Graphic Novel • Lists • Fails • 70’s Cinema • K-Horror • Arthouse • Canadian Horror • Film Noir • Grindhouse • NC-17 • J-Horror • Exploitation • Sci-Fi • Pulp • Evangelical Horror • Favorites • Cult • Fantastique • Surreal • Animation • So-Bad-It’s-Good
Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
HARDCORE
A strong film that could have been much better
THE JUDAS PROJECT
Although mostly forgotten these days, THE JUDAS PROJECT, which asked “What if Jesus Christ came for the first time in 1993?,” was very likely the most ambitious evangelical film of the 1990s
THE MAJESTIC
One of the most ambitious films of the aughts, and one of the biggest bombs
DISLOCATION
From China, a heavily stylized sci-fi satire
FEAR IS THE MASTER
An astounding hour long documentary chronicling the “Disco Sex Guru” Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931-1990), who together with a bevy of followers literally took over the town of Antelope, Oregon in 1981
MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!
A moldy oldie from the 1960s science fiction market (and the basis for the 1973 film SOYLENT GREEN)
THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND SINS
Fifteen stories: energetic and focused to a fault, and exhibiting an unnerving willingness to gaze unblinkingly into the darkest depths of madness, mutilation and sexual deviance
IN THE DARK
By 1994 the late Richard Laymon had been a professional writer for over fifteen years, and that accumulated skill illuminates IN THE DARK
9/30/55
A unique movie novelization from one of the top novelizers of the 1970s and 80s
THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED
The most notorious “lost” film of our—if not all—time, reviewed in screenplay form
TONY SCOTT: A FILMMAKER ON FIRE
As a longtime fan of the late Tony Scott, whose directorial output includes TRUE ROMANCE and CRIMSON TIDE, I find this book a must-read by default
MY BEST FRIEND’S BIRTHDAY: THE MAKING OF A QUENTIN TARANTINO FILM
The first and only tome about the making of Quentin Tarantino’s never completed debut film
I’M YOUR HUCKLEBERRY
This memoir, by a famous movie star, poet and Mark Twain enthusiast, is the product of a celebrity who is overprivilaged without question, but not uninteresting
THE GUTTENBERG BIBLE
To those of us who came of age in the 1980s actor Steve Guttenberg is a familiar and perhaps even beloved figure
APROPOS OF NOTHING
It’s an interesting thing about Woody Allen: not too long ago he was considered the epitome of class and sophistication, but now he’s a pariah
2021: A Look Back in Bedlam
Anyone doubting that we’re currently living in Bizarro World need only take a look at the entertainment field of 2021
2020: Bedlam in Print
Here, in the early days of 2021, is the latest edition of my annual Bedlam in Print overview
2020: The Year in Bedlam
2020 was a hell of a year
2020 in Review: News, Passings, Discoveries
Bedlam was indeed the word for 2020 and (as of January 10) 2021 as well
Remembering That Which Is Better Forgotten: SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE
A Christmas movie that falls firmly in the “miss” category that is, conversely, one of the most ambitious of them all