Amoeba hollywood Staff
City of Fear, Product Type: (LP)
FM, Product Title:
Hard to find, but worth tracking down for one song - "Lost and Found". That song... is a beast. Copies float through the store fairly often, and it's usually very cheap.
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Blue Steel, Product Type: (BLU)
, Product Title:
Slick, engrossing thriller often straddles the line of plausibility but it's so well done in every respect - especially on a technical level - that it doesn't matter much. Kathryn Bigelow (working off a script she wrote with Eric Red) directed the shit out of this urban nightmare tale about a rookie cop crossing paths with a crazed, trigger happy commodities trader working on Wall Street. Jamie Lee Curtis is fantastic in the lead role and Ron Silver goes 100% bananas as the villain. It's very fun watching him lose his mind. He's a great antagonist. The bloody climax finds Silver stalking Curtis through the streets in broad daylight like pistol-packing Michael Myers. If this weren't so silly in places, it would be damn near brilliant. As it stands, Blue Steel is a highly enjoyable piece of stylish pulp, mainly worth seeing for the aesthetics and Silver's frantic, bug-eyed performance. Brad Fiedel's electronic score is great (GREAT).
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A Ghost Waits (BLU)
An immensely likable flick about a likable guy falling in love with a likable ghost, it's easy to see why this received almost unanimous praise from critics. A Ghost Waits begins as a horror-comedy, incorporates an effective romantic angle, and concludes on a sincere, poignant note. That ending might have proven fatal in the hands of lesser artists. It was a bold move, and they pulled it off. Shot in B&W on a shoestring budget, the film possesses so much heart, from a DIY-filmmaking perspective and a basic human one. Funny, entertaining, unexpectedly touching stuff. I want to hug this movie.
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The Scarlet Letter (BLU)
No one asked for it, no one wanted it, but Kino-Lorber released Roland Joffe's 90's adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. Personally, I'm grateful. Hilariously wrongheaded in every way, it offers up more laughs than your average comedy - many of them thanks to Robert Duvall, looking, sounding, and behaving exactly like Lord Farquaad. I like when Demi gives birth to a baby that's, like, at least ten months old. A "so-bad-it's-good" gem.
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Wild Beasts (BLU)
Absolutely insane Italian movie (from one of the guys behind Mondo Cane) about a bunch of zoo animals going on citywide rampage after drinking water laced with PCP. Just as nutty as it sounds, an exploitation flick with a beautifully bonkers premise that delivers everything it promises. Polar bears attacking children in a gymnasium, a chase between a cheetah and a Volkswagen, tigers on the subway, elephants on an airplane runway - it's a total trip, and the film teaches valuable life lessons. For example, you do not want to be trapped in a car surrounded by drugged-out elephants. Avoid that as best you can.
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Greener Grass (BLU)
Absurdist black comedy, one of the oddest and most otherworldly films I've watched in a while, is a twisted dissection of suburban ennui that feels kinda like Lisa Frank's Eraserhead. Upper class American life viewed as a candy-coated, dread-soaked bizarro world. Weird doesn't even begin to describe it. There's a lot of funny stuff in here. The flick has a strong look, mixes the mundane and the menacing to great effect. Greener Grass is a bright, colorful movie with an undercurrent of doom, like death is lurking on the edge of every frame. An erratic ride but one worth taking, as unsettling as it is amusing.
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City of Fear (LP)
FM
Hard to find, but worth tracking down for one song - "Lost and Found". That song... is a beast. Copies float through the store fairly often, and it's usually very cheap.
Read more
Blue Steel (BLU)
Slick, engrossing thriller often straddles the line of plausibility but it's so well done in every respect - especially on a technical level - that it doesn't matter much. Kathryn Bigelow (working off a script she wrote with Eric Red) directed the shit out of this urban nightmare tale about a rookie cop crossing paths with a crazed, trigger happy commodities trader working on Wall Street. Jamie Lee Curtis is fantastic in the lead role and Ron Silver goes 100% bananas as the villain. It's very fun watching him lose his mind. He's a great antagonist. The bloody climax finds Silver stalking Curtis through the streets in broad daylight like pistol-packing Michael Myers. If this weren't so silly in places, it would be damn near brilliant. As it stands, Blue Steel is a highly enjoyable piece of stylish pulp, mainly worth seeing for the aesthetics and Silver's frantic, bug-eyed performance. Brad Fiedel's electronic score is great (GREAT).
Read more
jon