoiding convenient plot devices.

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Movie gem of the week: The Living Wake (2007)

Posted on by indiemacuser

The Living Wake(2007) directed by Sol Tryon & written by Mike O’Connel/Peter Kline is a delightful and somewhat disturbing trip to the absurd in a similar vein to Withnail & I, Napolean Dynamite & Wes Anderson’s ‘Rushmore’. 

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Movie gem of the week: Kids (1995)

Posted on by indiemacuser

Despite my avid interest in 90’s Independent Cinema I have surprisingly not seen ‘Kids‘ until now. I should start by saying the film was(and arguably still is) Controversial given the subject matter, sexual scenes(both consenting and not), foul language and drug use involving minors(who make up the majority of the cast). Whilst it could be argued nothing particularly explicit is shown in the film; it was enough to earn it a NC-17 rating in the US. Therefore, viewer beware! (this is not a film for the easily shock-able).

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